Dhammi Santi

When I arrived at the Dhamma Santi meditation center I was immediately inundated with words outside of my vocabulary. I had to learn the names of all the different foods, chores and dishes. I found out that the strange guiaba fruit I was eating was actually guava, mamão was Papaya (people here eat mountains of papaya that comes in a variety of sizes), and Caju was the fruit of the Cashew (the cashew nut is in the pit).

In the United States I took the same course which consists of meditation for ten days without speaking, writing, or anything but meditating. Because I only had $15 to my name, I couldn’t pay (it’s all by donation) so I came here to serve a course. This way I could also work on my Português, get in some meditation, and do something useful. The daily schedule was:

5:30 – 8:00 work

hour meditation

9:00-1:30 work

hour meditation

3:30 – 7:00 work

2 hours of meditation and a discourse

10:15 sleep

            Luckily the people I worked with were all talkative and fun (I heard that in the United States they follow the rule of only talking about the task at hand and when necessary). There were seven people from across Brasil and Argentina feeding ninety people. The only server who was my age was studying psychology and doing a seven month stay.

            The technique consists of developing focus (Samadhi) and observing the sensations to develop wisdom (Pranna). As you focus on the sensations throughout your body, it becomes so much easier to feel a subtle sensation on any tiny part and feel subtle sensations throughout the entire body. The more time you spend the more quickly you notice how you react to any situation, thought, or feeling.

The idea is that every thought and feeling has an accompanying physical sensation. When you try and tell what you are feeling by looking at your mind it doesn’t work. When you see what your body is doing it becomes obvious (more so with practice).  People are so surprised and delighted to hear that physically smiling actually tells your mind to be cheerful. Why the surprise? Are people surprised that the mind and body aren’t completely separate entities? That we are the ones in control of our feelings and emotions? What surprises me is that so few people take the time to understand what it means to be a conscious.

One of the rewards of these courses is difficult to describe. During and afterwards everything is more colorful, vibrant and marvelous. Everything that exists seems to be a miracle. Even your dreams become so much more meaningful and you can remember them all. People call it a Dhamma high. I think this is why you find so many travelers at these centers before they begin their journey.

Dhamma.org

 Rio de Janeiro should be called the Green Mountain state

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Nicolas, a server from Argentina and a guy from Denmark on his way to the World Rainbow Gathering

The Brave Servers