Wat Tam Doy Tohn is a few hours out of Chiang Mai. Despite having been used as a station for monks for many years, the current temple buildings are all new, having gone up in the past twenty years or so.
Ajarn Piyadhassi is quite well-renowned in local circles, particularly it seems amongst middle-class Thai Dharma followers. He spent his first rains retreat (pansa) at Wat Ram Poeng – now a very well-known meditation center of the Mahasi Tradition near the center of Chiang Mai – and then studied with Ajarn Rat (famous for his talk of aliens and the impending end of the world) and Ajarn Tong (who was instrumental in bringing Mahasi’s rigorous technique to Thailand). However, Ajarn reserves his highest regard for Goenka’s method. Goenka’s method focuses a little more on vetana (bodily sensation) than does Mahasi’s method, because it is seen as an essential foundation of wisdom that we understand that our feelings and thoughts have a base in physical sensation.
Ajarn Piyadhassi is into yogic theories on chakras, kundalini and is not afraid of talking of past lives and ‘energies’ that certain people and places possess. However, as regards meditation, his approach is strict vipassana, learning only by direct experience. He gives talks in Thai during meditation sittings. These stress the same important points over and over again: the ‘controller’, the false ‘I’ is intimately connected with attachment and desire; that everything is in a constant state of flux and that we can only understand ourselves in the present moment.
Like Goenka’s retreats, Ajarn’s retreat follows a rigid schedule and is based around group sittings rather than letting the yogi get on with it by themselves (as tends to be the case in Mahasi). This has advantages and disadvantages. The lack of personal freedom such a schedule imposes is, I would say, conducive to gaining insight into, for example, how desire and the illusion of choice is intimately connected to our sense of identity. It is also good for your Kanti – perseverance. The temple does, however, lack the free-and-easy come-when-you-like stay-if-you-like, ordain-if-you-like atmosphere of the Mahasi temples I have stayed at in Chiang Mai.
Ajarn speaks passable English but there is usually a translator present for teaching sessions with foreign meditators, a committed Thai academic lady from Chiang Mai University who has obviously had much experience in translating Dharma terminology. He has published a book, Vimuttidharma (Ultimate Reality) which has recently been translated into English. It’s a fairly bare-bones, systematic description of the Path gleaned from his many years of meditation instruction.
The temple complex is so nice that it’s almost like a resort. It has everything – a cave, a forest, a stupa at the top of a hill (which ajarn believes has special energies, so much so that one hour meditation at the stupa is worth three hours in the meditation hall). The meditation hall is a work of art. It is a two-story structure made of the finest timber, housing two exquisite Buddha images. There are only about five monks in residence there however. There is also a huge widescreen TV on the lower floor where Ajarn likes to treat yogis on the final day of a retreat with some of his beloved nature documentaries.
Courses are scheduled and you must book in advance. There is a light breakfast and one large vegetarian meal everyday. A day consists of around ten hours of meditation, including just over one hour of walking meditation. There is a one-hour work period each day, but you will likely do less. It is possible to stay after retreat if you are willing to help out with cleaning and so on.
They have a very snazzy website: http://www.vimuttidhamma.org/
Directions to Wat Tam Doy Ton:
The English directions on the website are not so clear.Go to Chiang Mai Gate and ask for the bus going to Baan Gaad บ้านกาด
These leave very frequently, so don’t worry if you miss one. They cost about thirty baht. Make sure, just in case, that you tell the driver you are going to Baan Gaad.
You’ll be dropped off opposite the Seven Eleven.Ask for the bus to Mae Hae แม่แฮ which leaves only TWICE per day, at 2p.m. and 4p.m. Make very sure that you tell the driver that you want to go to Wat Tam Doy Ton วัดถ้ำดอยโตน- otherwise he’ll take you straight to Mae Hae, a lovely trip in itself but not where you want to go.
You’ll be dropped off at the side of the road at a noodle restaurant. Follow the road opposite this. It is not the first temple that you see. Keep following the road, sighting a small town on your right hand side, for five minutes. Wat Tam is on the left hand side. The gate may well be shut and you’ll have to call for somebody.
After the course, it’s normally easy to get a lift back with some other yogis. If not, the Mae Have bus should pass back by the main road on its way to Baan Gaad at around 7a.m. each day.
