Royal Reliquary in Chiang Mai

The cemetery of the Northern Thailand Royal Family, going back centuries, is located next to the Buddhist university where I've been teaching.

The construction of the huge gold Pagoda in the rear of the photo,  dates back to the late 1300s.

How was the meditation retreat?

Following the meditation retreat the monks attended, I asked the monks to come up with adjectives that described the retreat for them.

The monks were to complete the following sentence:

"The meditation retreat was _____________________."

As the monks gave their descriptive words, I wrote them on the board:  good amazing, interesting..... 


All of this was going very well, until.....

One monk commented that the meditation retreat was "entertaining!"  That answer caught me off guard, as well as the other monks!

Peaceful, quiet, calm.... maybe even exciting.  But.... a meditation retreat being..... entertaining?

Needless to say, that response got more than a few laughs!