The Centre is located 10km outside Chiang Mai, 3,000 feet above the city in mountain jungle
Meditation for medics
In a quest to escape the frenetic speed of modern life Dr Brendan O’Shea travels to a monastic settlement in Thailand to sample plain living and quiet meditation
‘I think we should do a 10-day Vipassana retreat while we’re in Chiang Mai’ she said, one day several months ago. ‘Absolutely, dearest’ I murmured back absently, giving it no more thought until six weeks ago, when it began to loom somewhat larger in my imagination. The backdrop was a two-month mini sabbatical – based in and around Chiang Mai, Thailand, commencing with a brief three-day period to allow for decompression and jet lag on arrival, and thereafter to plunge in for 10 days at the Vipassana Retreat at the International Centre for Buddhism, located circa 40 minutes outside of Chiang Mai to the Northwest, at Doi Suthep.
Accommodation was frankly monastic…
On reading the fine print (chiefly online reviews by previous meditators, together with perusing the website at the Centre), I began to get a more realistic and sobering sense of the probability of a major challenge coming rapidly down the tracks
Though proximal to Chiang Mai, the Centre is absolutely located in mountainous tropical jungle. The guidance for us would-be-meditators pulled no punches. This was going to be 10 days of near absolute silence, no access to broadcast, online, or social media, no reading or writing materials, the day commencing at 5:00 am, breakfast at 7:00 am, last meal (lunch) at 11:00 am, and largely fasting thereafter.
Accommodation was severely monastic. There would be no casual contact with your fellow meditators, and the daily schedule included no fewer than 11 hours of silent meditation in the Great Hall
The course runs seamlessly throughout the year, with meditators booking in for three, five, seven, 10 or 14 days, with the intake running to a maximum of 12 meditators at any given time. Attached to the great temple (established 1383 AD approx) at Doi Suthep, the Meditation Centre is under the personal direction of one of the senior Buddhist monks, Phra Ajaan Buddhasak, who has been in this role for over 20 years, and who personally delivers circa 90 minutes of personal teaching to the group each day, together with a very brief personal daily review individually with each meditator.
Accommodation Block Meditation Centre
One could assert all this is reasonable business, except of course that in a strict commercial context, the whole enterprise is based entirely on charitable donations totally at the discretion of the meditators, in addition to what is donated to the community of monks by the local community each morning
The Temple setting, in the mountain jungle overlooking Chiang Mai, had many pros and a few cons. Meditators were encouraged to arrive wearing simple traditional white cottons (two pairs), which together with being resident at the meditator centre clearly underlined that we were serious about what we were doing. The views were spectacular
As the days settled into a rhythm, the bird song, insect chorus and thunderous downpours also strongly underlined that we were all of us seriously on retreat from the normal routine. Both of our meals each day were taken in silence, with breakfast and lunch consumed in keeping with mindful eating. They were simple noodle and rice dishes, vegan and lightly seasoned
Meditation is the habit of regularly extracting ourselves from all of this gut-churning detail, to recreate a sense of grounded self
Consumed thus, they were surprisingly satisfying, and the gap from 11:00 am to 7:00 am the next day passed unremarkably. The cons included some rather ferocious mosquitos, and at times the thunderous showers drowned out words of wisdom from our teacher
Meditation
So, you might well ask (as did I before leaving Dublin Airport!), what is meditation? I did get to read several very short books before travelling (see end of article), and engaged with one or two friends (and particularly herself!) ensuring that I did not arrive entirely clueless in Chiang Mai
Retreat is based on Buddhism and Thai culture
While there are clearly several traditions and meditation practices that are quite mainstream, the key feature among all of them relates to making a sustained effort to extract your conscious thinking from the torrent of chaos which most of us live our lives in, most of the time
The chaos particularly relates to a very high volume of unfiltered thought, which is crammed into the very narrow bandwidth of our conscious thinking. Some of this unfiltered thought relates to ruminating on difficult things that happened yesterday, last week, last year or one, three or even five decades ago
Another volume of this unfiltered thought relates to incessant catastrophising, bringing literally thousands of unlikely scenarios from an improbable future into the present moment, characterised by unease, fear and sometimes clinical anxiety as we anticipate any or all of the dreadful things that might happen to us or our loved ones in the future
As attributed to Mark Twain, “Some of the very worst things in my life never actually happened !” Then, finally, in addition to historical hurt and the fears from the future, the third strand of this chaos relates to our willingness to become hopelessly distracted by the intense business of the moment, be it incessant distraction from social media, chatter from friends and acquaintances, the large and complex burden of clinical responsibility most of us labour under, the complexity of family and business life – the list is really endless!
Meditation is the habit of regularly extracting ourselves from all of this gut-churning detail, to recreate a sense of grounded self, and regain a sense of appreciation for all that we have to appreciate and enjoy. This really works – objective evidence of the benefits of meditation are impressive
In the context of this retreat, the emphasis was on a mix of sitting and walking meditation, with a focus on breathing throughout, bookended in the morning and evening by a talk from the key facilitator, Phra Buddhasak.
The talks were frequently and clearly based on the principles of Buddhism, and illustrated with reference to the feelings, thoughts and motivations which energise our thinking and our reactions, and were frequently based in the context of our contemporary lives, including work, parenting, relationships and personal ambition
Phra Buddhasak’s personal teaching style included a blend of traditional Buddhist philosophy, drawing sometimes on these principles, often illustrated by anecdote, and delivered with the deliberate use of traditional Buddhist rhetoric and gesture
There was, as previously noted, no two-way discussion on this, either with our Teacher or between us meditators, who were enjoined to silence. In certain respects, it somewhat recalled sermons at Mass on Sundays in Ireland of the 1970s in style and tone, but with far more enlightened content
The Escape
In retrospect, we all experienced one or two days of horror during the ten. Around these, there was a feeling of building capacity to stop the internal chatter, and become increasingly more absorbed with breathing, sitting and walking
Sleep was profound (you only became aware of the mosquitos later during the day!), and you learnt to become more detached and reflective of what the mind threw up by way of distraction. I repeatedly found myself engaging and re-imagining intense discussions with individuals (family members, friends, and colleagues) from years back, which was curious, and not at all disagreeable
As I write, it is too early to reflect back on any longer term personal impact. Some immediate impressions include a feeling of satisfaction, and being well able to do without mass media in all of its cacophonous modalities, and to appreciate the profoundly restful experience of sustained silence
As she and I left the Meditation Centre, walking down the steps and out into the bustling forecourt of the Temple, the intense aromas, sights and sounds of the Street Food Kitchens assailed our senses, and the food appetite crashed right back into our consciousness…
Next: Mini Sabbaticals and why you should consider one!
Some background reading and concepts:
• The Doctor who sat for a year, Prof Brendan Kelly
• How to sit, Thich Nhat Hanh
• Start here now, Susan Piver
• Meditation for fidgety sceptics, Dan Harris
Vipassana (Pali) loosely meaning ‘Clear Seeing’
AuthorProf Brendan O’Shea was GP Trainee Research Co-Ordinator at the TCD HSE GP Scheme from 2005-2015
BuddhismDr Brendan O’SheameditationThailandVipassana2026-07-27Dr Brendan O’Shea
