When you feel like you need to expand your knowledge on what life is about and what you want in your life, following a meditation course in an Asian Monastery is definitely the way. By shutting out all norms and routines you live by, and by giving yourself more space to listen to your inner voice, you start to find your authentic self.  Nepal is known as the country where the first Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, was born. Nowadays, it is also known as the place to find one of the greatest Buddhist Monasteries in the world. In this article, I will tell you about what makes the Kopan Monastery so special and what kind of experience you get out of a 10-day Introduction to Buddhism course there.

The decision to go to Kopan Monastery

The reason that I personally decided I wanted to follow a meditation course, was because I felt very stuck during that time. To me, it felt like I had so many feelings that I was not able to describe and that led to so much confusion. I decided to follow a meditation course since I heard that it empties your mind and clarifies your thoughts and feelings. That is when I took a look on the internet for the best Meditation Course in all of Asia and discovered Kopan Monastery in Nepal.

I took a look at the pictures and read on the website about the courses they offered. There we so many interesting courses to choose from. It was very clear which one you could follow as a beginner and which ones you could follow from thereon. I paid 150 dollars for 10 days including food, accommodation, and shared bathroom facilities, and an extra 30 dollars at the location to get a private room, which to me all together was a very good price for such a valuable course.

The look and feel of Kopan Monastery

A few months later I arrived on top of the hill in Kopan, where the Monastery was situated. The monks who worked there, opened the gates for me, which must have been at least six meters long. I entered the area and was immediately amazed. I felt powerful for being able to make such a giant decision for myself, stepping totally out of all familiarities of a western lifestyle. A few people already arrived for the course and we were seated on a bench in front of the office to fill in some registration forms. After, we were asked to hand over all of our technology. They explicitly asked us but still did not force us to do it against our will. After all, we are there for ourselves. After, I was brought to my room. 

Kopan Monastery is a large area made cozy and authentic, as it is filled with apartment buildings, a school, a doctor, a small supermarket where you can buy toilet paper from, a building where everyone has their meals and courses, and of course the main building with the huge Buddha statue inside. Also, there was an amazing garden with a huge Stupa in the middle. I saw a monk walking clockwise around it as he was completely concentrated. From my room, I had the most amazing view over the countryside of Nepal.

The room was quite basic, containing only a bed, a desk, and a closet. Luckily I brought my own locker as you don’t get one to lock up your room and I also brought my own mosquito net. The bed was quite hard since it wasn’t laying on any slatted frame.

There was a very unique atmosphere in the Monastery.It was a peaceful place with a unique smell. All monks were wearing the same robes except for the Tibetan monks, who wore robes in a different shade. There were plenty of benches and fields of grass where you could take a seat and be alone if you wanted to.

The monks living in the Monastery

Even though the monks sometimes greeted you when passing, in general, they didn’t look open to having any conversation. This might have to do with the fact that I’m a woman and apart from the people that take a course and some of the teachers, there were no women on this side of the hill. Instead, the Nunnery was on the other side of the hill, completely separated from the Monastery.

Actually, next to the monks living there, there were also a lot of children living in the Monastery. At Kopan, they were being called the little monks. These kids start at the Kopan Monastery around the age of four and from then on learn about Buddhism and meditation. Next to these courses, they also get all the regular courses you would get at any other school for them to also develop themselves in the academic field. Around the age of twenty, it is up to the teenagers themselves to decide whether they want to continue living in the monastery, or whether they would rather enter the world we all live in and find a profession just like you and me are having.

The course in the Monastery

The course in the Monastery was very well organized and had a clear structure. We started each day at 6.30 AM and finished at 10 PM. We had three different meditation sessions during the day at Kopan Monastery, each focused on another type and lasting about an hour. The first was focus meditation, the second one was analytical meditation and the third one was mantra meditation. Between those sessions, we had other courses in which we learned about Buddhist philosophy and we had group discussions once a day. During the group discussions our group was divided, so your discussion you had with about eight other participants. During those discussions, we got a few questions about the topic of that day and were able to share our perspectives and get to know other participants their perspectives. Between 10 PM and lunchtime, we were expected to be completely quiet.

My experience

In the Monastery, I learned how to take time for myself.

Even writing this, I get a longing back to the time I was there. I feel a burst of both energy and peacefulness that comes up, thinking back to that experience. It is very hard to put into words. You feel like you finally have the time and space to come to yourself. You live completely in the moment and don’t get too concerned about your life back home. In that way, during those ten days, you are fully focused on yourself. And it is okay. Because of that, it feels like freedom.

The peace and quietness you get during a meditation course in a Monastery are making you much more observable. At the same time, you realize there is no need to judge anyone. We are all human and we all have our own story and struggles. Yet, we come together to open up both to ourselves and to each other. We open up to complete strangers and that makes everything so much easier. No one judges or takes things personally. At the same time, you don’t feel forced to share anything. If you’d like to, you can completely isolate yourself from the group to really be by yourself, apart from the courses and discussion groups.

When I was at the Monastery, I wrote a lot. I felt very inspired by the slow pace of life I saw with the local monks. It feels like you are returning to the time before digitalization. It becomes natural again to look up, to look around, to make eye contact and to spontaneously make conversation with strangers, and to not feel uncomfortable because that is an unusual thing to do. You can laugh together, you can cry together, but regardless of how you are expressing yourself, you feel a connection. People are truly connecting and taking time to get to know each other. It’s like you are in a completely different world.

During my time at the Monastery, I personally noticed that Buddhism is very much based on reason and rationality. I wasn’t expecting that. I learned a lot but my biggest lessons I learned about myself. It was strange because these lessons I also didn’t learn at the Monastery itself. It all happened after.

During my time at the Kopan Monastery, I learned through meditation how to gently quiet my mind. After I left, when I continued meditating, I learned more about myself. Because I found out how to quiet my mind, I was able to find my feelings more easily. I personally struggled with that shortly after leaving the Kopan Monastery, because my mind was starting to fight against what I learned during meditation. Still, at some point, I was able to make a huge decision based on my feelings. It was something I think I wouldn’t be able to do before, and I think I was able to do that now because of what I learned at the Kopan Monastery.

Ever since, I took a different direction in life and I keep learning more and more about myself. Therefore, I could honestly say, following a course at the Kopan Monastery was a life-changing experience.

Final note

I truly recommend anyone who feels like he or she needs some time to him- or herself, to join a course at the Kopan Monastery or any other Monastery in the middle of nowhere. It is an investment that you should make whenever you feel like you are ready to do this. When that time comes, you won’t regret it. After the course, the effects still last. Make sure to keep meditating and you will experience how your feelings will start to become louder and louder. Based on that, you might even decide to make some drastic changes in your life. But the decision itself will feel good. After all, you cannot run away from your feelings so you might as well start listening to them.