Learn about Buddhism with nuns at a Dhamma Center near Bangkok, Thailand

Details

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  Description

  If you are interested in practicing Vipassana meditation or mindfulness practice, this is the right place for you.
  There is hardly any place in Thailand where the meditation teacher can speak English and guide you in person. But at our center, Dhammavijjani, the head nun who has profound understanding of meditation practice was an architect graduated from Chicago, U.S.A. And worked in Chicago, Hamburg, Singapore and Thailand for over 20 years before she became interested in vipassana meditation and was finally ordained to be a Buddhist nun and moved to live in the remote area with the nature and the way of life based on mindfulness. There are 1-4 nuns living in our center. Our community situates in the area of the world heritage site, Huay Kha Kaeng, Uthaitani and is still intact from tourists, entertainments and night life.
  
  We have formed up a project to engage with the local youth to enhance their language skill through games and introduced basic mindfulness practice for them.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Language practice

  Teaching

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Animal Care

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance

  Help with Computers/ Internet
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  UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

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  What's this?
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  You will have a chance to experience the way of mindfulness based life intact from modernization and the power of money. The experienced head nun who has some western background can probably be the best person to answer any of your questions about Buddhism. You will have a chance to daily learn, practice and discuss into core part of Buddhism and learn how to apply the theory in your real life. The reason we request the minimum stay of two weeks is that you can choose to go for 3-5 days silence retreat with a daily personal advice from the head nun. Please note that you can hardly find any place where you can get the personal guidance for your practice that suits your disposition.
  For the ones who are into local people's life, the weekend farmers' market is quite unique or you can visit permaculture garden or “family forest” near by , visit the weaving house, as our village is famous for hand woven cloth, you can ask to join the local people to go into the forest on seasonal basis for bamboo shoot, mushrooms and herbs.

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  Help

  There 2 parts of help required, daily help and project tasks;
  
  Daily tasks:
  Starts from 5.30 am right after morning meditation at 5 am. We require your help for driving and cleaning.
  - Driving to the market and help with carrying alms food in the morning and arranging the food and fruits.
  -Cleaning and gardening: includes
  : Main building ( app. 160 sqm.) which there are chanting hall, office, retreat rooms, living area, dining area, kitchen, 5 wash rooms and few strorage rooms.
  : Accommodation building ( 200 sqm.)
  : Meditation hall (60 sqm.)
  : Outdoor area and gardening.
  : Collecting trash and take it to the market, separate bottles and recycle trash for sale.
  Apart from the daily chores, help with grocery shopping about twice a week might be needed.
  
  Project tasks:
  -Teaching English to Thai school children from the village. There are two groups of kids, 6-9 years old and 9-12 years old.
  We go to teach them in school for 1.5 hours every Thursday . On Saturdays a few kids will also come to the center to learn English which we provide teaching at 10-12 am.
  ( except during school vacation in April- May and October).
  We focus on teaching by using many active and fun activities. Your knowledge and experience to handle the kids’ activities will be very helpful.
  We also need your help to drive to school also, which means teaching and driving are in one package!
  - Group activities such as art project or language games will be required when we organize camping at our center once in a while.
  - Teaching conversational English to the nuns.
  -Restoration building of wood/bamboo
  -Gardenning, watering plants and weeding. Help with our neighbor’s permaculture farm if you are interested.
  - lawn mowing
  -some computer help.

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  Thai: Fluent

  This host offers a language exchange
  This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
  You can contact them directly for more information.
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  Accommodation

  A hut with attached bathroom and a simple dorm style room. No one has to share the room, for the benefit of mindfulness development unless during the period that we have special event in the center . As a nunnery male and female accommodations are strictly separated even though you come together as a couple.
  Our huts are quite rustic and simple and you might have to face animals in the nature such as pigeons, gecco, mouses or spiders which can be noisy during night time. During rainy season there are many mosquitos. But there is no Malaria in the reagion. Bring your earplugs and insect repellant if you think neccessary. In addition to that, please note that we are not medition center but we belong to Theravada forest tradition, so we only provide thin mat, pillow and blanket, the standard used by clergies in the temples.
  In terms of food, you will have a chance to taste genuine local food from alms in the morning.
  Since our community depends solely on alms food, in case it is not sufficient, we will provide some raw material for you to cook for yourself, (especially when you are a strict vegan.)
  We have a van going to the market every morning, you can go shopping with the van. However, we prefer that you learn to live the minimum way of life.

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  What else ...

  Although there is a direct bus running between Bangkok and Banrai, our village , our center is 8 Km. from the village and cannot be reached by any public transportation. You have to depend on the alms transportation every morning to go to the village. During your time off, you can simply take a long walk ( 4 Km. ) to a nice coffe place, hike to a creek on the mountain or hire a motor bike man to take you to swim in a magnificent swimming pool for only 100-200 baht at a boutique hotel nearby or to explore caves and waterfalls around our village during rainy season. ( there will be entry fee since the whole province is in the national preserved park.)
  we are a moral based community so, killing ( even an insect) stealing, sex, lying, alchohol or smoking is not allowed. As we are a spiritual place, socializing activities such as board games or cards will disturb peaceful vibration. Additionally, women and men should strictly stay separately. Expressing affectionate feeling such as touching caressing or even lean on each other in public is considered to be inappropreate in the center and in Thai society.
  All temples and nunneries require a dress code, the clothes that reveal your body, tight tops or tight pants, shorts which are high above your knees are considered improper and impolite.
  We only welcome volunteers who have genuine interest in Buddhism. Please come to our center with the priority of a seclusion in the nature and learn to practice mindfulness.
  Three of the volunteers decided to be ordained as novices and spent time with us as Buddhist nuns for a few weeks. If you would like to taste the experience of being a Buddhist nun, you are also welcome!
  We request for minimum of 2 weeks stay.
  The last but the most important thing, we request a donation of 20 dollars per one stay for the new volunteers.
  Upon arrival a deposite of 100 Baht will be collected and will be returned to you at 9 am on the day you leave when your bedding clothes are returned to us cleaned and also with clean room and bath room.

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Space for parking camper vans

  This host can provide space for campervans.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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  This host charges a fee

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  Why does workaway.info allow listings of hosts who charge money?

  In developing countries (Where most hosts are involved in charity work or community development) some of our hosts may ask for a small donation to help the host family or charity (often less then 5 dollars per day) Workaway will allow this listing when the donation goes directly to the family or charity and is just to cover the cost of the volunteer‘s stay.  (This will be clearly marked on the host listing).
  We will strictly not allow listings posted by agents, “middle men” or projects who we feel are looking to profit from a volunteers stay.
   

   

   

  USD$20 - one-off fee for the whole period of stay

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