The first day at Hang Dong
Then I found myself at Ajahn Pichest Boonthumme’s house in Hang Dong, and on my first day he told me my technique was terrible. Two days earlier, teachers at the Old Medicine Hospital had told me it was perfect. I believed Pichest, because inside I felt the same.
He watched me work on somebody and told me the sweat on my forehead was not a good sign, that I was working far too hard. He told me my body was terrible too, that I had been practicing too much yoga and was inflamed from it, and that I should take an anti-inflammatory. He tried to correct my hands physically and then gave up.
That was the first day I needed. He was taking apart whatever ego I had built around this, and it worked. I broke down in tears that night, and underneath it there was relief, because I could finally admit that I knew nothing about Thai massage. The pieces of paper and the years of study in my spare time were hollow, because I had not learned to feel with my heart, or to work without the analytical mind running, or to understand my own body.
