After visiting a fair number of Wats (Buddhist temples), I got to wondering what the prayer rituals and symbols were. Lucky for me, Lonely Planet lists a Buddhist University in Chiang Mai where they have "Monk Chats".

I had thought this would be more of a lecture but we actually got to sit down and talk to a novice (someone who is studying to be a monk). It was really a hightlight of the trip so far.

Our novice was named Souk. He had bright eyes and a big smile and was very charming. He loved speaking English.

He was from Laos and announced at the age of five that he wanted to study to be a monk. This made his family very proud and he was sent off to monk school.

He is currently 22 and in his last year of university after which he would become a monk. However, he would like to be a tour guide instead. And, he would like to study abroad and eventually become a TV journalist.

While he has very worldly aspirations, his many years of study made him very knowledgeable.

I learned that the insense, candles and lotus flowers that many people use when they pray are just to help with meditation and do not serve and symbolic purpose. He said that Buddhist prayer is about clearing the mind and meditating though many people do ask Buddha for help.

I learned that the difference between the various schools of Buddhism is not in belief but in practice. As Souk said though, if Tina takes a plane to Bangkok and I take a bus, we may arrive at different times, but ultimately we both end up in the same place.

According to Souk, how you meditate is not important. I would like him to tell this to the college religion professor who gave me a C- on the paper I wrote after our meditation experience. We had to sit with our legs under us for an hour and my ankles went numb. The discomfort prevented me from clearing my mind. I wrote the truth about my experience and figured that it was something that came with time, but my professor did not agree.

Something I found very interesting is that Souk qualified concentration that involved listening and understanding as a form of meditation.

He talked about how Buddhists believe in cause and effect and that what you put into the world is what you get back. However, he did say that you can not do good expecting to get good back. You need to do it with a pure heart.

Tina asked about material possessions because we thought we saw some monks with money. Souk said that when the environment demands it monks will participate in the material world. He even said that some monks have cell phones because they live far away and need to be accessible to teach their followers.

I asked about how Buddhist explain when bad things happen to good people and when good things happen to bad people. He said that it was a result of a past life or would be remedied in a future life.

I also asked about how Buddhists feel about Christian missionaries. My trekking guide told me that the church paid for his brother to study abroad and he had to give a certain amount of time as a missionary. While access to education is a good thing, I thought this tactic was a little shady.

Souk said that it did not matter what religion you are - you can always practice the principles of Buddhism or come back to it. Certainly, this is an understandable Buddhist belief, but I think the problem is that other religions are not as accepting of Buddhism as Buddhism is of them.

But I suppose, if you believe in Buddhist teachings, you must behave in accordance and trust that the universe will right itself in the end.