I read a post on Facebook titled "How I got brainwashed by Buddha monks." It was by a friend, Fletcher, who'd spent three months meditating at a monastery in Burma. He wrote: "As you progress it gets very similar to altered states of consciousness that I know from being a recreational drug user in my past."He described the "pleasant high of weed", the "rushing-your-tits-off" feeling of ecstasy and "some moments that have the extreme mental intensity of DMT, although accompanied by a delicious peace".Sounds pretty cool, I thought, and wrote a letter to the abbot of the monastery. I received a reply, which entitled me to get a three-month meditation visa for Burma. I flew to the capital, Yangon, and then took a train to a city called Mawlamyine.The humidity was 99% and my clothes were quickly drenched with sweat. I took a taxi to the Pa Auk Tawya forest monastery, home to about 800 career monks and a handful of Westerners who check in for a few months at a time.I had an interview with the Venerable Kovida, the sayadaw (head honcho). "Have you seen the light?" he asked. He was referring to the "nimitta", an incredibly bright light of concentration that appears in your head when you enter the first jhana, a state of deep, absorption meditation.I admitted that I had not seen the light, and Kovida said it usually takes about 21 days of intense meditation to get there.The meditation, anapanasati, involves sitting with eyes closed and focusing on every single breath that enters and leaves the nostrils.That was to be my life for the next three months: wake up at 3.30am, meditate, breakfast, meditate, lunch at 10.30am and more meditation until 8.30pm. Then sleep.I left the interview and walked to my room. I realised I needed a beer, a cigarette, a steak roll and a woman - and not necessarily in that order.Why the hell had I checked into a monastery for three months?Oh yes, Facebook.I sat it out for 56 days and my greatest daily pleasure was the forbidden cheroot I'd smoke deep in the forest.One night while meditating I saw what I thought was the nimitta, but it turned out to be a monk's torch."What did you learn there?" people asked when I got back."That I'm not cut out to be a monk," I replied. But more than that, I learnt that anapanasati meditation is immensely beneficial and practising it for 90 minutes a day gives me a sense of true peace.www.paaukforestmonastery.org/..