Through a long, red, dusty track, you come upon a spiritual forest that has been lovingly nurtured by a succession of western ajhans and monks in the Buddhist-Thai tradition. My kuti is on the outskirts of the monastery between the crematorium and the paddy fields.

City-dweller, Geeta Rao, takes time off from her executive schedule, for a deeply spiritual stay in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand

The path for walking meditation cuts deep into the forest, still and isolated. Leaves and gnarled branches form strange arabesques, cutting out the light. The only sound is that of an insect a hundred feet above in the foliage. Or, the gecko bursting forth in full Dolby sound at the most unexpected moment. Strange hairy creatures cross the meditator's path, firmed with mud and countless feet, in the manner of the old Buddhist viharas of Ashokan times. Ten feet long, two feet narrow - that is all the space to walk and turn and walk and turn, into the realisation that when you walk you walk and that is the only reality. Barefoot soles, feet, steps, merge into an awakened consciousness as hours go by. Bleeding feet and endless peace are the fall out of the days I spend at Wat Pa Nanachat.

There are only four women in the centre right now. Three are ordaining to be nuns and I am the fourth. Ten men make up our very international, lay community - Asian, Australian, American, German, Chinese, Israeli. I wear the regulation uniform for all women anagarikhas - black sarongs and white shirts. The men wear all white. Our days are part of the working monastery life. At five a.m. in the mist and cold of the forest, a handful of orange robes dot the grey. They walk in single file, alms bowls in hand, the white-clad men behind them, to bring back food for the monastery.

On a good day, the table set out under the forest trees outside the grand sala, is groaning but the rules of alms food are clear. The food cannot exceed the rim of your alms bowl and you must take it once, all at once, so balancing the bowl is itself a meditative exercise in restraint. You cannot go back for another round, you cannot look down the line to see what comes next and, since you are achingly aware this is the only meal of the day, there is a sense of urgency to the choices made. Sugar doughnuts, roast pork and shredded duck, bamboo shoots and leaves, five kinds of rice, unidentifiable tongue ripping curries. Everything is accepted with gratitude. That logic is sacred. Choice and judgement are suspended.

Ad-woman, columnist and regular Verve contributor, Geeta Rao spent two years as regional creative director, Ogilvy, based in Thailand and worked across the Asia-Pacific region. She is now back in India with a fund of traveller's tales and her own communications consultancy.