Going forth

[bassai]

Well, after a lot of thought, weeks on retreat, lots of discussions (not always easy ones) with my wife, and easier ones with my daughter, I have made the decision to go forth and become a monk.

All of my and my wife's Thai friends are supportive and excited, while all of my farang friends and family are totally befuddled and clueless. This even includes some very close friends whom have heard decades of me going on about the Dhamma. I think the two most interesting responses have been laughter, by family members, and the other anger (?), by a close friend, that I'm walking away from all the investments I've made in Thailand with my wife. Somehow the idea of renunciation and that worldly things are hindrances to realizing a larger reality doesn't compute with westerners. I'm fairly sure there are going to be a fair amount of opinions on the forums about farangs, Thai wife's and money.

The funny thing is that I'm happy and content with my decision, but as I am going through and preparing my affairs all of these attachments arise and attempt to seduce me with one more spin around the block. " You can spend 1 whole year training on the bike and break all your friends best time in the Terrible Two" "You can put the 5 speed transmission and 500hp 5.0 liter motor in the Mustang and REALLY kick some butt before you go" "You could travel around the world just one time and see all the things you wanted to see, especially the 3 Grand Tours (bicycle stuff)."

But as I think that, and go through my old memorabilia and come across pictures of friends in happy times that have since passed away, I am reminded that my time is precious and I am not certain of what remains of it for me, and that all of those thoughts are just shades and dreams, no more substantial than the memories evoked of times gone past. It is then, when mindfulness calls to me, that my heart calmly returns to the knowledge that all is anicca, dukkha, and anatta and all is well.

Anyway, it's a lot more of a procedure to disengage from Western society than I originally anticipated! Setting up trusts, rewriting wills, attorneys to see, tax men to see, future pension funds to direct! HEADACHE! And no, I'm not going to give it all to the Wat!

[khonrai]

Hi

this thread proves the old axiom money can't buy you happiness nor heaven. nirvania or whatever your final destination
wants to be.

I am sure many have said you are just going thru a midlife crisis, I don't .

Go where your heart leads you.

sounds like you have much financial wealth and that is the burden on your soul maybe by living a simpler life with a loving family you can reach the peace you are searching.

money is disposable and can be gone in an instant. but love is not.

[djaidee]

All sounds good to me

Maybe it might be to persnal but may I ask some Questions, I surely will understand if you are not willing to answer all or even none of them:

- which Country are you original from?

- are you currently living in Thailand already and if so how long already?

- how old are you and is your intention to stay at the Wat as a Monk forever or just a certain Period?

I have the feeling that you are very serious about it and that it is not only out of a Mood, you seem to already have gone very deep into Buddhism, with those Retreats etc.

So I can only encourage you to do what you have to do and whereever your heart will lead you

Do you already have a special Wat in mind, I mean which Province or City in Thailand?

Hope you keep us updated and if you really become a Monk share your Experiences with us.

If it is possible I think many Forum Members also would attend the Ordination Ceremony when by chance being in Thailand at that time, me included.

So don't hesitate and tell us about it more.

I myself already was ordained as a Monk in Khon Kaen - but that is another Story 13 years ago, but for me it was clear that it only would be for a certain Period.

Nowadays even Thais sometimes Ordain only for 1-2 weeks.

Maybe we can exchange Experiences later on.

Until then take care.

[bassai]

All sounds good to me

Maybe it might be to persnal but may I ask some Questions, I surely will understand if you are not willing to answer all or even none of them:

- which Country are you original from?

- are you currently living in Thailand already and if so how long already?

- how old are you and is your intention to stay at the Wat as a Monk forever or just a certain Period?

I have the feeling that you are very serious about it and that it is not only out of a Mood, you seem to already have gone very deep into Buddhism, with those Retreats etc.

So I can only encourage you to do what you have to do and whereever your heart will lead you

Do you already have a special Wat in mind, I mean which Province or City in Thailand?

Hope you keep us updated and if you really become a Monk share your Experiences with us.

If it is possible I think many Forum Members also would attend the Ordination Ceremony when by chance being in Thailand at that time, me included.

So don't hesitate and tell us about it more.

I myself already was ordained as a Monk in Khon Kaen - but that is another Story 13 years ago, but for me it was clear that it only would be for a certain Period.

Nowadays even Thais sometimes Ordain only for 1-2 weeks.

Maybe we can exchange Experiences later on.

Until then take care.

Nope, I’m happy to answer and don’t feel that any question presented to me in this regard is too personal, at least so far. One of the most important foundations of the Lord Buddha’s teachings is of “anatta”, non-self, and the Lord Buddha’s teaching were predicated on his own experiences.

I was born here in America in the South, raised in the Mid-West and have lived in beautiful Sonoma County (wine country) California for 33 years now. My back ground is White Angelo-Saxon Protestant (WASP), but I was never much of a church goer.

I’m still living in California, am 54 years old and am essentially set up so that I could have moved to Thailand next year and lived out my years comfortably in my wife’s village.

The Abbot of a Wat Thai here in Northern California volunteered to be my Preceptor, train me for 2 years before sending me off to BKK for another 2-3 years and then pretty much I could go where my practice leads me.

The heart of the circumstance is thus. I’ve always been attracted to the idea that Spiritual fulfillment was a greater accomplishment than material fulfillment and have been attracted to various Eastern practices for as long as I can remember, having practiced various flavors over the years. Being the son of a civil engineer, the intellectual power and rationality of the Lord Buddha’s teaching instantly appealed to me, upon my introduction to them 20 years ago by a person I respected enough to listen too. The flavor of Buddhism most prevalent here in America is Zen and thats probably followed by the Tibetan version of Mahayanist Buddhism. Due to my personal nature, the overflowing flowery presentation of Mahayana Buddhism was always hard to really get my arms around and even though Zen, due to my Martial Arts background, had much more of an appeal, and I gave it a pretty serious run for its money, was, to be honest un-necessarily obtuse.

After my first trip to Thailand, which my Zen Master had predicted would change my life during a regularly monthly interview, I tracked down a small Wat Thai that I had never known existed in my home town. My intent was to learn the Thai language because at that time I was very content with my Zen practice. It was then that I discovered Theravada thought through the simple act of “books published for free distribution” and the warm, welcoming hearts of the local Lao and Thai members. Theravada Buddhism was definitely the right fit for me. To over simplify, it was “here’s the blueprint from the architect, now go build your house!” No “sound of one hand clapping” or vowing to put off one’s own enlightenment after helping all other sentient beings. Not to disparage those ideas, they just aren’t my cup of tea.

Old habits are hard to break, and as serious as I have been with my practice in the past, the seduction of Thailand and most particularly Thai women was simply over powering! I think that this is a sentiment most of the males reading this can attest to and something Luang Por seems to take a sly little pleasure in teasing me about as a future hindrance to practice!
I share a tendency with some other people to have the thought that Consumer Capitalist America is in denial of aging and death, bad for business so to speak. Starting about this time last year I started having persistent health problems, this after a frightening scare where I went to the emergency room thinking I may be having a stroke, only to find out it was only a pinched nerve in my spine and, by the way, you have osteoarthritis of the spine and a few bulging disks to boot. A little hard for me to digest as I’ve been an athlete all my life and this severely affected my cycling, basically ending my endurance riding career. After about 6 months of stomach problems which weren’t ulcers, cancer or other diseases, I had a sabbatical from work in which, amazingly, all of these physical symptoms disappeared. That was great, for about 3 weeks, then the physical symptoms seemed to pale in comparison to the insomnia and panic attacks that sent me back to the emergency room feeling that I couldn’t breathe and was going to die! So then it was off to the Psychiatrist to get whole new handfuls of pills to take every day and extra in case those weren’t enough, which by the way required monitoring of my blood to make sure my liver didn’t get screwed up. I may be slow, but I’m sure as hell not stupid and I started putting 2 and 2 together and began a very intense evaluation of my life and what was of REAL value.

Now that my nose has been sufficiently rubbed into the TRUTH of things, impermanence, stress, and non-self, even I could figure it out. After all, I knew it for years, but just kept avoiding it! So now I’m going to renounce the worldly life in pursuit of Nibbana with all the tenacity and endurance I’ve applied to other endeavors in my life for as long as it may take.

The exact time is a little uncertain, because, as I mentioned in the first post, I have affairs I should responsibly settle first. I am by no means wealthy, but have accumulated a nest egg and am eligible for a small pension in the future. I have learned that “things change” and “you shouldn’t burn your bridges” if nothing else and if not for myself in the future there are always opportunities to benefit others. A little charity can go a long way. Perhaps pay for my daughters graduate school if she goes.
Without going into a lot of Dhamma, and I have to resist, especially in response to Khonrai’s observation about simple life, love and loving family, that’s the skinny of things. As things progress I’ll try to keep updates and I’ll also try and present some of this from the perspective of my understanding of the Dhamma. Once I am a Monk I’m fairly certain I’ll eschew most contact with the outside world until my foundation is rock solid.
Metta

[yy]

All the best. Are you going to live in a city Wat or be a dhutanga monk?

[bassai]

Hi

this thread proves the old axiom money can't buy you happiness nor heaven. nirvania or whatever your final destination
wants to be.

I am sure many have said you are just going thru a midlife crisis, I don't .

Go where your heart leads you.

sounds like you have much financial wealth and that is the burden on your soul maybe by living a simpler life with a loving family you can reach the peace you are searching.

money is disposable and can be gone in an instant. but love is not.

Thanks for the kind words of support. Got the mid-life crisis out of the way about 10 years ago.

Your spot on about a simpler life and I'm aiming for as simple as it can get in conventional terms, though there will be a lot of effort that will have to be put forth in this endeavor. I long had the dream of the simple life with a loving family in Thailand and the loving family part was very evident when I spent 2 weeks in my wife's village. I guess that I was fortunate to have had that time in the village last year before I actually arranged everything to retire there.

My entire life I've always marched to the tune of my own drummer and have been pretty much went my own way in all aspects of my life. We're pretty much used to "individuals" here in America, especially California, but I didn't quite fit the picture of a what a "farang" was in their eyes. They had never experienced a farang that just came and lived there contentiously night and day under the exact same conditions as them. Admittedly I did bring my own coffee and a big bag of granola bars as an emergency back up,

I'm sorry, this is sort of off topic and should be another thread under Members Trips. The deal is that, while I was accepted, I sense more as the "odd Uncle", and as much as I loved it and was happy there, I realized that it would only be a temporary enjoyment. To borrow a line from a low budget movie "No matter where you go, there you are." I had lots of time to reflect and meditate while I was in the village, or out on the land, and came to the realization that changing the external circumstances weren't going to change the internal ones. It would only be a matter of time before the novelty wore off and I'm back to the same old, same old. (I would easily go from the odd Uncle to the bizarre Uncle ) From the Buddhist view I'm still there with the same "defilement's" I've been burdened with forever.

The Lord Buddha teaches that defilement's, kilesa in Pali, are what stain our heart/mind, chain us to the realm of samsara, wandering through death and rebirth, and prevent us from the release of Nibbana. The defilement's are typically listed as passion, aversion, and delusion and their various forms. I can't ever recall seeing "love" specifically listed as a defilement in any of the scriptures or commentaries I've read, but I feel that "love" is one of the most dangerous ones of all. Love can lead to a lot of destructive behavior and cloud one's mind to their own best interest. There probably some examples in the Relationships sections on these very forums. I could go on a little more, but typing fatigues my decrepit discs.

That being said, it is my unwavering love of the Buddha Dhamma that has inspired me to go forth as a Monk.

[bassai]

All the best. Are you going to live in a city Wat or be a dhutanga monk?

Having read the Biography of Acariya Mun Bhuridatta Thera several years ago and also having the Dhamma. as espoused by Acariya Maha Boowa Nanasampanno, resonate with me, it is my intention to attempt to tread that particular patipada . But, since your astute enough to ask that question, your probably astute enough to know that its a pretty intense undertaking. Funny that you should ask, because I was recently lucky enough to be gifted with a text of "The mode of practice of Venerable Acharn Mun" by a Monk from the Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery here in Northern California. However, I am well aware that it is not an endeavor to be taken flippantly and to even begin to consider such a path mindfulness and discernment need to pretty well established. My focus now is to just get started and it may still be a few months before I ordain, which will be here in America, not at Abhayagiri, and after some time here it looks like I'll go to Bangkok for further training. A lot is going to depend on my preceptor and his evaluation of my progress. Right now I'm just still crawling like a baby.

My primer.

Navakovada.jpg

Here's the link to Abhayagiri for those interested.

http://www.abhayagiri.org/main/

[maximohudson]

Originally I am also from the Bay Area and find your story interesting and inspirational. I hope you keep a journal describing the mundane nuts and bolts of your transition from householder to monk. I think many in the West would find such a description useful and inspiring. Obviously, there are many entanglements one may acquire over the years that add a degree of difficulty to acting on one's desire to pursue the path of renunciation. A journal chronicling the nature of these and the steps required getting through this process could act as a guide for others or, if worse comes to worse, even a cautionary tale to others (i.e. It's best not to get to caught up in worldly affairs in the first place due to the difficulty of disengaging from them).

You mentioned a friend who introduced you to Buddhism. Could you provide more detail on this experience? Thanks.

[bassai]

Originally I am also from the Bay Area and find your story interesting and inspirational. I hope you keep a journal describing the mundane nuts and bolts of your transition from householder to monk. I think many in the West would find such a description useful and inspiring. Obviously, there are many entanglements one may acquire over the years that add a degree of difficulty to acting on one's desire to pursue the path of renunciation. A journal chronicling the nature of these and the steps required getting through this process could act as a guide for others or, if worse comes to worse, even a cautionary tale to others (i.e. It's best not to get to caught up in worldly affairs in the first place due to the difficulty of disengaging from them).

You mentioned a friend who introduced you to Buddhism. Could you provide more detail on this experience? Thanks.

This sort of is my journal about the experience. As most long term members may have noticed I'll go through bursts of posting and long periods of silence, even though I'll occasionally follow along. I'm not good at keeping a sustained journal up.

A journal would be unique to me and really wouldn't be a good guide or cautionary tale for others because anyone arriving at the same decision is going to have a completely different set of circumstances and experiences unique to them. It really is a process and an unmarried 30 year old would have a completely different experience than mine. The Lord Buddha essentially gives us the map and tools, but the vehicle we use is our own body, mind, feelings and experiences. It's hard to transpose those. It's because of this that it is so important to gain as much of the Dhamma from as many resources as possible.Honestly I've listened and read it ad nauseum and have had the thought that it's just the same old thing over and over. Then you'll read or hear it presented in a particular way and it just clicks.

The current "nuts & bolts" are an emotional roller coaster! You don't really realize what and how much your attached to things until you have to give it up. It's not theoretical when the deadline is down to 2 weeks (shed material things & out of the house). Then there's all the legal stuff that takes time and needs to be dealt with. So it's like the Army, hurry up and wait!It's not only effecting you, it's effecting all the other people close to you. I still haven't figured how to tell my Mom and I'm pretty much going to have to do that in person. She lives out of state so I'll have to travel to do that.

My daughter was at the house this weekend getting all of her things that she had stored here for the past 3 years. She too had to make decisions on what to chuck and what to keep. You go through that stuff and are reviewing a part of who you were and if you care to remember that. After dinner when she was getting ready to leave she realized that she was really making a break with her own past and childhood. This is where she was born and raised and I was the last physical anchor to this town. Now everyone has moved away. The tie left to her childhood and here will be my 66 Mustang that I'm giving her. NOW THAT IS AN ATTACHMENT!

Not introduced to Buddhism per-se , but was introduced to a book on "Mindfulness" by a marriage family counselor my ex-wife and I were seeing some 20 years ago. I got the best out of those sessions! It was written by Thich Nhat Hanh and I took the ball and ran with it.

[bassai]

Well I'm one step further on my journey.My wife is relocated in her new home and I have just a couple of days left at my current residence.

The past couple of weeks have been hectic and I've allowed my practice to slip by the way side, which has had the result of increasing my levels of stress. Of course, without the grounding of my practice, doubts start to creep into my thoughts as to the sanity of my decision to become a Monk. Dismantling my shrine really removed more of an incentive to practice than I had imagined! Not being able to follow my usual ritual of lighting candles and incense before chanting and meditating really threw me off. It felt very odd sitting in a room with an empty wall, surrounded by things in various stages of packing and chanting in Pali.: And not just packing, but surrounded by the past 40 years of my life, deciding what was important enough to put in storage for my daughter, what to give to family or friends, what to sell' and what really could just be thrown away. There's an expression that people's life's flash before their eyes before they die ,but there wasn't any flashing involved with this process, it was slow and fitful.

The other difficult thing has been answering the same questions that are posed by my friends and family as they find out about my decision."How will you take care of yourself, where will you live and how will you eat?" That I'm going to be dependent on the charity of others just doesn't compute. The more savvy ones are shocked at the idea of not eating after 12 noon.

Fortunately I was able to sit and practice Vipassana meditation for a while before I jumped back into the madness and it was a welcome reminder of where I wanted to go. One more week here and I'll go to the temple for a couple of weeks of respite and then I'll have some more worldly affairs to attend to.