365 Days
Reflections On A Year Of Monastic Life
It’s been over a year since my monastic life began, and I thought this a worthy milestone to stop and reflect. I did the same over six months ago on reddit which seemed to be fruitful for both myself and others. The post got great traction and opened useful discussion, and I managed to consolidate some of my insights.
So, here’s a few things I feel I’ve truly learnt over the last year.
Truly because they were hard earned; they hurt, they cost me, they broke me down and at times almost sent me running. Every lesson here was paid for by the relinquishment of something precious to me, and as a result, I can truly say that these are my own.
Stay (A Little) Hungry
“Every excess decreases vitality, and thus suffering.” - Albert Camus
Hunger—of all kinds: sexual, spiritual, intellectual and, of course, of the belly—is a generative force and engine of creativity and ingenuity; hunger keeps you on your toes and keeps your eyes up, towards the horizon.
The best kind of hunger hovers in the mid-range between starvation and satiation. There’s an analogy here to the Buddhist middle way: you’re not exercising your ego to prove the strength of your will, neither are you coasting in a cloud of complacency; you’re not being tormented with fantasies of consummation, neither are you flat-lining and dull.
One thing that became blantantly clear living as a renunciate is just how abject we are before hunger, how little we can stand it; and, how fear—ever the opportunist—will piggyback on any impulse, pain or discomfort to drive you towards the numbing balm of consumption. Whether that be food, conversation, exercise or filling your mind with thoughts or words.
Excessive consumption dampens the texture of experience and flattens your emotional topology, turning the great peaks and valleys into one rolling plain, featureless as far as the eye can see. It has the unique power to transport you from the dizzying heights of proliferating thoughts and pain into the soft-edges and cloudy atmosphere of satiation. We can self medicate through consumption, and misuse it as an escape from our pain and problems; from facing what we need to face, and therein lies the danger, as those peaks and valleys may have been insightful vantage points from which to view experience.
I can’t say with confidence that all of our suffering—from the most petty to the most profound—needs to be fully felt in the vulnerability of abstinence and moderation. It could be that a large portion of it is purely capricious and pointless. But, what I have experienced is how the human heart grows courageous through confrontation and cowardly through avoidance. Thus habitually fleeing hunger and its satellite states of discomfort and longing compromise your character, weaken your resolution and strip you of opportunities for insight.
Staying hungry isn’t about marathon fasts, starvation or puritanical abstinence but about refusing to continually retreat into the comforting arms of your vices. It’s about refusing to concede to fear in all of the tiny ways we are accustomed to, and choosing instead to make a life practice of remaining in that rawness of not quite having what you want; up close and intimate with pain and difficulty; which, paradoxically, brings us closer to our joys and happiness's.
To find this fertile edge and stay on it, you need to be a little hungry, starting in the belly and extending through the heart and mind.
At The End Of The Day, It’s Up To You
Institutionalised spirituality can only take you so far.
Monasticism and other spiritual vocations are only an opportunity to move towards awakening, not a guarantee, nor even virtuous in some cases. There are just as many ways to lose your way in a monastery as there are outside one. Fear does not sit idle outside of monastery gates or temple walls; fear lives in the human heart and is ingenious in its ability to waylay you—no matter where you are—into a miasma of busy-work, petty conflict, procrastination and comfort-seeking.
Spiritual institutions can also have their drawbacks as monasteries, communities and meditation groups can act as proxies for actual spiritual practice, which requires an inner resolve extending far beyond the adoption of any outer form or group membership. Institutions can also be home to rigidity and dogmatism where group-think encourages premature closure to further inquiry—stopping short at the orthodox answer—blocking any possibility of dialectic or the deepening of understanding. Stagnation is common, taking the forms of compulsive avoidance or ossified views, convictions and certainties, all of which are a constant danger for the orthodox and heterodox alike; none of which are a reliable refuge.
Monastic codes of conduct and ideals can also be a breeding ground for pretense and disingenuity as practitioners radically edit themselves to conform to the standards. Taken in the right way, codes of conduct are essential to harmonious and ritualised lifestyles; taken too far, they result in a pronounced inauthenticity, spiritual bypassing and a refusal to countenance the lesser angels of our nature.
No matter where or how you’re practicing, progress will always hinge on your own personal integrity, strength of character, ingenuity, habits, resourcefulness and deep desire to keep moving forward no matter the cost. Institutionalised spirituality only sets the table, it’s on you to actually show up and eat. Inspiration and motivation are fleeting; great teachers are inundated with demands and limited in their ability to help you; and, communities are ever in flux with support wavering and worthy peers coming and going.
The Buddhist path is not one of the lonely hero, as being implicated in such a vast and interconnected causal web we are by default indebted and dependent on others for more than we can ever know; however, we would be foolish to expect any spiritual guise to be a substitute for the real qualities that power the path of insight or to expect a mere uniform to replace the need for personal integrity and rigorous honesty.
Don’t Confuse The Two Worlds
“His soul keeps trying to pull the relationship toward the infinite, make it into an allegory of love, death, and paradise lost, convert this human marriage into a huge, sweeping archetypal drama. That drama goes on inside him, anyway, all the time—at the fantasy level. If he could learn to keep it there, to see it as symbol and experience it as symbol, then he could live correctly with his soul.” - Robert Johnson.
A successful spiritual life does not confuse the inner-world of fantasy image, and symbol with the outer world of concrete particulars; the symbolic life with daily life; the image with the instantiation as crossing these wires can be fatal.
The basilica, the temple or the sanctum should be found inside the daily hours of solitary meditation, symbolic ritual, active imagination, interaction with images flowing through fantasy or ethical confrontation with the inner “persons” who reveal themselves in our dreams and thoughts. Not fully invested in the outer world of flesh, blood and concrete. The inner world of symbol should accompany the outer, hovering above it, visible through it and fragrant in the air around it, while never being reduced to it.
Failing to delineate these two will inevitably bring disappointment and disillusionment as no monk, monastery, teacher or community can hold the weight of an ideal. Projecting divinity onto a flawed human being or mistaking a monastery or community to be a final, perfect refuge and resting place will bring a dangerous collapse. Human beings are human beings, ideals are ideals, keep them separate and err on the side of caution: do not grant another place or person executive power to derail or destroy your spiritual life because you’ve elevated them too highly and overinvested them with qualities they do not—and cannot—have.
A symbolic life done well should shine through, enchant or otherwise illuminate the concrete: adding depth, beauty and profundity. Likewise the concrete should never limit, hinder or exhaust the possibilities of your symbolic life; their connection and overlap should be complementary, infusing your life with mythical and archetypal resonances that extend beyond the temporal domain of your living, being and dying.
Relationships Are Contested Territory
If it’s another human you’re in a relationship with, then no matter how great their spiritual qualities, or how dearly you hold them in your heart, you’re in a conversation; a give and take, a waltz on ever-shifting ground. Ground which, at any moment (even in the most enduring and ironclad relationships) can fall away, or become uninhabitable.
Of course, this holding true also implies its opposite: enemies can just as easily become friends; however, I thought it more important to emphasise the degrading aspect of relationships as, if you’re anything like I was, you unconsciously carry around the delusion that you can be universally loved and accepted just as you are. In my experience, even with the holiest people you will ever meet, this is not the case—and never can be—as we live in a conditioned existence, the nature of which is change.
Unconditional friendship or love is a spiritual orientation, cultivated and applied in solitude in the service of letting go or developing beautiful qualities. It is not the only recommended means of engagement with others. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try to always meet others with friendliness but to say lovingkindness needs a wiser expression and application off the cushion.
The possibility of unconditional love in the contested territory of interpersonal relationships is more mythological than practical, and probably not even desirable. It can also be dangerous when the naivete involved in that orientation puts you in the hands of those with bad intentions and character. Furthermore—and probably worst of all—unconditional love can masquerade as virtue when its really hiding fear. Fear of confrontation, fear of dislike and fear of rejection; all of which are essential to accept and tolerate, as they are irreducible elements of human relations, elements you would be best to master quickly.
Be Prepared To Leave Everything Behind
Frodo refuses the call to adventure at first, not believing that a simple Hobbit, like himself, can be entrusted.
I never thought I would come this far. It’s cost me a lot already, yet, somehow, the demands only seem to be increasing. More focus, less periphery; more intention, less autopilot; more letting go, less accumulation. Every time I reach a new pinnacle in practice, another peak looms; every time I feel content, more possibilities open up; every time I feel as if I’m stagnating and all is hopeless, I open to a deeper level.
Something has changed in my disposition over the last few months. Where before there was doubt about what is possible here and my own abilities to reach it; now, I find a new and strange confidence and whole-heartedness, some sort of fools courage, a wild and reckless abandon at the sight of Mount Doom off in the distance. No longer do I feel that reluctance to limit the open potential of my life to just one pursuit; nor do I still feel like a mere tourist—casually strolling the path—but instead a pilgrim, prepared to honor my hearts calling to walk the long and winding way to the end.
Due to my own experiences and inquiry I believe more than ever that it is possible: human beings can develop their minds in incredible ways and open to great beyonds. I believe that with enough resourcefulness, ingenuity, patience and humility that anyone can find this way and walk it to the best of their abilities and to again and again summon the courage to meet the great demands and sacrifices it requires.