How I Became a Monk: Part 1

Part 1: It Started in My Teenage Years

From time to time, people ask me why I became a monk. The shortest answer I’ve given was: Because I want to.

But of course that’s not exactly what they want to hear. They want a story. So, I tell them there were some events that were directly or indirectly significant. The first one happened when I was 15.

Something I Had No Name For

I took public bus to school then. One day, when the bus stopped at the station, I suddenly snapped out of my daydream, and thought, “Wow… I’m already here!”

“What was I thinking about?” I sat there wondering. I couldn’t recall. I remembered getting on the bus and then nothing else until I jerked back onto reality. It was like I lost time.

As I reflected on what happened, I recalled that I had lost awareness like that many times before. I wondered, “Can I prevent myself from losing awareness?”

So, I began to see how I can maintain awareness every time I took a bus to school. It was difficult in the beginning, but I kept trying, experimenting with various strategies. It was like a challenging game that I played on my own.

Eventually I got it. I was able to stay aware throughout the journey. I then decided to take the challenge further. Between the bus station and my school was about 400 meters. I thought, “Can I do it while walking too?”

I tried just that. It didn’t take me long to intuit that it’s better to not look around and get distracted. So, I walked with my eyes downcast, except when I needed to cross the road.

It turned out easier than I thought. When I reached my school, I noticed something very interesting: While the outside was very noisy—with more than 1000 students waiting to enter the classroom for the afternoon session—my mind was very peaceful, very quiet. I was utterly fascinated.

I kept doing that—which I had no name for—until about a year later. While I was doing my thing while walking into the school one day, a friend saw me and said, “Why do I keep seeing you with your eyes downcast? It’s as if you have low self-esteem.”

I thought about what she said, and didn’t want people to think that I had low self-esteem—which I did have. And so I stopped doing it.

Years after becoming a monk, while practising as taught by Sayadaw U Tejaniya, I recalled what I did in my teens and came to realize: Hey! I was meditating!

It was just mental settling (samatha) though. I didn’t have the right view of things being not-self (anatta). So, there was no distinct seeing (vipassanā).

Lost Interest in Studies

When I was 17, I began to question the purpose of studying, especially because I had to study Add Maths. What’s that for? Why do something just because others are doing it? That led me to question the way people generally live their lives. What is that all for?

I had no answers, and doubted anyone else had them too. Still, one day, I decided to ask two of my classmates, “Why do you study?” They looked at me as if I had asked a stupid question. Then one said, “For exams lah!”

These two happened to be among the very few straight As students. So, maybe I asked the wrong people. In any case, that answer wasn’t acceptable for me. In fact, I found it pathetic. Studying just for the sake of exams? Puh… Shouldn’t there be a purpose beyond that? Like making use of what we study in life?

Actually, I had thought about that before asking them. Let’s say it’s for exams. Then what? Then we can get into a university. Then what? Then we could get a job, get a house, get married, have children, and then make them study for exams, etc, etc. And at the end of all that, we die.

I was convinced that that’s not what I wanted to do with my life, but what should I do then? I had no idea. I was stuck.

That led to a profound loss of interest in studies. I could only get myself to study what I like when I liked it, and that wasn’t much. As expected, my exam results kept slipping.

 

Part 2: Getting Closer

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giving Gifts or Giving Burden?

Image
Lay Buddhists are often taught the importance of giving (dāna)—especially to monastics—as a meritorious act. While this practice is deeply rooted in the Buddhist tradition, it has led to a growing concern: the excessive giving of gifts to monastics, resulting in monasteries having to deal with unnecessary possessions. Monastics do depend on lay people to give them what they need. However, when the giving becomes excessive, it creates a burden for the monastics. Their monasteries can become cluttered with items they neither need nor want. In this situation, the gifts have become a burden. To address this issue, lay Buddhists should be advised to practice wise giving . This involves considering the true needs of the recipient and the potential result of the giving. Instead of giving out of religious piety or a desire to gain merit, one can give wisely. What do the monastics really need? If you want to give but don't know what the monastics really need, you can always ask them. By g...
Read more

Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: Protect Yourself from Hidden Personality Disorders

Sometimes I meet people who suffer because they are unknowingly living or working with someone who has a personality disorder. It’s important to be aware of such disorders, as being with individuals who have them can be distre ssing. When we think of mental illness, we usually think of conditions like schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorders—conditions that are either very obvious or that people usually seek help for. We don’t usually think of another category of mental illness: personality disorders . There are many kinds of personality disorders, but let me speak of two which are not so obvious but surely worth knowing for our own protection: Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) . Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) “Antisocial” here does not mean “unsociable”. In fact, individuals with this disorder may appear highly sociable. They are antisocial in the sense that they are hostile or disruptive to social norms. They lack empa...
Read more

How To Deal With People Who Often Criticize You

Having people, or even just one person, in your life who is constantly critical of you can be very challenging. It’s possible that they don’t know the harm that they are causing. In any case, you’re the one having a problem and so you’re the one to do something about it. You need to find a suitable way to stop being constantly criticized. You first need to find out why they behave this way. There are a few possible reasons: They have a spoiled entitlement schema . They feel entitled to criticize you. They have an unrelenting standards schema . They can’t stand standards lower than their expectations, which they feel are normal and justified. They have a defectiveness schema . They try to feel better about themsel ves by putting others down. If they have a spoiled entitlement schema , your chances of getting them to stop is very slim. The only way they would even consider changing their behaviour, is being under the threat of losing something tha...
Read more