Being A Monk
A Conversation with Thanissaro Bhikkhu (2/2)
First Part : Being A Monk – A Conversation with Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1/2)
After breakfast, what happens?
- We clean up, and everyone goes back to his hut. We meet again at about 5 p.m.
And during the day?
- Mostly it’s meditating. Some reading. I limit myself to two hours of writing.
There’s no bed in your hut, just a mattress that you roll out every night. There’s also a computer and printer. Do you get e-mail?
- No, but one of our supporters set up a web site: http://here-and-now.org/watmetta.html.
You said that people here gather together at 5 p.m. Is that for Happy Hour?
- It’s a question and answer period for visitors. Then people have free time until 8:00, when we have a chanting session, which lasts about 20 minutes. Then there’s an hour of group meditation and usually a Dhamma talk [the teaching of the Buddha].
Do you spend any of your meditation time reflecting on what you’ll say?
- Very little. The Forest tradition places a lot of emphasis on concentration practice, getting the mind to stay with one object. So that’s a lot of my time. And of course, if you’re sitting for long periods of time, pain is going to come up. Then the mind creates issues about the pain. Dealing with that is the Buddha’s First Noble Truth: There is pain in life. There is suffering in life. I think the reason he focused on that is that if you sit with your pains and suffering, if you have the tools of concentration and mindfulness, you start seeing these issues in your mind.
How is that different from therapy?
- The purpose of therapy, Freud said, was to take neurotic individuals and return them to an ordinary level of unhappiness. The purpose of meditation is to take you from that ordinary level of unhappiness to a place where there is no unhappiness and no suffering.
Do the people who come here bring psychological baggage with them?
- The monks are a pretty self-reliant group. It’s the visitors who come with deeper psychological wounds.
What kinds of questions do visitors ask you?
- Oh, everything from meditation questions to relationship questions. How to deal with their kids, how to deal with their parents. How to get out of an unhealthy situation. How to maintain one’s commitment in a situation that’s difficult. “Should I go for that raise, or should I find more time to meditate?” I tend to say, “Take more time to meditate. You don’t need that much money.“
Almost 30 years ago, you embarked on a path that took you away from the mainstream. You don’t commute, you don’t have a 9-to-5 job, you don’t have credit cards, and you don’t have a family. Does the path you’ve taken limit your ability to deal with the problems people face?
- I focus on what I can offer by being outside the rat race. During all those years in Thailand, it was healthy for me to be around people who didn’t have typical American neuroses. You get to see your own neuroses writ large because you’re the only one in the area who’s got them. Until you say, “This is really dumb.”
When do you go to bed?
- Usually about 11 or 12.
You only get four or five hours of sleep?!
- That’s plenty. Meditation takes away a lot of the stressful need for sleep.
Do you nap?
- In the late afternoon.
Many people see Buddhism as anti-pleasure: no drinking, no drugs, no debauchery. These are a few of my favorite things. Do you ever miss them?
- The biggest loss for me was classical music. I was hooked on classical music. When I got stoned and listened all those years ago, that was my idea of a good time.
When I began to meditate, I’d start getting into these states where I felt the same sense of rapture I got from a really good performance of classical music. I thought, “Oh my gosh, I can get this sensation just by sitting here and breathing.” In the past I had to worry about my stereo and if my records would get scratched. I needed all that stuff around just to get a pleasure fix.
Do you ever listen to classical music?
- It’s against the rules. When I go home, Dad has it on all the time, so I hear it then. Occasionally Brahms or Mahler goes through my head. But it gets so that you don’t miss it.
What was the last movie you saw?
- I saw the first Lord of the Rings on a flight to Thailand, but I didn’t hear it. There’s a rule against watching shows; you’re supposed to be turning inward.
Are you allowed recreation of any sort?
- For us, recreation is going out into the wilderness. Sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon and meditating, opening our eyes every now and then, looking at the Grand Canyon, and meditating some more. We do a lot of walking meditation; it’s really emphasized in this tradition. When I get a chance, or when I’ve had enough of the monastery, I go out and hike around awhile.
What else do monks do for exercise?
- A lot of sweeping up. Some Western monks and modern Thai monks do yoga in their rooms.
But you can’t say, “Hey, I’ve meditated all day, I just want to toss around a football.”
- No.
Are you allowed to read for pleasure?
- You get so that you’re not interested in fiction. The only fiction that I read nowadays is by my friend Jeanne Larsen [Class of 1971, the author of three historical novels set in China] and Harry Potter.
Why Harry Potter?
- I thought the books taught good lessons about loyalty, integrity, and such things.
So Harry Potter’s okay, Robert Ludlam’s not okay?
- I have to use my judgment. Is what I’m reading getting in the way of my meditation? If I find myself closing my eyes and seeing visions that are not helping me at all, then it’s obviously something I should be not be reading.
Do you keep up with the world?
- Only in the last year or two. I get The Nation and The Guardian Weekly. I really liked all those years in Thailand when I didn’t get any news. For my first eight years, the only international news that came out to the monastery was “Elvis Presley died” and “Skylab is falling.”
Did it take a long time to adjust to a celibate lifestyle?
- The first hurdle you face is not wanting to take care of it, the attractiveness of lust itself. But after a while I began to realize that I was suffering because of this. But if I focused on the lust itself, rather than the object of the lust, I began to realize lust was not that good a thing to have in my mind.
Do you ever feel lustful?
- No.
Never?
- You have meditation to take care of it. As soon as lust comes into the mind, you’ve got to take care of it.
You sound so pragmatic.
- It’s very pragmatic. That was one of the lessons I got from Ajaan Fuang: Get over the drama and sit down and do the work. I remember the first time he said to me, “Okay, we’re going to meditate all night.” I said, “My God, I can’t do that! I’ve been working hard all day!” He said, “Is it going to kill you?” No. “Then you can do it.”
What about the simple desire for touch? Can non-monks touch you?
- Women can’t. With men, it depends on how they’re going to touch me. No lustful touching.
Some people assume monks have transcended human feelings and never have “negative” feelings such as anger and greed. Do you ever get pissed off?
- Occasionally there are irritations. A woman I taught became convinced I was sending her subliminal messages. She thought I wanted to leave the monastery and marry her. I tried to make it clear I wouldn’t, but she kept insisting I was giving her subliminal messages. I said, “Look, you’re not my student anymore. I’m sorry, this is not working out.” She thought I just said that because there were other people around. So she started coming back. I must admit I was irritated. But she finally got it.
What about the lesser frailties. Do you have any vanity? Do you ever find yourself spending too much time getting your robe to look just right?
- The robe is pretty cut-and-dried. There’s not much I can do about it.
Pride?
- A little bit. I was editing my Dhamma talks, and every now and then I’d come across a phrase and think, “that was pretty cool.”
Do you have fears?
- I’d hate to die before this place got established.
Do you ever have sleepless nights?
- The last sleepless night I had was when one of my monks disrobed. I kept thinking, “What did I do wrong?” I thought about it lying down for a while, and then I’d get up and walk around for a while. Then I sat down for a while.
There was a point in which I realized, “This is ridiculous. I’m not getting any answers. So I might as well stop the questioning for the time being.” That’s one of the skills you learn during meditation. If you’re asking questions, and there are no answers coming, just stop asking. It’s not time for the answer yet.
Do you ever feel guilt?
- No.
Was that a difficult emotion to get rid of?
- Yeah, that was probably a big one. But in Thailand, there is no guilt. It’s totally a shame culture (“Don’t do that; it embarrasses us in front of the neighbors”), but not a guilt culture (“Don’t do that; it hurts me when you do that”). Guilty feelings started feeling really, really dumb. People function well and live perfectly normal lives without it.
Did you pick up shame as a replacement?
- If I do something I really know I shouldn’t have done, then I feel ashamed.
How do you deal with the shame when you feel it?
- Ajaan Fuang taught us that we can’t just sit around and stew. The idea is: you’ve noticed you’ve made your mistake; don’t repeat it. That’s the best that can be asked of a human being.
Do you also believe in atoning?
- You ask forgiveness of the person you’ve wronged.
In the Thai language, monks are referred to not as people, but as “sacred objects.” Do you view yourself as a sacred object?
- No.
How do you view yourself?
- As a person. Despite this weird outfit, there’s a human being in here.
Are there aspects of Buddhism that are still mysteries to you?
- I’d like to know what full enlightenment is like.
Do you ever, ever think about disrobing?
- Bea Camp [Class of 1972] came to visit me one time in Thailand. She and her husband David Summers [Class of 1971] were working for the U.S. Foreign Service in Bangkok. They filled me up with all the news of our old mutual friends–
careers that didn’t turn out the way people had planned, divorces, separations, disappointments. David asked me, “Have you ever regretted being a monk?”
And I said, “Well, the thought never crossed my mind, and certainly not now.”
One final question. When you were in Thailand, was there a “Eureka!” moment when you thought, “I’ve got it”?
- Monks can’t talk about their attainments.
What if I say “please”?
- (Laughter).
Playwright Rich Orloff lives in New York.
Source : Oberlin
