I may be attached to the idea of becoming a monk.
Is it wrong to want to become a monk?
Because I think that lay life is too troublesome.
I can't find anything worth pursuing as a lay person.
What do you think, Desmond?
I think it's...
I guess as you say, it's possible to become attached to some idea you have of what it will be.
But whether it's wrong to want to become it, I think that depends on what your reasons are, if you have the right reasons.
you know, clearly, then it won't be wrong to want it or to understand those reasons and pursue it for those reasons.
There's this big discussion about running away that goes on where people say,
you hear often becoming a monk is just running away that's a criticism that non-buddhists level at monks it's also a caution that even monks will give to people thinking of ordaining that if you're just running away trying to run becoming a monk to run away from your problems you're not going to get very far you know this story that i just translated
suffering follows you you're suffering the results of your bad karma follow you like the wheel follows the hoof of the ox that pulls the cart and the commentary goes on and says even if the ox is to pull the cart for a day two days, five days, a month, a year they'll never get away from the wheel and if they
The more they try to go forward, the more they'll have to pull.
The yoke will press down on their neck and press them there.
Or actually, it's the circle, right?
They have these circles that they put on the ox.
And that will press against their necks and afflict them in that way.
And if they try to back up, they back into the wheel and it digs into the flesh of their legs.
Anyway, too much information.
But it follows you.
So the idea that you can somehow escape your suffering.
But I think that in some ways and often that misses the point that people who become monks in this sense are, what they're trying to run away from is not their own problems.
Not necessarily, or I think often not.
Often what they're running away from is the acquiring of further problems or getting caught up in the creation of further confusion and seeing how the more you get caught up in it.
the more suffering you create, the more karma you create, the more complicated it becomes.
And also, just how useless it is.
If you see how useless the lay life is, I mean, what did the Buddha do?
He ran away, really.
He ran away from many things, but for the purpose of confronting himself, confronting his own mind.
It was quite clear what he was doing was not...
running away from that which is important, or running away from suffering, running away from its problems.
In fact, that's a good example.
To say that someone's leaving the home life because they want to run away from suffering is a little bit absurd, because there's a lot of suffering.
There's a good, healthy dose of suffering in becoming a monk.
But it's leaving behind... I think, from the sounds of it, this person is...
is in my mind very much ordaining for the right reasons.
Get away from all that stuff.
Run away.
It's useless.
If that idea means that you're somehow attached to... I wouldn't worry about such questions about does this mean I'm attached to that or does that mean I'm attached to this or so on.
You're attached to many, many things unless you're already far beyond most
people who most applicants for monastic life you got a lot of attachments and so don't worry about are you attaching to becoming a monk it's really trivial you know do you have lust do you have a hatred and do you have addiction to things do you have ego and conceit and arrogance and so on much more important that's where you should be focusing if if becoming a monk
means for you the indulgence in the attachment to becoming a monk i would say you know really that's the least of your concerns unless you're already free from all the other ones then you you might say well you know at this point in my spiritual practice i really have to work on my attachment to the monastic life because it's such a
you know, it's like the attachment to humor or something, or the attachment to things which are attachments, but far, far too subtle to be concerned about.
And so for the most part, people who ask these sorts of questions about being attached to meditation, for example, you know, I really think I have to, or do you really think it's good for this person to be meditating so much?
It seems like they're attached to it.
I'm like,
That's the least of their concerns, really.
If they've still got greed, anger, and delusion, yes, let them attach to meditation for a little while longer anyway.
So I can't speak highly enough of monastic.
What I would say is that I have been very, very much attached to the monastic life.
And I'm willing to admit that.
When I became a monk, I was like, this is so cool.
This is the cat's meow.
It was really just the bliss of being able to ordain is just wonderful.
I mean, of course, it was intense suffering.
And it has been intense suffering in many ways, just because of how difficult it has been.
But the fact of being a monk is just so wonderful.
So I can understand that.
I can understand the concern that it might be there.
I just don't say that it's really the most important thing.
It can grow into ego and conceit, and it does.
When people become monks, they can be very conceited, arrogant, think they're teachers, think they know everything.
That's a danger.
That's something that you have to work with and deal with.
But even that, I would say, is, well, no, the arrogance and the conceit and so on, that's far more important than the underlying attachment, which is all in good time.
Eventually, you'll get there.
Start digging from the top down.
So one reason why people become ordained is to protect themselves.
I've got all these defilements, and I know I'm not going to be a very good monk, but if I don't ordain, for me it was like that.
If I don't ordain, I'm going to get married.
That's a scary thing.
So it was kind of a no-brainer.