Do monks stick to their clique in most monasteries?
And is there politics among monks, too?
What are the things that you had not expected when you ordained?
Oh, it uses this question.
Is it really good for me to answer this?
What do you think?
Is this going to help people's meditation if they hear the answer?
Perhaps if it shows us what guided you to your position at that time.
I think everyone has their own personal story as to why and when certain things happen in their lives.
How about I answer the last question then?
What are the things you had not expected when you ordained?
Because honestly, I didn't have very high expectations when I ordained.
Partly because I had no knowledge of Buddhism, which... No, sorry.
Sorry, ordained was much later.
When I first started practicing Buddhism, I had no expectations or no knowledge of Buddhism.
And so...
I don't know that ordination is a different issue.
This may be the more interesting one, but if I can just get the other part out of the way is that, first of all, I had no expectations of how monks should act.
I was offering monks food in the afternoon and was confused as to why they weren't accepting it.
And also because I saw a lot of things that, before I ordained, that totally made it perfectly clear that at least in the area of the world where I was at the time, and the Buddhist world that I was revolving around,
didn't have very high standards and so had a lot of problems and and so on my first teachers were lay people and that added to it because their understanding and not understanding but they're one of the things that they they
What they adhere to or hold strongly is the idea that you don't have to ordain, that there's not any intrinsic benefit in ordaining, which is technically true.
A lay person can be as pure as a monk.
But they emphasized it.
And so that sort of emphasis leads you to have some sort of disregard for the monastic life.
And the monkhood.
And so I didn't have expectations.
I saw, you know, yeah, a lot of monks are just corrupt and so on.
And so on.
But after I ordained, you see this is two years later, so in my situation it's not that profound of an experience.
After I ordained, one of the things I didn't expect was the fact that I had to be different, or as different as I had to be, or in the ways that I had to be different from lay people.
Of course everyone has the idea and really feels that they're becoming something different and knows that you have to be different as a monk.
But I caught myself acting a lot like a lay person in many ways and working very closely with lay people because my teachers were still lay people.
And that kind of took me by surprise, the fact that I really shouldn't be doing that.
I shouldn't have been in such close relations with lay people.
And I certainly shouldn't have been acting so much like a lay person.
it took me by surprise i don't know that it took me by surprise but one thing that slowly dawned on me and yeah it did take me by surprise when i found myself unable to break rules when i found myself unable to justify breaking the rules anymore which i know good monks who do justify breaking the rules
minor rules their whole lives.
But because of my Western upbringing and because of the stubborn Taurus that I am, just the kind of person that I am, I've got this kind of, well, most Western monks get this kind of irreverence for authority, but
ambition, or I don't know what the right word is, the zeal to do something a thousand percent.
So
And I guess those two qualities exist in Western monks to different degrees, or in monks in general to different degrees.
But with Westerners, some Westerners have just this total disregard for authority, so don't care about the rules, but don't have the ambition to do things perfectly.
So they say, yeah, meditation's enough.
I mean, what do you need all these rules for?
But people like me, with both of them, which are kind of conflicting...
you don't care about the fact that everyone else is breaking the rules, you want to do it fully in a hundred or a thousand percent.
And often the fact that everyone else is breaking the rules will lead you to obnoxiously decide to keep the rules, flying fully in the face of your monastic community, which is really not a fun situation.
It's kind of fun.
It's fun to be hated by everyone in your monastery in that sense.
which I certainly have been in my time.
Do you feel that some of the archaic practices and rules and regulations of current times
Buddhism, do you feel, since it's like, you know, 25, 2600 years old, do you think some of those ideas are detrimental to the growth of modern day Buddhism?
No.
No, I don't think so.
No, I think what's detrimental is people's belief that it has to change.
Because if we decided that no, they're good and they don't have to change, then the Buddhist culture would very quickly and very easily work to accommodate them.
The Buddhist monastic rules are not difficult to accommodate.
Sometimes you might have to stretch or even break
knowing that you're breaking them in certain situations.
You don't have to, but sometimes you will.
Like for example, I might stay in an apartment building and some people might say that's breaking the rule.
I might even break the rule by staying in
I don't know.
I mean, there are ways around some of the rules that are kind of silly, like you're not allowed to stay in the same residence as a layperson.
But what that means is you're not allowed to be lying down at sunrise.
So if you get up and sit up before sunrise, you've not spent the night with a layperson, for example.
A lay man, a lay woman, you can't even lie down together.
But that's not really the point here.
The actual rules themselves, I can't think of even one where I would really say definitely that has to go.
Most especially the not touching money one.
I mean, that's the big one that people harp on.
But that's such an intrinsic, even today it's such an intrinsic part of the monastic life.
And it's really not difficult if...
The problem is finding a community that is supportive.
One thing I will admit is a lot of the modes and...
that are expected of Buddhist monks are under the assumption that you're living in a society that provides alms to holy people.
So in India, not just Buddhists, but people who are trying to become holy or living in a holy way, like shamans,
These shramanas were able to get by and even today are able to get by in India.
So these guys go around begging for money or begging for food in many different sects in India, not just Buddhists.
Well, now Buddhists don't.
But that's what I'm facing now going to Canada because I can't go to Canada and just go alms round on the street.
I can't go to Canada in the same way as I would go to Thailand.
If I want to go to Thailand, I just go to Thailand, find some place and decide that I'm going to live there.
And nowadays it's much more difficult.
You can't really do it.
But in olden days, you could just do that.
Set up your tent, put your robe over you at night.
And you get alms food, you get enough food to eat.
In Canada I won't get that.
And so it's a challenge.
But you look at the two different sides of the coin.
Trying to keep the rules is a challenge.
Breaking the rules is a disappointment, is a corruption.
It means your monk life is going to suffer.
in the sense of how you look, how you present what a recluse is, what a monk is, how people relate to you, how they respect the life of a dedicated Buddhist meditator, how they respect the teachings, how they look at the teachings and so on, and how you yourself live in terms of your peace of mind and your ability to grow.
So the challenges are far more appealing, right?
And so it's not two sets of challenges.
There's not much challenge in breaking the rules, but suddenly you have corruption sneaking in in terms of how people look at you and how they look at the Dhamma, how they look at Buddhism, how the community is set up and how people feel about what they're doing.
Most people in the West don't get this because they've never really had the experience of either being a monk or even living with a monastic community.
I don't know that I'll ever provide that because, look at me, I use computers and stuff.
But what I do provide is people who are interested in it, because some people really do
chastise me for not touching money but for those people who get into it especially Asian Buddhists who have never really who have you know been accustomed to monks who don't keep the rules find it you know refreshing to know that the monk that they're dealing with this teacher that they have has no money and doesn't take money and doesn't have any interest in money
and relies entirely, subsists entirely upon what he is provided with, what is donated to him for that day.
So, is not able to choose his meals, is not able to
differentiate between food or keep or hold on to these sorts of things and so I found it's been an incredible support for my practice and a incredible support for my my work as well because people really want us I've seen people who really want to support me and
You know, for two reasons.
I'm thinking of Asian Buddhists who really want to support me for the fact that I teach meditation, but also very much for the fact that I keep the rules strictly because they know that they can trust me or they're more likely to believe that they can trust me.
They feel it's more likely that I can be trusted.
So much of that concept in the Western world is so foreign to us, outside of the Catholic faith, which still has nuns and monks and monasteries and so forth.
But I think they have become so modernized in most of their dealings with the public.
There's a few there.
I guess they're cloistered, but most of them are out in public.
And they're quite different, really, from...
from Buddhist monks and their activities, particularly in other countries.
But outside of that, so many of the people in the United States
are of the opinion that any teacher that they may have, whether it's a preacher or a rabbi and so forth, first of all, they're usually married, they have children like normal people, they hold down a job like normal people, they have a normal home, normal lifestyles and everything.
That's what the populace of the Western world looks to for their inspiration and for their teaching.
Anything outside of that norm becomes totally foreign to us.
That's a good reason, I think, why they would be more comfortable with a lay Buddhist teacher even, which you find in some circles.
But one, I think, quick defense to that or quick response to that is what we're teaching is quite different.
What we're teaching undercuts or cuts away or
tears away the concept of marriage.
Yeah, sure, as a Buddhist you can be married and have sex and so on, but it's quite clear even from the outset that that's a part of what we're trying to give up, where it's not in Christianity, it's not in Judaism, it's not in any of these religions.
How clear... Buddhism is about giving up attachment.
You can have a teacher who plays tennis and has a wife or a husband and a car and money and a television and so on.
But unlike religions that don't specify the need to give up attachments, here we have
a conflict right here we have a teacher who's teaching giving up attachments and clearly isn't interested in giving up attachments or is only gone halfway so yeah they can teach sure and they could be great people great Buddhists but they can't be considered to be the ideal or to be striving for the ideal because they're not striving or you know could be but not obviously striving anyway
And it's not clear, because lay people can be good teachers and can be perfect Buddhists, but you see what I'm getting at.
There's a lot more required in Buddhism.
I understand and agree with that, but on the same, so many people, I think, in the Western world, are of the opinion, right or wrong, that
How can you tell me how to live my life as a lay person when you're not a lay person?
You haven't experienced this.
They look at that a lot of times, I think, as Catholic priests.
You're not a father.
You're not a parent.
You're supported by the church.
You don't work for your own living.
How can you come back, Ben, and try to teach and tell me you're not experiencing that?
You don't have the experience to tell me as a married parent, working parent.
There's almost like a disconnect in that situation.
For sure.
And I totally am willing to, on the one hand, admit that.
And I could even entertain an answer by saying, yeah, sure, because that's not what I'm telling you to do.
I'm saying give up your married life and become a monk.
So you can take that tack.
Most Buddhist monks and Buddhists go the other way and claim to have some knowledge to provide for married life, which is kind of disappointing because they go far too much to that degree.
And they say, yes, yes, I'll teach you how to be a good lay person.
And you've got a good point there.
How can a monk do that?
But I think more important than that is, how can you do that when that's going in the wrong direction?
Yes, you can accept the fact that there are lay people with wives and children, or husbands and children and so on, but that's clearly not what you should be preaching.
or it should not be all of what you're preaching.
And if someone has a really, really bad married life, you should really include, at least include in your teaching, the option that they might give it up and become a monk, because that really is what the Buddha prescribed as the ideal.
Now,
There are other arguments you can give to that.
I think the fact that a person is not, you know, there's, I read this thing where this man who was a bachelor was very able to describe married life because he was outside of it.
because he had never been married and so he was able to show people what they couldn't see because they were looking at it from the inside and there's that argument I'm not going to push that sort of argument, I'm fully willing to accept the fact that I don't have much knowledge of how to raise children but
it doesn't seem to get that much in the way.
And I don't feel, feel, or I do feel quite confident giving general Buddhist advice to parents and children.
But, you know, as I've said before, in the end it just gets too complicated for me.
And I just say, you know, look, if you really want the answer, it's to give this all up and don't get involved with it.
You know, how can I, how will I raise my children?
Don't have children.
here's a question along those very same lines okay wait let me stop this one