No fun. No sex. No booze. No hair. No eyebrows. Could a playboy adventurer like myself find enlightenment by binning life's materialism and becoming a Buddhist monk? Could a period of abstinence in the remote cloisters of a Thai monastery save the cankered soul from additional rot? Could I imitate the Buddha and find mystical union with my true self? I was curious to try.
Buddhism is one of the oldest religious philosophies in the world, coming to prominence 600 years before Jesus Christ and 1,200 years before the Prophet Muhammed. The Buddha was Siddhartha Gautama, a prince from the Indian-Nepalese border who left court life to become a homeless wanderer. After a period of inward consolation, he reduced the human condition to Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, suffering has its cause; desire is that cause and desire must be neutered. The cure? To live a life of simple morality, harmlessness and meditation. Easier said than done.
A Bullshit Buddhist for most of my adulthood, I had little knowledge of monastic life. Nonetheless, I decided to drop out for a month of prayer and asceticism in North Thailand as a novice-monk. 95 percent of Thailand is Buddhist and going into the reclusive environment of a Theravada "wat" (monastery), for a short or long stretch, is common practice for people of all ages.
Besides, for many years I was interested in the privations and discipline of monastic life. How hard is it? What do monks really do? How do they live? In situ, living in the wat, you soon find out how tough the monk's life really is.
For 28 days I was to live in a monk's cell, a "kuti," a rickety old room with a low bed and mosquito net. According to Buddha, the possessions of a monk are few -- sandals, a rug to sit on, towels, orange robes, alms bowl, walking staff, needle, thread, belt and filter for straining drinks -- so that I don't accidentally take an insect's life. Compared to the previous possessions that I relied on, it is a humbling sight to behold.
As a postulant, I was taught to meditate sitting, standing and walking. I lived by the five precepts of a monk-to-be: no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no lying and no booze. And followed the eightfold path: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right awareness. There were other rules and regulations of note: no gossiping, no singing, no dancing and no handling of money. It was an interior and exterior life of spiritual discipline. And constant mindfulness.
After a few weeks living by the precepts and discipline of the eightfold path, I was ordained as a monk ("samanera") complete with skinhead and NO eyebrows. And life as a Buddhist monk ain't no picnic. Every day, at the crack of dawn, you do your daily alms round. Barefooted, and braving rabid packs of dogs, you and the other monks collect food freely donated by townspeople. Then you bless them with a chant in Pali (the language of the faith) and walk off to the next customer.
Back in the four walls of the monastery, the process of bodily mortification begins. These days, fasting is a fashionable way to lose weight. As a monk, fasting is mandatory for 18 hours a day and you only have a six-hour window to eat (from dawn till noon). Fasting is hard. You get headaches, muscle ache, nausea and develop a persistent cold. The fat strips off and you soon enjoy erotic hallucinations about KFC back home on Notting Hill Gate. But, as soon as I started to fast and deny myself pleasures, and devote time to meditation and to the various rules of the monk's life, I became strong of mind. And happy.
Nothing is permanent. Nothing is owned. And all periods of inward contemplation must come to an end. Disrobed and outside the walls of the monastery, I returned to the world of material urges feeling strange and out of my element. But I had demonstrated the dominance of my will, and my internal contradictions and struggles were slowly beginning to resolve themselves. I had, in part, freed myself from subjection to some of the destructive elements of the human spirit. It wasn't something vague and metaphorical. It was something born of a real and positive experience.
The vocation of priesthood has been put aside but not the endless journey of spiritual crisis and slow awakening. Beyond my own aggrandizement, I live a quiet life, with few amusements, avoiding things that threaten the passions to riot. I lost interest in my "career" and advancing my own position in society. Soon after, I gave up drinking. Not to mention the company of people who were not really friends in the first place. In short, I now try to live in the world as if I were still a monk in the temple. It is not easy. It is not for everybody. But it is not impossible to live that way.
Enlightenment is a high ideal and a hard aim. But being a monk put me on the fast track within my own lifetime. And I was finally out of the spiritual mangle and suffering that I had gone through for most of my adult life. The days go by and the signs of awakening can be seen in the clearing and uncluttering of life. It took a short age to discover a relative state of peace but, if it can happen to a schmuck like me, it can happen to anybody.