Aaaaugggh! It's another retreat weekend. The third one in four weeks. People are pouring in and I'm providing hospitality, getting people to their rooms. In return, I'm able to have extended internet time in the office. However, I just want to run away from all these people. I need to retreat from the retreat!

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

I'm pretty comfortable that I might be "monk material", but that's not important. I'm not heading towards ordination as a goal, I don't care whether I'm considered an aspirant or not. My view of my path is still the same, it just might lead to being ordained as a monk. Or it can end up being very wet.

Or it might just lead down the mountain road one day for the last time. Maybe I'd find my way back to San Francisco, Inc. Crash at friends' apartments, plumb my connections to see if I could land another job as a paralegal.

If not, anything really, any modest job would do. I would look for cheap housing. Just a room in a shared situation would be fine. Live simply, modestly, humbly. Close to a practice center so I can get to morning sitting easily enough, Lower Haight, the Castro, or the Republic of Berkeley. I would lead a semi-disciplined, reclusive lifestyle; perhaps a secular monasticism of sorts.

For starters, I wouldn't have much, just basic necessities like I had at the monastery. I'd live close to the ground in my modest living space, have basic clothes, toiletries, sleeping bag. I'd keep my hair buzzed short, failed monastic. I'd have to learn how to cook, simple vegetables, although I wouldn't consider myself vegetarian. It might look lonely, but I'd be happy. I'd be free (psst, so why don't you do it?).

The feel of my life might be something like Episode 19 of the anime, RahXephon, when Ayato leaves Tokyo Jupiter with Hiroko and they try to run away from all the confusion and insanity. They just live life simply compared to what they've found reality to be, living out of a hotel room, Ayato gets a job, and all they have is each other until the situation catches up and comes crashing down on them. It's a beautiful, melancholy episode, narrated from the point of view of Hiroko's diary.

With a job and settling in somewhere, I wouldn't be quite so ascetic, but I would buy only what I needed with a few well-defined luxuries. No rampant accumulation of stuff. I'd allow my computer, worthy DVDs, CDs, and books, but only if reading in book stores and borrowing from the library just don't cut it. One of my bikes for getting around, but no more "cycling". Probably one acoustic guitar.

I would avoid seeking out any social scene. Time spent with other people would be well-defined, but I wouldn't be anti-social. I wouldn't necessarily avoid friendships or relationships, but as the past six years have shown, my outward demeanor isn't one that has people dying to get to know me, and I wouldn't try being more socially attractive. Any social situation where I couldn't maintain mindfulness would be out.

A diary-narrated life. A dream. A fantasy. John Lennon might say it'll be just like starting over, but Modest Mouse says starting over ain't what life's about. Besides, here at the monastery is my diary-narrated life.

Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

I talked more to the person I mentioned before who was turned down for novice ordination after spending nine months at this monastery. I'm not so worried about my prospects now. It didn't take any mystic insight to see that he clearly is not ready. One day he might be a monk, he might even be a great monk, but right now, even I can see that he's too immature, too impulsive, and not clear enough on his path.

He hit upon a revelation that he didn't need the approval of the Deer Park monastics to go straight to the root monastery in France to continue his training towards ordination. And he's right about that, but that was true all along. As a revelation now it's pretty weak, but he was hyped up and rarin' to go like Luke Skywalker in 'The Empire Strikes Back' on speed.

He can go to Plum Village without the blessing of the Deer Park monastics, but the results will be the same – they will also see that he's not ready. And how will that feel? The happiness he thinks he will gain by becoming ordained is false. It's the same happiness that people get when they land a new job, move to their dream city, or buy a house. You can hate your job or get fired, find out your dream city isn't all it's cracked up to be, or your house can burn down.

Of course, you can love the job, love the city, and live in the house without ever anything bad happening, that's not the point. It's the attachment to some idea to find happiness which is counter to this practice. He is attached to the idea of this practice to find happiness, and being a monk requires more than just being able to do this practice. It requires all the causes and conditions for a seed to bloom into a beautiful flower.

He is definitely a seed, but he's a seed on dry sand. And he can be a happy ordained seed, but without the life experience and personal development the Deer Park monastics seemed to be hinting at, i.e., the shit life throws at us to become fertilizer, he won't grow or bloom into anything. He will just be a seed doing the practice.

Escondido, CA

I'm down in town again typing this, even though I have permission to use the internet at the monastery for one hour on Friday afternoons for communications, which blogging arguably is. 

My request for an extended stay at the monastery was approved last week, and I asked for one hour of internet per week. It's not a lot of time, I was exercising self-restraint and it got summary approval, but it should be enough to upload postings that I can compose on a community computer during the week. 

It has all been a blur, for blog purposes, not expecting to have any internet access, then finding this internet cafe, then getting access at the monastery. I'm still figuring out how to focus and redefine the direction of this blog. The whole monastic thing is new ground and warrants description, but this blog has been so much internal space, so much darker stuff, that I don't want to just start taking it in a totally different direction. 

And man, already so much internal space has been covered in the past three weeks, and there's no way I even want to try to recount it all. Like I said, lots of great conversations, lots of like-minded people, sparks and wind energy flowing, and hugging other men like I've never hugged other men before! 

The nuns scare me, though, for some reason. I just feel that they are due a higher amount of respect and decorum, even though that's probably wrong. I avoid them and always bow to them politely when I can't. 

Three weeks. OK, maybe just a bit on the situation: 

I had been reading so much that when I arrived at the monastery, I had all this head knowledge. But then as I walked up the mountain to the monastery, *zoop*, it just all went away, my brain wiped clean. Every time I tried to think some concept through, I just couldn't do it – a good sign, really. Slowly, it has come back, though. 

Another thing I felt early on was that I realized I had no heart. I couldn't find it anywhere. It made me think of how I told Madoka that she was a role model for being for me, but couldn't explain what that meant. I think part of it was me projecting on her having a big enough heart for me, too. 

Life here is pretty varied. Sometimes it has been slow and peaceful when I was the only guest. Right now, there are several guests who will be here for up to several weeks. Weekends often see groups of people coming up for one reason or another. 

I live in a guestroom with six beds, but I have some say as to who gets put in with me, since one of my impromptu duties has become hospitality for guests. I've been able to reject long-term guests in my room, but I'm totally open to week-long guests and over-nighters. I try not to abuse my authorita. 

Daily schedule includes waking up at 5:30 and sitting for 45 minutes at 6:00. Three meals a day with rotating duties. Other blocks of time are spent in working meditation, Dharma talks (lectures by Thich Nhat Hahn that are sent same-day over the internet from the root monastery in France; they have a pretty sophisticated production facility to burn CDs and DVDs that are also sold in the book store), in-house lectures, and other monastery-related things one might expect. I also have a lot of down time to go exploring and hiking in the surrounding mountains. 

It's just a great, loving, compassionate community. Very laid back, very permissive. The practice here focuses on mindfulness and developing awareness of every moment at all times. It is both very simple, and very subtle and sophisticated at the same time. It's also very deceptive because the insight and wisdom of the monks and the community is jaw-dropping. 

What does this all mean to my life? I don't know. I don't need to know. From time to time I go back and forth between thoughts of becoming a monk, which would mean being shipped off to the root monastery in France for at least a year for training, and not, but I just let these thoughts come in and wander and then leave when they want to, because ultimately, I think my decision will just manifest itself. I'll just know. The decision will be there like an arrow shot straight and true. 

I'm not confused about any decision. Either I become a monk or not. I'm still me. I do hope to encounter some demons along the way. If I don't hit some dark times between now and making a final decision, I'd be concerned about being numb. But maybe I won't need to, I've had my share of dramatics in the past. 

I do have a mentor now that I've been accepted for an extended stay and expressed interest in a monastic path. I don't expect to burden him at all with problems. I think we're a good match because I'm not needy and I don't think he wants to mentor someone who is needy (that's probably wrong). 

We've had a good rapport all along, ever since last year, and we may play spiritual racquetball every once in a while and he can shed some insight on my path and give me direction here and there, but I anticipate our sessions will be casual. The joke is that he's my tormentor, being tormented by his tormentee.

Wooha! Internet cafe! I'm being a bad boy.

Monday is "lazy day" at the monastery and I hitched a ride to town (Escondido) and found this internet cafe. I'm not sure it's within the spirit of my stay at the monastery, but I don't think there are explicit prohibitions either. I might be making regular trips to town on Mondays! It's a six mile walk, but I think there is a bus line that goes half the trip.

Anyway, I'm sure you're dying to hear about monastic life.

After staying for two weeks, I submitted a letter to the monastic community informing them of my desire for an extended stay, and my intentions and aspirations and what I might contribute to the community.

Someone told me it was a good letter and there should be no problem, although as a mental exercise I pondered what I would do if I got rejected. Where would I go? What would I do? You can probably guess what would cross my mind, though.

In the same vein, when I visited this same monastery last year, there was another long term resident on a possible monastic path. Eventually, he asked if he could be ordained and they, in the most nicest, wisest, compassionate way, turned him down, telling him he wasn't ready.

It's incredible the insight these monks have. He didn't feel rejected at all, and in the end, he feels they were right. So becoming a monk isn't a shoo in. After however many months I'm here, I may ask what they think and they might also tell me the monastic path isn't for me, and I implicitly trust their insight. What I would do then is another discussion and I don't have time now since this internet cafe closes in fifteen minutes.

It's been an incredible two weeks. The first two weekends I was here, there were retreats, and I made some great, if temporary, connections with people passing through. Great conversations. I have more to say about that, too, but alas, no time. Next time I come to town, I'll try to come earlier.

November 1, 2004; 5:03 P.M.