It’s almost a month since I’ve been back at the monastery, supposedly as an aspirant, but I haven’t written my “letter of aspirancy” yet. They still don’t have a statement of my intentions here. If I go to the root monastery in France to really get into training as an aspirant, they don’t know what to tell the monastics there to give them an idea who I am or where I’m coming from. I haven’t written my letter because of distractions and doubts, but most of them have cleared out, and I think I’m ready to write that letter.

My doubts about the monastic path haven’t been helped by the community here, which has started to feel like a frontier monastery, way out in the wilderness, with saloons serving up shots of soy milk and law and order maintained by the sheriff-abbot. It is far removed from the “real deal” of the root monastery where Thich Nhat Hanh’s presence is enough to keep the monastic philosophy in line with the principles and ideals.

But I realize I’m not here to make friends or be chummy with the monks. We’re all here on our separate paths, bound by a common theoretical philosophy, but really what I’m doing on my path has little or nothing to do necessarily with what they’re doing on their path. The monastery is just a vehicle.

Furthermore, I’m not here looking towards ordination. That's just something I don't know, so I can't be worried or stressed about it, or even whether I’m here "sincerely" as an aspirant. I’m here. That’s the point. I came here to find out if I want to ordain. If I’m faltering this way and that, I’m still here trying to figure it out. If I fall off the path and leave, that’s when I know I shouldn’t be here and need to leave. Until then, all I need to remember is that I’m still here. I am neither thinking of ordaining or thinking of not ordaining.

I think the community here has taken me as far as they can as an aspirant. Now they just need my input to formulate, as a community, what they will tell the brothers in Plum Village for me to go there. I’m ready to go now, or as soon as I submit my letter, but I have a wedding to go to in July (not my own, I hope), so I might stick around here until then, and then fly directly to France after the wedding. There are a lot of possible options, though, so I won’t project on what might happen. I might fall completely off the path and go to Tucson or ex-pat in Taiwan for a while to find out if I’m really sure about ordaining.

On the monastic path, there is often what is called the “great doubt”, requiring “great determination” to get past it. The Plum Village system is much gentler and kinder and doesn’t phrase things as dramatically. Instead, the question an aspirant constantly faces is, “Are you sure?”. And it’s a pretty frightening question if you think about it, since it’s a decision for the rest of your life. Are you sure? Fuck no!, came the early reply. Now, it is more like, no, not yet.