When I tell my two boys that I was a monk, it sounds like a thing of the past. Actually, I am still a monk, and much of what I started years ago still continues. My home and garden are my monastery.
To be sure, I have shed the trappings of a monk. Most of the appearances of a monk are long gone, but much of the internal monk remains. The monk is still a persistent part of me. Situations and activities of a monk show up in my dreams, and the feelings, especially anxieties, of that life hover inside me when I wake. Some things go on and on, and some of them my memory holds too well.
I notice that I have a certain affinity or soft spot for the images of monasteries. I clearly have turned away from and have little connection with images of religion. There is little of the idolatry left in me. I cannot easily sing the words, even though I love the spirit of the music. The sound of chant stirs a whole litany of sensory associations. I easily move into the smell of beeswax and incense, the feel of cloth and wood, the sight of dimly lit walls.
I think that the inner energy of a monk is still part of me. As much as I enjoy the company of my companions, I still seek the feeling of complete isolation. Perhaps it is this part of me that I neglected for so many years and why I found it hard to live with someone else.
I still find myself constantly exploring my inner life. I now recognize that I am someone who wants to live in and explore the unseen and unknown. I am so grateful that I am learning to make friends with my body because it is such an integral part of my plunge into the inner me. Who knew that my body would be a gateway into a world I have wanted to enter for so many years. What I was seeking has not been outside me, but inside and part of me.
It has been a struggle as I attempt to put aside much of what society has taught me and given me. I am trying to be selective about the use of tools, inventions and technologies of my culture. Some of them are quite useful, but I choose not to be attached to them.
I doubt so much of what I have simply accepted as true for many years. The values I have embraced are no longer what they seemed. So much is a product of someone’s imagination. I am much happier now that I try to accept a life of uncertainty. I am embracing a free-fall into the unknown. That, for me, is the life of a monk.