Undercover Monk

“It is futile to travel to other dusty countries, thus forsaking your own seat.” - Dogen

Sometimes I imagine myself as an undercover monk.

I’ll get to that in a moment. First, I’d like to talk about one of the biggest words in the English language, perhaps THE biggest word--and it‘s only two letters long.

That word is ‘if.’

It's a tiny word, and yet it is big enough to screen out the entire universe. It obscures our sight like a blindfold, putting up a smokescreen against the truth.

And it's blindfold we put on ourselves.

If they'd just stop putting things on my plate, I wouldn't feel swamped at work.

I'd exercise more if I had more time

If he could get his anger out of control, none of this would be a problem.

Those ifs distract us from the heart of what we are saying:

I feel swamped at work.

I'm not excercising.

This is a problem.

I play the same if game with my spiritual training. I fantasize about becoming a monk. If I was a monk, I think, my training would be so much better.

Why aren’t I a monk? Why more ‘if’s, of course.

If the monastery were closer. If my nephews were older. If the meditation group here didn’t need me and if I could get my visa situation figured out and if maybe there was an exception in the monastic vows where I could be a monk but also still have sex whenever I want with whoever I want and maybe tell dirty jokes in a comedy club and go salsa dancing once in a while…

Look! People would say as I led my partner into a turn while my robes swirled around me. A dancing monk. He’s serene and wise, but also funny, exciting and a little bit sexy. He’s a living example of how Zen Buddhists can be relevant to contemporary fast-paced modern life while still remaining grounded in centuries of tradition. We should train too!

If I were a monk,

If.

I’m not a monk.

The monastery is not closer.

My nephews are the age they are. They are getting older by the moment, but so am I.

I can’t be celibate and sexually active at the same time.

For the longest time, I convinced myself that those things were obstacles, and I was right. But I was right in a different way than I believed.

I believed that my distance from the monastery and monks meant I didn’t get access to the kind of teaching that would really help my training. I believed that until I became a monk myself and was able to live a life free from distractions, I might as well not bother.

I trained, but my efforts were always stitched through with a subtle thread of hopelessness. To me, training was like stand-up comedy--if you really want to be among the best, you have to be willing to give up everything else. I wasn’t doing that, so there was no hope of me reaching the heights I wanted for myself. And if I couldn’t be among the best, what was the point of doing it at all?

At a certain point I came to the realization that if I was serious about training, I was going to have to be my own monk.

Monks aren’t special because they’re special. Monks are special because they are no different from the rest of us. They’re human beings--subject to birth, old age, sickness, and death--and they’ve decided to train anyway.

If they can train, we can train. If they can be a living example, then so can the rest of us.

It’s not about the robes and the monastery. It’s about the mind.

In volume 1 of Roar of the Tigress, Reverend Master Jiyu says: “Love God, do your own training; love the Cosmic Buddha, do your own training. Love Allah, do your own training.”

Maybe that same idea applies as much to the material as it does to the spiritual. Maybe the idea extends to our every experience: Love your family; do your own training. Find your job frustrating; do your own training.

Which brings me to Undercover Monk.

It’s a thought experiment, more than anything. I imagine that I’m a monk, but I have to keep that a  secret. I’m not allowed robes or a monastery. I’m not allowed to tell anyone I’m a monk, and my training has to happen in secret. I’m assigned my job and my relationships and I have to go about those things as best I can. I need to pass a lay person while training as a monk.

How what such a monk behave? If I were in such a position--cut off from the monastery and deep behind enemy lines--how would I train and be an example of training in the world, without blowing my cover?

I think of those things and try and do that.

(This is a revised and updated version of a post that was originally published on October 30, 2014)