Fearless Mountain Newsletter
Spring 2007 Articles
Peace, Peace From the Monastery Adventures of Me and I Anagarika Life Māra’s Desk Tales from Varapañño Calendar View Archive
Lee Mintz will have completed his year of anagarika training in April and is scheduled to take samanera ordination on April 22, 2007
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Having been asked to write a few words about my experience as an anagarika, I am reminded of last November, when Ajahn Thaniya gifted Abhayagiri with her kind presence. During the visit, I asked her for advice concerning the difficulties that occur in the first year of monastic training. In response, she said that the anagarika year is comparable to the Tibetan practice of 100,000 full-body prostrations. As an anagarika, I needed to learn to surrender with generosity and internally bow to any difficult experiences.
One major part of the anagarika training is observing the mind in response to the five major duties: cooking, driving, cleaning, digging, and shopping. As a layman, I was willing to do these tasks on my own terms—when I wanted to and in my own way. Key words: When, I, wanted, my and own. But training to be a bhikkhu means eliminating the clinging and craving empowering these words. Not learning this means dukkha, dukkha and more dukkha.
Being the kitchen manager for over a year forced me to come to grips with and go against many of my views and opinions, likes and dislikes. I had to choose my battles wisely and allow most preferences to recede into the background of the mind. Even when I wanted to prepare something besides the monotonous oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, I had to be prepared to bow: “Yes, Ajahn. Just oatmeal or cereal. I’ll put the french toast out for the main meal” (sob, sob, sob). And there was always someone in the kitchen doing something that I didn’t agree with: “I don’t think we need more dessert, what we need are more vegetables and more protein and more FRENCH TOAST!” Then there were specifics on which items should or should not be put on the dāna wish list or how the kitchen needed to be cleaned. In the end most of these issues were less important than I made them out to be. For as difficult as it is for me to admit (even now), the food was always good, there was always enough Page 2 of 3
dāna, and the kitchen was almost always spotless, even if my advice was not heeded. So I bowed. And I bowed again.
During the long afternoons, after my duties with the meal were at an end, I often decided to return to my kuti to “meditate” (translation: take a nap). That’s when I would hear, “Anagarika Lee, could you drive me into town and help me purchase some rigging equipment?” Or, “Anagarika Lee, could you sort through this timber pile for any usable lumber? It’s covered in rat feces.” Or, “Anagarika Lee, get ready for a twelve-hour afternoon work period and a midnight brick-laying party.” All the while my mind was saying, “But, what about returning to my kuti? But, what about my practice? But, what about MY NAP?” My response instead was to generously bow and say, “Yes, Ajahn.”
Recently, I admitted to Ajahn Amaro that I was often possessed with the need to burst into his office and plead with him to tell me that it gets easier, not to worry, that it would all be okay in a few years, or better yet, a few hours. His response was to repeat a favorite quotation of Ajahn Sumedho’s: “Oh please, tell me that you love me, even if it isn’t true, say it anyway.”
This training—it’s not about me, not about following my desires, my terms, or only working when I’m in the mood to do it. Sure, I can grumble, grumble, grumble all I like but never will I invent a ninth step in the path that outlines complaining one’s way to Nibbāna—although if anyone has a chance at this, I do! In fact, complaining out loud is especially dangerous to the anagarika. Believe it or not, it does happen . . . occasionally. Most of the time my fellow anagarikas, or the slightly more advanced samaneras, act as a mirror for my mind, reflecting its ego centered defilements. But sometimes the complaining mind is less contained and we commiserate together: “Life is so difficult for us newbies! The other day when I was Page 3 of 3
. . .” Grumble, grumble, grumble. I have to remind myself, even here, to bow, bow, bow.
Ajahn Sudanto and Samanera Kassapo often tease me by repeating: “It’s too difficult for me,” a phrase I often use when talking to my family on the phone or to other monastics when I’m having a bad day. And in fact, everything about that sentence is true except for the word “too,” because I’m able to bear the difficult. Even when I think I’m not bearing it, I’m bearing it. Eating little (or trying to eat less and sometimes feeling real hunger—Oh no!), sleeping little (the monastery schedule is designed to squeeze the feeling of self out of you—and apparently the sleep too), and talking little (observing the intention to give voice and refraining from speaking, counting words, purifying the tongue)—it’s difficult.
And that is life, isn’t it? Lay or monastic, it is just this: difficult, unfair, filled with ups and downs, losing or becoming attached to what one loves, not liking certain things. This is what the practice teaches us: there is suffering and it is to be understood. So one must bow and bow again to the difficult. One must face the uncompromising ego-driven defilements and learn to observe them, and then go against their grain, against the craving and clinging. We do this because it is in that space of recognition, bowing, and responding with wisdom and generosity that freedom from suffering may arise.
