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What's it like for a young man to leave behind the freedoms of the world and go forth into the disciplined simplicity of monasticism? Fearless Mountain assistant editor Kathryn Guta interviewed Samanera Obhaso, 20 (left image), and Anagarika Chris Bradley 30 (right image), to gather reflections on their entry into the holy life.



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Fearless Mountain: What were your lives like before coming to the monastery?

Anagarika Chris: After high school, I got a degree in English literature. I didn't have any clear career aspirations, so I decided to do some traveling. I spent the summer in Ireland, seven months in India, and a year in Japan. After my traveling adventures, I decided to go to nursing school. I graduated three years later with my bachelor's in nursing and took a job for two years working with aboriginal people in northern Manitoba. Then I decided to come to Abhayagiri.

Samanera Obhaso: After I graduated from high school, I found myself in college. I wasn't really that interested and stayed for only four weeks. And then I wrote to Abhayagiri asking to come here. I am from a nonreligious family and wasn't ever really interested in religion-in fact, I felt somewhat antagonistic towards religion-yet I was curious about Buddhism.

FM: What were your interests in high school?

SO: I was interested in music concerts, particularly punk rock. I also did a bit of public speaking and debate.

FM: Were you interested in religion when you were a kid, Anagarika Chris?

AC: Yes, I went to church from ages five to fourteen, and then I went to a Jesuit high school. I attended all kinds of churches. I was keen to go to church, but since my parents weren't religious, I went along with friends. My family only went to church with me when I dragged them on Christmas Eve.

FM: Did you find some churches more compelling than others?

AC: I liked them all. I was baptized an Anglican when I was a baby. Then Page 2 of 7

I went to a Presbyterian church until I was about seven. From seven to ten, I went to an Anglican church in Ontario. When we moved to Winnipeg, I went to a Pentecostal Church until I was twelve. My parents did not like the Pentecostals. It was too evangelical. So they presented me with a plan that we could go together to the United Church (an amalgam of Presbyterian and Methodist). I was confirmed in the United Church when I was fourteen. I really liked that church. Later, at the Jesuit high school, I had many questions about the religious doctrine. It seemed to me that conventional Christianity was not comfortable with ambiguity. I was taught that there was a clear right and wrong. For example, some priests are very hard line on abortion, and some are really soft on it. Yet I was told that it was an absolute truth that abortion was wrong. Or I was taught that unbaptized people who had never encountered the teachings of Christianity would go to hell. I just couldn't believe that.

FM: How did you two first encounter Buddhism?

SO: For me, it was an intellectual curiosity about different religions. Especially since I had been very antagonistic towards religion, I thought I should get to know more about it. When I learned about Buddhism, it seemed like a clear-cut way to approach life. First of all, there is suffering. I could check this out and feel it for myself. Second of all, there is a cause for suffering that I could see. The teaching applied to my own life and what I was feeling at the time.
FM: What books had you read about Buddhism?

SO: I felt drawn to the Theravadin because it wasn't so devotional. Jack Kornfield's books were the only Theravadin books available in western Kansas. One or two stuck out on the back shelf of a book store. Then the idea of Thailand naturally occurred. I wrote to Wat Umong in Chiang Mai. There was an old German monk who wrote back and said I Page 3 of 7

couldn't train there because he was the only monk who spoke English and he was too old to train me. He suggested Abhayagiri and gave me the website address. Later, it turned out that no one at Abhayagiri had ever heard of the German monk.

AC: When I was twenty-two, I went to India to travel. I did a meditation retreat at Bodh Gaya with Michael Kewley. I learned a lot about myself on that retreat. I had always been interested in meditation but until that first retreat, I had never done it. I went on retreat because it seemed to be the thing to do in India. I also decided to not eat meat and not drink alcohol and not use toilet paper. So I was having fun in India and trying new things.

FM: So going on retreat was part of your "India Experience"?

AC: It was the most profound experience I have ever had before or since. I was ready to learn about myself. After the retreat, having been so affected by the experience, I wondered if I should become a monk. However, it seemed like a ridiculous idea at the time. Monasticism was too removed from everything I knew in life. I decided that I would get to know Buddhism better and moved to Japan to teach English. When I returned to Winnipeg at age twenty-four, I got acquainted with a meditation group that was associated with the monks at Abhayagiri. I met Ajahn Pasanno when he visited our sitting group, and then asked if I could spend the summer of '98 at Abhayagiri. Ordination was a gradual process of unfolding.

FM: How was it for you, Tan Obhaso, coming to live at Abhayagiri having only read about Buddhism and having been quite antagonistic to religions in the past?

SO: I felt surprisingly comfortable, intrigued and at ease with the form and the community. I was disillusioned with college. I didn't want a job. At the monastery, I found something I was interested in and felt a connection with.

FM: Page 4 of 7

What were you planning on majoring in at college.

SO: Philosophy, political science and a minor in women's studies. I was pretty ambitious.

FM: How have your parents responded to your choice to enter monastic life?

AC: My mom is supportive, but she would rather I would go on to become a nurse practitioner. Through my twenties, I broke my parents in pretty well. I traveled to India, took up vegetarianism and went into nursing as a guy. All these things are foreign to my family context. I also meditated and did retreats for the last six or seven years. So they knew I was interested. After I spent the summer here four years ago, I told my mom I might need to spend more time in a monastery just to be sure. She was prepared, and I think that as a result, she is handling it really well. She's quite supportive.

FM: And your father?

AC: They're divorced. My dad and I have been somewhat estranged for about ten years. In the last five years, we have been getting a bit closer, talking a bit more. It was a wonderful surprise when he wrote me a beautiful letter a couple of months ago filled with personal reminiscences. It was something I had never received from him before.

FM: So your interest in the monastic life brought about a greater closeness with your father?

AC: I think the context was that I was doing something that was true to me, and he related to that. While I don't think my father is interested in Buddhism, he offered me some fatherly advice, which he hadn't done before. It was genuine and beautiful. I've talked to my parents about my interest in ordination in a secular sense-as in, "It's a way of understanding the world. When the mind gets more concentrated, and mindfulness increases, it makes experience more rich." I haven't talked to them in the sense of it being religious at all. I think they can relate to the psychological aspect of Buddhism. Page 5 of 7



FM: How about your parents, Tan Obhaso?

SO: I haven't been as skillful as Chris.

AC: I've had more time!

SO: I think I spent most of my teen years preparing my parents for some pretty horrible outcome for my future. I found school very easy, so my parents had a lot of expectations and hopes. I was not interested in high school. I barely passed physical education. I did not hang out with the average farm kids. They were disappointed. They are not really excited about a religious path, especially a non-Christian path. Being from western Kansas, there are all these horrible perceptions about California. They feel unsure about what I am doing.

FM: Have they visited you here?

SO: They did. It's difficult because, even though my parents are divorced, they are still family oriented. It's hard for them to understand not wanting to have contact. For them it's important for us all to spend time together as a family. I'm an only child.

FM: How do you look at renunciation? How is it to give up entertainment, relationships, lovers?

SO: I've never been interested in drinking or partying. I had just moved to a college town and didn't have a relationship or a lot of friendships. I wasn't giving up a whole lot. The hardest thing to give up is music. There's still a juke box in my head.

FM: Sometimes you turn it on?

SO: Sometimes I can shut it off. [Laughter]

FM: How about your breakfast cereal? I understand you have a thing for Cocoa Puffs.

SO: I enjoy eating a lot. That was a major pastime of mine. At the monastery, I found out that I am affected by the environment and the atmosphere. When you are not in the kitchen or hanging around areas where there is food, the sa––a (perception) is not there, and it's not a problem. In fact, the Ajahns have been after me to eat more!
I find that living in the forest and Page 6 of 7

without the environmental triggers-not being around friends with the restless energy of always looking for something to do or not being affected by advertisements-I feel more relaxed and present. It's kind of involuntary. It's not really a conscious effort. The setting puts you in that space. The container of the community is really important.

AC: For me, it's been a process. I'd been a student for so long, and I've never had a lot of material possessions. When I moved up to northern Manitoba on a reserve, there was one television station, no movie theaters, nothing to do but go for walks and throw stones into the lake. I've been thinking about monasticism since my first retreat when I was twenty-two. It's been in the back of my mind.
Giving up entertainment and relationships is OK. It's more difficult to give up views and opinions. As far as wearing white sheets and shaving my head, it's OK in this context. Not having a stereo is fine in a monastic context. It's not hard to do that. But when I was living in the world, not drinking alcohol with my friends was difficult because the context was different. The monastery is supportive of renunciation. It's not really that hard. FM: Do you ever get hungry for food in the afternoon?

AC: I desire chocolate and that kind of thing more than I did as a layperson. That's just the object of craving. There are so few outlets to direct that towards here. When I was out in the world I could pick up a newspaper, have a coffee, watch TV or call up a friend. And now where does it go?

FM: Do you eat a lot of chocolate when it's allowable?

AC: I decided not to eat chocolate, and it's OK. I've made a firm decision. In the world it's encouraged to indulge your cravings. It's hard to restrain yourself. Whereas here, the momentum is in exactly the opposite direction. There is a lot more support in following restraint here.

FM: Well, that's Page 7 of 7

encouraging. Many people are fearful of not satisfying their cravings.

AC: It's important to pay attention to the times when there is no craving-noticing that happiness and contentment don't depend on chocolate, stereo or TV. There's a great Pali word called nekkhamma. It's often translated as renunciation, but it really means an effulgence or richness within yourself-having the contentment underneath. If I renounce chocolate, it can be interpreted in a negative light implying that I don't want it or that it's bad. Nekkhamma suggests that there is enough right here. One day I hope to know this for myself
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