To become a Buddhist Monk?

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The other day I decided to get ordained as a Buddhist monk. I figured, though, that before embarking on such an irrevocable course of action maybe spending a day in the life would be a worthwhile endeavor. Fortunately Korea offers just such a service: 24 hours of eating, sleeping, and meditating like a monk.
I quickly found out that being a monk isn’t all about living the high life of enlightenment and inner peace. Monks spend decades struggling to eliminate suffering and other intrusions of the outside world. On a more practical level, they can’t blow off steam by attending the occasional soccer match; theirs is a life of sobriety and celibacy. Into this cauldron of mayhem and madness (naturally waged deep within the cerebral cortex), my friends and I temporarily but forcibly flung ourselves.
Even before my entrée into the world of dharma and bodhisattvas began, I received my first lesson in Buddhism. We stepped out of the subway station, and my friend Tom proceeded to ask a cab driver for directions to the bus stop. Naturally, the cabbie beckoned us inside his vehicle and waving four fingers, told us that he would take us to the temple himself. Upon further investigation in garbled Korean, I realized that the four did not refer to four thousand won (four dollars U.S.), but forty thousand (I trust you to do the math.). We immediately and vociferously voiced our rejection of the ride. The cabbie obediently made an intersection a bit later on and returned to the same site from which we embarked. After expending a bit of time and money, we ended up exactly where we started. To our stupefaction, the bus ticket vendor was located in the exact spot where we originally flagged the cab. Going in circles and getting nowhere is likely how the monk views those who live in the secular world. A world of sound and fury, ultimately signifying nada.
Without further delays we took the bus and finally a cab (a more reasonable distance) to the Lotus Lantern International Meditation Center (only the name is new age). As soon as we entered, we received clothes, which my friend Sandra referred to as capries: a grey vest and pair of pants that were far more comfortable than anything I wear in civilian life. Following a three-DVD introduction to Buddhism in the silent reading room (obviously less than silent), the workout began.
We learned in no particular order how to sit, how to pray, how to chant, and how to do prostrations. The sitting was the most taxing for me. I hadn’t endured so much Indian-style sitting since I was a cute little five-year-old in Mrs. Putter’s kindergarten class. Later on, a Russian monk told us about the various ways that Buddhists monks in other countries sit on their prayer mats. I very nearly started to salivate when I heard the word “chair” as a possible option in some locales. However, with an astounding displaying of inner strength, I sat and sat and sat. Among the several prayer sessions scattered over the 24-hour period, the most difficult one involved 108 consecutive prostrations. You put your hands together in the traditional Buddhist greeting and proceed to lie down with only your forehead, elbows and knees touching the mat. Then you lift yourself up, first halfway and then back to the standing position. Then you do it all over again. I was going to count the number of times I did it, but lost track after six. I was fairly sure that number 108 was actually number 1008. Three days later my legs, if not the opinions of my friends, are in accordance with my calculations.
Another challenging part of being a monk is the wake-up call: 3:45. No, that’s not P.M. This is not Buddhism, Homer Simpson style. There was no chance of not waking up, however. The banging of the drum would surely have woken up the dead. Conveniently with reincarnation, there is no such thing. Making matters worse for me, I had barely slept. We had a 9:30 curfew but the combination of a pillow stuffed with rock-hard beans, an exceedingly hot floor (the famous Korean ondol), and my normal state of restlessness and anxiety contributed to a night of perhaps three hours of fitful sleep. Still it did feel good to be up and accomplishing things so early in the morning. We did our prostrations first thing, then some chanting and meditation, all before a reasonable 6 AM breakfast, which was an exercise in complexity and high expectations all by itself.
We each were assigned responsibilities for part of the food. I was the giver of the hot water. Amazingly I didn’t spill a drop on anyone. At least no one had the heart to tell me. We each had a set of tablecloths, utensil holders, and bowls that we wrapped up in a neat bow prior to the meal. Actually, everyone else wrapped his or hers up really (or at least somewhat) neatly. When we rewrapped them at the conclusion of the meal, the Russian monk immediately pointed to mine, and said, “That’s bleeping terrible!” Of course, he didn’t say, “bleeping.” He actually reached out to my mind telepathically and said something much worse, but children may be reading this. I was also convinced for a moment that the monk was going to strike my shoulder or back with his wooden stick that he periodically banged to signal the start of a new phase of the ceremony. Fortunately, he satisfied himself with simply the harsh words and proceeded to retie my package far more elegantly.
At the conclusion of the meal, the moment of high expectations was upon us. We had to clean all bowls and utensils, using the hot water that I so generously poured, until they were spotless. We then drank the bowl with hot water and remnants of food, leaving us with a bowl of cold water that could not contain a speck of impurity. One at a time, we poured that bowl into a larger bowl and finally it traveled to the monk who diligently inspected it. Predictably, the monk shook his head and muttered that he had never seen such a dirty bowl of water. Again, more telepathic expletives flowed into my head. I would become a monk for that power alone. He said it was now likely that the gods were going to exact their vengeance on humanity. Acknowledging my partial responsibility for the matter, I have begun to carry around placards warning people. Humanity should at least be prepared.
I learned many things about Buddhism at the temple, some things rather unexpected. The abbot, the head monk, interrupted a tea and chat we were having to answer his cell phone. It was not the first time our lessons were interrupted by the ringing of a phone. In answer to a query about what monks talk about, the Russian monk answered, “Mostly work stuff.” Presumably that includes stuff like who gets to dump the manure on the field and who gets to deal with all the annoying foreigners’ questions (the Russian monk because he spoke the best English). However, he also mentioned that the monks surf the web as part of their study. He didn’t exactly say that they went to the local pub to cheer for Real Madrid or Manchester United, but clearly monks in the twenty-first century are not as cloistered as they once were. In fact, many abbots drive around in BMWs because you know sometimes you just need to get somewhere in style.
As for the core concepts of Buddhism, I don’t profess to have any great knowledge on the subject. Our guide told us about an intriguing concept called the “hwadu”. The hwadu is a practice of communication that is so profound that it cannot be discerned by logic or reason, nor with words of any kind. It is a state that one enters where one goes beyond the linguistic and reaches a level of pure thought. It is there that the struggle to eliminate suffering can occur. As for me, I don’t think my thirty-minute one-off meditative experience will eliminate suffering, especially since it was a rather incomplete experience. Our guide told us to count from one to ten over and over again to improve our concentration. For me, the task was almost insurmountably difficult. I would reach three and already be thinking about friends, or money, or I how I am going to bring about world peace. Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he? Eventually I did engage in moments without thoughts, but they were fleeting and rudely interrupted by reality. I am contemplating doing mediations on my own. I would use a chair, of course. The key is to stay perfectly still in body and then the mind will follow. Wish me luck with that one.
This crash course in Buddhism provided little opportunity for contemplation of what it was all about. We were too busy sitting, learning how to prepare breakfast, doing calligraphy and doing more sitting to really think about the beauty of where we were and what we were gaining from the experience. Perhaps if the momentum faded, they thought we would lose interest (and heaven forbid try to catch up on sleep). In the process we did learn an enormous amount about Buddhism and the mind. Mostly we learned how far away we were from accomplishing our goals. The rewards are priceless, but the journey to gain them requires sacrificing everything you have. The monks may have cell phones and cars, but they are still very much within themselves. The life is one of complete predictability and constancy. As one example, the meals never vary. I imagine after a while the craving for egg McMuffins goes away, but once you’ve had Kentucky Fried Chicken, how can you live the rest of your life without it?
All in all, I don’t think I’m quite ready yet for the plunge into Buddhahood. Perhaps in the next life I will become closer to making such a fateful decision. I believe that among other creatures, I have been a butterfly and a bumblebee in past lives. I have already come such a long way. Buddhism would be the ultimate step, allowing my mind to go places to which it has never been and find the contentment we all crave. It is a tempting proposition, but maybe not just yet. I am not quite ready to reconcile myself to a life without fried chicken, Domino’s pizza and ice cream sundaes. I would miss that oh-so-sweet maraschino cherry more than I could bear.

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