Considering becoming a Buddhist monk. Looking for advice.

[Ninja_pig]

Hello everyone, a little bit of relevant background:

• I'm 22 years old, and I have been watching Leo since I was around 14 or 15.
• When I was 20, I spent a month at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand in between semesters in college. It was a theravada Buddhist monastery, and they were basically running a program for foreigners like me to experience being a monk. (Here is the link to their website if anyone is interested. Ihttps://monklifeproject.com/ I would highly reccomend this program to anyone on this forum. There many wise master meditators here that you can learn a lot from.)
• In college, I studied physics and mathematics. Right now I'm serving as a peace corps volunteer in Guinea teaching 8th grade math.
• I have had many awakening experiences, all except 1 from psychedelics such as dmt, mushrooms, and weed.

So if you can't tell, I'm very passionate and serious about spirituality. I watched so much of Leo's channel during middle school and high school that he's basically a father figure to me. It was his work that inspired me to go to the Buddhist monastery and take psychedelics. Now I have made a lot of progress I think, but I'm really torn as to how to live my life going forward.

The routine at the Buddhist monastery came down to wake up, meditate, do chores, eat breakfast, meditate, eat lunch, meditate, take a break, meditate, go to sleep. This routine was extremely effective for me. Never before had I achieved such a level of of peace, innocence, consciousness, and meditation skill. I basically told myself that I would come back once I had "burned through one piece of karma", if you will. That karma was getting a PhD in physics.

At the end of college though, I did not apply to graduate school because I thought there was little chance of me getting in, and also even if I did get in I felt as though I was not prepared for graduate school. I did not want to get a normal job so now I'm doing Peace Corps.

Doing peace corps and having some time away from academia, and reading some great books on spirituality, I am starting to feel a greater and greater desire to live a monastic lifestyle again. That combined with an extremely deep religious experience I had a couple months ago has really got me seriously considering spending the better part of my twenties with a guru or at a monastery whether thay be theravada Buddhist, zen, or maybe even Christian. I have recently been moving away from the idea of going to graduate school for physics, as I have been learning on my own through textbooks and online resources and have made substantial progress. So I have decided I don't need academia to learn physics to a satisfactory level for me.

So what's the problem? Why don't I just go to a monastery? Basically, it's because I have a girlfriend whom I feel is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me. I had applied to peace corps before the relationship started and then we were dating for about 6 months before I left. Now we are doing long distance, and I have been in long term relationships before but I have never felt so close to someone like this before. I didn't really understand the concept of marriage but now it makes sense to me.

So I basically don't want to lose this relationship by becoming a monk for probably a long time. I really don't know if that's wise or not because I feel like she is the love of my life, but shouldn't I persue my life's purpose over that? I just feel like relationships like this only come once in a life time. She loves me so much too, how could I do that to her?

I know many of you will now say that I can persue spirituality without leaving society and abandoning my relationship, but I disagree. I personally think it takes a huge commitment to make real progress spirituality. 2 hours a day of meditation is like doing 30 pushup every day and expecting to get ripped. I mean, 30 pushups will definitely allow you to make progress, but not that much. I think that to really make a lot of progress you have to be fully committed, focusing almost completely on that one goal. I'm saying this based off of my own experience. That's why I want to live that lifestyle mostly only available to a recluse or a monk.

What if the relationship ends for some reason? Well then that simplifies things a lot for me. I can just persue the monastic lifestyle because at that point I wouldn't really have anything super value to lose.

If I choose not to pursue the monastic life I will pursue a career in engineering probably and try to make enough money to retire at a young age like 35 or 40. At that point I can devote all my time go learning physics and meditation. Although if I did that I wouldn't have the expert instruction of experienced monks or a guru. 

So basically just looking for if anyone has any advice on how I should make a choice like this or can point out something I'm not considering. 

TLDR: I want to become a monk for a long time but I don't want to give up my relationship. 

[PenguinPablo]

Crazy you have explored these topics since middle school. It wasn't really until I graduated high school that I started to get into this stuff. Nevertheless, you will need to survive somehow. So be very smart about not piling on debt (student loans etc...) otherwise you'll get more stuck in societies traps. 

[r0ckyreed]

Sounds like your girlfriend is part of your life purpose; otherwise, you would have no problem leaving her. If a relationship isn’t your life purpose, then why do you have a girlfriend? To distract yourself? To have a dopamine hit and some sex? No. You said it yourself, you are considering marriage. There is no problem with you doing spirituality with your girlfriend. Hell, sex is one of the best meditations there is. It gets you so in the moment and out of ego. I heard that a monk even got enlightened when he gave up meditation and had sex.

[Raze]

Just become a monk after the relationship ends, you can practice as a layman in the mean time.

Edited December 15 by Raze

[ryoko]

Hey, we're the same age. I've had multiple awakenings, never touched a substance, doesn't follow any guru. If you haven't guessed, I'm from India, lucky in that regard. But doesn't matter where you're from, it's still a lot of work. 

I've known Leo when I was 16, and have found his content absurd/low consciousness at that point. But I've seen him grow over the years. I've only recently started spending time with all the important topics like Spiral Dynamics, like a year or two ago. I still find a lot of his content absurd. But hey, I can understand why it would be so. No judgement. It's just biases of where he lives in, societal karma. Just saying, you probably have the same blindspot and it's alright, I'll help out there a bit. 

What do I do? I'm basically a dropout, my goal at 19 was to pursue everything I have an affinity for, find out what works best for me. Not gonna spoil further. In short, my life unfolds in ways I've never planned and the way it unfolds is always something I could have never planned for. My point being, if you're living the high life, you can't predict what you'll become in the next 5 years, the journey is insanely rewarding. So it's absurd to think you'll postpone something till you're 40. 

I'm gonna answer your question based on everything you said.

I can see your appeal for monkhood. Here's how I see it, if green doesn't happen you wanna go back to the stability of our Orange society. Not a bad "plan". But I have a feeling the Green won't happen well. Because you still wanna pursue Orange.  And have strong roots in there. I'm pretty sure the people you know doesn't want you to be a monk, as much as you want it. 

Should you exhaust orange more or move on to grow further? The answer is totally up to you. If you have the means, take more time and try out everything. 

And I can already see you don't like the prospect of a normal job, and that's something commendable. But I'm lost here since you said you'd go into engineering. Again, all or nothing, huh?

----

Thoughts on monkhood.

Don't be a monk in an organisation. It's just a monk businesses and learning Buddhism, beleive me you'll be disappointed fast. 

Be an independent monk, yeah, the real thing. Go full on, there's many who practice "Narmada Parikrama" and similar stuff. This only lasts a few months, it's about walking, long distance as a monk and being one with the nature, culture. You mostly stay in stranger's houses, food is mostly at the grace of strangers. And you should see the faces of these monks. Meditation can't hold a candle to this. This journey often transforms their whole life and life takes on an entirely different direction. 

[Ninja_pig]

@PenguinPablo I could probably go to a monastery for many years without accruing any debt. The challenge would be that I would have no career experience by the end of it so I would have to work a low skill job for a while probably. That or I would just have to remain a monk indefinitely. 

@r0ckyreed Sex itself isn't a big motivator for me. It's more the connection and love that our relationship offers. Maybe it could be spirituality beneficial, but would it compare to years of hardcore meditation?

@ryoko I didn't want a normal job when I got out of college, and I would go into engineering because it pays well and is something I'd be reasonably good at and enjoy. The main purpose of pursuing any career for me would be to make enough money so that I wouldn't have to work any more and thus have total freedom to work on less monetizable pursuits. 

The last time I stayed in a monastery it was an extremely positive experience for me. It was a community of master meditators who were all there trying to help each other along on the journey. Yes, they indoctrinate you into the dogma of theravada buddhism, but the focus is always on meditation, practice over theory. I think it is actually the optimal environment for spiritual growth because you can focus almost completely on only meditation. I knew monks who would meditate for 10 hours a day, which would be hard if you were a solo monk and you had to worry about doing alms every day just to eat. Naramada parikrama sounds interesting though. I will look into it.

[ryoko]

@Ninja_pig I get it, Engineering is actually fun, I do like it. I was just verifying if it was a purely money based decision. Glad you have an affinity for it. 

About Narmada Parikrama. Tell me what you think about it. I think you'll find more info from people who actually do it.  Checkout RaghuRaahi's instagram page. 

P.S - this is that time of the year, to go parikrama, we're a bit late. 

Edited December 15 by ryoko

[ryoko]

More info:

https://m.youtube.com/@WalkingwithaSadhu/videos

 

 

[gettoefl]

Monastic life is good second half of life maybe.

Going far in the world and relationships the first half of life.

Make your mark in the world first.

You will have lots of career opportunities now but later on this will dry up.

Spirituality is better when integrated into daily life.

You should maintain a social media presence so like-minded people can connect with you.

[ryoko]

I disagree. @gettoefl
Monastic life is much better.

Monastic life is the one of the real ways to go intense on whatever you value.
You can't solve a problem from the same level of mind that created it.

[Terell Kirby]

Do it! Youth is everything.