This is probably about a 3 minute read.
If you don't have 3 minutes to spare, at least take 30 seconds and read the small section I highlighted.
I got strong jhāna just reading it - That's pamojja and pīti, the classic way to enter first jhāna, being inspired by skillful Dharma and exemplars of skillful Dharma.
excerpt from
https://amaravati.org/dhamma-books/the-real-practice/
1. Giving Yourself up to Things
Like many of you I would imagine I understood that becoming a monk would mean, in effect, becoming a professional meditator.
I believed that I would be able to spend many hours every day meditating, without having to make any compromises with the world around me, and without the pressures of having to support myself financially.
But when I came to Wat Nong Pah Pong, I discovered a whole dimension of monastic life that I hadn’t really conceived of before.
Although I’d spent some time with the Sangha in England, as a pa-kow1 it was really coming here into the heart of a Buddhist culture that allowed me to see the richness of the lifestyle, a way of life that had an unexpected beauty and nobility to it.
I spent my adolescence in a small town of some 15,000 people in the east of England.
It was a very provincial environment in which I often felt the odd one out and developed a strong desire to find a peer group, a group of people that I could identify with and associate with.
The group that seemed most in line with my ideas, my values and my personality seemed to be that of the hippies, or the freaks as they sometimes called themselves.
And so my interest in Buddhism, eastern thought, Yoga, and my fascination and pull towards the hippy movement all led me on the overland trail to India.
It didn’t take me long to become disillusioned with my chosen peer group.
I think the last straw occurred as I was sitting in a little cafe on a beach in Goa a month or so after my arrival in India.
A French guy walked into the restaurant.
He was a ‘costume hippy’, complete with very long hair and hennaed eyes, and a white waist coat, a short dhoti, and a large string of beads around his neck.
He held a knobbly walking stick, and he carried with him a carved chillum from Karnataka and hashish from Manali.
He had the whole thing down perfectly.
He looked rather like I wanted to look.
He sat down on the other side of the restaurant and after some time I remember him, obviously irritated, shouting at the little boy who was running from table to table, rushed off his feet, ‘Hey baba, I ordered my chips twenty minutes ago! Where are they!’ It occurred to me at that moment, I’m not seeing anything different here than I’ve seen anywhere else, in any other group of people.
Different clothes, same mindset.
I became even more of a loner, and gave up on the peer group idea.
So initially in Oakenholt, and especially at Wat Nong Pah Pong I was surprised to discover the peer group that I had been looking for.
The feeling arose that:
Yes, this is a group of people, this is a form, this is a structure, this is a way of life that I want to be part of.
Here is a kind of community that will bring out the best in me, and one in which I can very easily see myself spending the rest of my life.
I immediately stopped looking at entrance into monastic life as simply taking advantage of an excellent vehicle for personal growth, and saw it much more as an opportunity to surrender myself to a form that I found truly uplifting.
I can remember so vividly the first time that I put on my robe as a novice, the first time I went on alms round – these are memories of an incredible sense of pride and achievement.
It felt so good simply to be part of all this.
I can remember thinking that whatever would happens in my life in future, 5 good or bad, nobody could take this away from me.
I’d worn this robe at least once.
Even if I was to have a heart attack on my way to the village or be bitten by a poisonous snake or fall into an elephant trap or whatever, my life hadn’t been in vain.
Just getting this far was a wonderful achievement.
I felt the most intense sense of good fortune.
And that feeling has never left me.
It might not always be so strong, it waxes and wanes, but it’s always there in the background of my mind.
And for me it’s such an inspiring reflection that I’m wearing robes that don’t differ significantly from the robes worn by the Buddha himself, by Venerable Sariputta, by Venerable Moggalana and all the great disciples.
And the way which all of us live our lives does not depart significantly from the way that Buddhist monks have lived for the past two thousand years.
Yes, there are modern developments, and in certain ways life is more comfortable and convenient these days, but in the essentials there is a very strong sense of connection and lineage.
frankk comment
I highly recommend anyone who's serious about their Buddhist practice, at least once in your life, do at least a temporary ordinaton for an extended period (3 months, 6 months, 3 years, etc...) in a community you find inspiring.
You'll get what Ajahn Jayasaro is talking about in the section I highlighted, and it may light the fire that sends you irreversibly toward a path leading to nirvana.
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