Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

The key word in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition is “mindfulness”. We practice mindfulness and live mindfully. That means everything we do is done consciously and with appreciation. Some people go through entire days mindlessly and without a thought to what a gift this life is. When a pain in our legs hampers our walking, then we pay attention to our legs and our walking, but when our legs are healthy, we don’t pay any attention to them. They just work for us like they were our slaves. When our lungs are healthy, we don’t pay attention to our breathing, but if you have had asthma, you know what it’s like not being able to take breathing for granted. The starting point of the training here is that not even walking and breathing are taken for granted, and mindful walking and mindful breathing are the very start of the training.

But the training here is practice, not perfection, and I’ve seen what some monks are working on. One monk from England had a six members of his family visit, and he got so preoccupied with making sure everything was just right for them that he was flustered and distracted. Jokes were completely lost on him because his mind was somewhere other than the present moment, obsessing about things he had no control over. You can’t really fault him, family will do that to you, but it was interesting watching it.

Another monk who used to be a Roman Catholic priest is aware of what he’s working on, that he needs to “let it go!” He’s a control freak when there’s a job to get done, and I saw him in action on community work day. All that week prior, I had been working pleasantly in mindfulness side by side with him, sanding and sealing the new wood of the Meditation Hall. But when a lot of people were there and control was necessary and directions had to be given, I had to shut him out and do my own thing, or else I would have been caught in his habit energy. It was like he was a completely different person.

For me, it’s money issues that make me lose my mindfulness, so I know what it’s like. I probably put too much concern into whether or not Earthlink didn’t charge me after I cancelled internet service. And I noticed my thoughts going wiggy when I found out I had to pay the full guest price at the monastery until I was officially accepted as an aspirant. The rest of my afternoon was filled with thoughts about my bank account getting low and figuring out at what point I’d have to leave and still have a comfortable margin to figure out what to do next. It became an assumption that I’d be leaving. It was the end of any thoughts of being an aspirant. The money was going to run out and I had to leave well before that happened.

The train of thought itself was damage done. The thoughts were like dominoes falling, and even though I recognized what was going on and started countering it right away, I know I’m still repairing thought damage. I think the guy who runs the office (not a monastic) was uncomfortable bringing the topic of payment up with me, and there may be reasons why he might have thought it would be a touchy subject. But the first thing I started doing was making him comfortable, our acquaintance wasn’t going to be compromised, if I have to pay, I’ll pay.

So I have my sights on the issue, but there are a lot of feelings associated with money issues that I can’t control. Part of me is doing a mantra like “let it go!”, but mine is “let the money run out”. Let go of the money. Go ahead, hit rock bottom. Screw fiscal responsibility! And once I do that, I can be more comfortable with the calculations, knowing some decision will be made before I do actually hit rock bottom. Either I’ll leave here with just barely enough buffer to get started in secular life again, or I’ll stay and it won’t matter if I run out of money. Of course, at some unknown point, I’m supposed to be declared an aspirant, at which point I wouldn’t have to pay further. But all of this is theory, and I know money is still a hard issue for me.

The irony is that my parents worked constantly, neglecting me and my brothers’ upbringing to some extent so that we would never have to worry about money. They centralized money as the number one priority and the only important thing from which any happiness could flow. Now, the only thing that really makes me neurotic is money. One thing is clear. All these years that I’ve visited them and they’ve given me money and I’ve accepted it, I was never in any dire financial straits. But if I hit rock bottom, zero in the bank account, I would absolutely not go to them for financial help. The thought of going to them for financial help when I really need it just screams against every fiber of my being, even though a decent percentage of whatever has ever been in my bank account at any given moment was thanks to them. Now that’s money in the bank for some psychotherapist!