Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA
Someone cleverly declared a week of “lazy days” from the monastics’ return to the coming College Students Retreat this weekend. It has made it hard to fall back into the monastery routine, but has been good since my cousin is still in the country and sometimes we end up talking late at night, after her brother-in-law and daughter have gone to sleep. She’s staying at her brother-in-law’s house in the Bay Area until she leaves for Taiwan on Friday. We still have a lot to talk about, and my being on the monastic path has been encouragement for her in her practice, which has been instrumental in her working through her issues. Her practicing has been inspiring for me and has helped keep me clear and fresh walking down this path.

It was weird that I got back here at the same time as the monks, and then the remnants of a head cold that I didn’t know I had flared up, making me feel like I was getting over jetlag in sympathy with them. But it made it so I couldn’t even sit for 45 minutes until yesterday when I was finally able to complete two sessions. It felt really good, sitting is the bomb. Imperceptible things happen during sitting, and if you know how to meditate, I guess they come quicker than they have for me. If you don’t know how to meditate, they start to happen organically, but it may take years and years for the mind to get it. Like me. For me, I’ve noticed the length of time I sit affects the quality of the sitting. 45 minutes is better than 30 minutes, although harder. 45 minutes now is still really long.

Otherwise, these lazy days just mean unscheduled practice for the monks. For aspirants, like me and one other person who has been here for the past three months while most of the monks were away, it’s like we’ve been put out to pasture.

I feel that things are different for me this time around. When I was here from November to January, I was grappling with the monastic path and becoming an aspirant and what that means. This time, I’m considered an aspirant, but I don’t feel as focused. I’ve wandered off the path and I’m wondering how and if I’ll get back on. I’m very distracted. As an aspirant, I’m aspiring towards ordination, but I’m a little more reserved and conservative about that. I’ve heard that in some schools, there is pressure to ordain in order to increase numbers and prestige, or to gain as many adherents to the school as possible. I don’t think the Plum Village system is like that, which is part of the appeal. They wait until an aspirant is ripe before thinking about ordination. As for me, I absolutely will not ordain until I feel I’m ready, which means that I feel it deep in my heart that I’m putting my whole heart into monasticism, and that I’m going into ordination joyfully. The idea of ordination should energize me and make me happy. Right now, it doesn’t, and I believe that I will have to have some initial transformation within myself to get to that point, a transformation that can only come from steeping myself in the practice, and practicing sincerely and diligently.

I’m wading into the water to get to that point, but I’m not pushing myself to get there as long as we’re in lazy days and my cousin is still in the country. Things will change next week, after the College Students Retreat, when a new schedule will be devised by the monks and days become more regimented, although I use that term loosely. Hopefully, I’ll start getting a better sense of aspirancy from the monks, some sort of guidance, since at this point not a lot of attention is being paid to us, no nurturing, no encouragement, no heads up as to what will be expected of us as aspirants. Part of me is feeling that it isn’t within the function of Deer Park to nurture aspirants, that is something Plum Village has the facility for, and that’s why we’re feeling unguided and isolated, but, of course, it’s too early to make that assessment.