Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Stepping Out of Freedom
Thich Nhat Hahn has a book entitled Stepping Into Freedom. It’s a handbook for novice monastic living. When I realized that my letter of aspirancy had been rejected and I stopped wearing the monastic robes several weeks ago, a brother asked me, “Are you stepping out of freedom?”. Clever. But point taken. How many times have I been lying in a hammock in the late afternoon, reading a book or watching the trees and the sky and the clouds, sun bright, breeze warm, and think how if I were working, I’d be sitting in some office under fluorescent light, pushing paper and taking orders to do something I would only do if someone gave me a heaping check every two weeks?

So I leave in a week, no plans for what I’m going to do next. I’ll look more into going to Nagasaki for three months after I get back to New Jersey. I have vague ideas about teaching English in Taipei after that, but what really do I know about teaching English? I’ve done it before and it was kind of a drag. But by then I will have assessed my monastic aspirancy further and might end up in Plum Village after all. I figure I’ll be in New Jersey through August and probably into September since I tend to move slowly on life decisions.