Forced to be Free: Living the Monastic Life as a Teenage Boy

By Norman Sheu, WJYC Writer

August 12, 2010

Humans forget things very quickly. Their desires, cravings, and passions exist no longer than the lifespan of a mayfly. This is one of the many lessons that I learned living as a monk for four days while in Taiwan. As the days crept by, I adapted to the life of austerity and forgot about what existed beyond the gates of the Buddhist monastery.

Cuisine from most every culture incorporates one universal ingredient- meat. But monks do not eat meat. All the decadent, delicious, carnivorous dishes were merely a distant dream for me as I spent my time in the secluded monastery. We ate nothing but rice, tofu, crackers, and oranges; all at the same temperature.

Every night our room resonated with groans of hunger. My three other roommates had never had to endure without meat for so long. One of them managed to sneak a rice ball with some chicken into the monastery. While the other two roommates and I drooled, a mosquito buzzed in tune to the fluorescent lights that lit our 8'x10' room. The next morning, we all woke up with itchy red bumps. At least one being was able to experience the luxury of gorging on a four course meal.

Lust accompanied gluttony in the hearts of us teenage boys. There were no young women in the monastery. The only female there was an old lady; a security guard who daydreamed into the lonely, cloudless sky at the front gate. Being typical adolescent boys, my roommates and I were fascinated with girls our age. At night, my roommates complained to each other about the lack of women to look at. I listened, silently agreeing. As I dreamed, I caught glimpses of girls from my school. When I awoke, the sensations ripened and rotted away into a hazy mirage.

The humidity was unbearable. It sapped every ounce of sweat out of my pores and made showers feel orgasmic. It also transformed gentle breezes into raging squalls. As monks-in-training, everyone sat outside for hours at a time, listening to lectures in Chinese. Thigh and calf muscles went numb. Clouds of mosquitoes hummed softly and incessantly; perfectly in tune with the eight fans that blew in no particular direction. These little pests were essentially flying grapes of blood, since the monks did not kill the mosquitoes when bitten.

The monastery was an entirely different society. Everyone rose with the sun and ate the same food. Each monk prayed, exercised, and studied with a mechanical consistency. They lived very simple lives; practically reliving the same day over and over again. But the ascetics were content; some could even argue that they were blissful. The monks had few attachments to worldly substance, since according to Buddhist teachings; everything is subject to change and will eventually disappear.

I often sat on the roof of the living quarters and gazed at my surroundings- the shadowy factories before me, the still graveyard behind me, the busy people below me, and the calm blueness above me. It was on the last day that it dawned on me that we spend our lives preparing and preparing, but we always come upon the next obstacle unprepared. Perhaps if we take each day as it comes, we would spend less time worrying about the unknown and then be able to better focus in on the present moment. Would this not better situate us for the task at hand?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." All the difficulties and discomforts I faced in the monastery were structured for a single purpose- to sever my attachments to worldly possessions. I believe that it is safe to say that I had accomplished this. Envy, which was once a powerful magistrate in my heart, had been reduced down to a pathetic beggar. Going back to school, as I experienced the same day over and over again, few things ever really bothered me. I had broken free of my chains.

The day I returned home, my mother said that we could go eat anything that I wanted. I smiled, and then settled for a simple dinner of dumplings.