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Jul. 21st, 2009 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zana16It was lovely going to the Center for Heart Jewel today. I'd been feeling a little lost, what with not having any time at all to practice this past weekend (I barely even managed going for refuge, and that's only like thirty seconds even if it is six times a day). The meditation tonight gave me time to process a lot of what's been swirling around in my head.
I was only about two minutes into the chanting when I had the same old thought that keeps recurring: why not become ordained? But finally, after more than a year of going back and forth about becoming a Buddhist nun (yes, I'm sure my f'list has whiplash about this by now), I finally have an answer! Or at least, an answer better than "But I really like sex and alcohol and I don't want to shave my head." Which was a perfectly good answer, but not the one I needed. The answer: underneath all the good intentions, really I would be becoming a nun to run away from life, not to live it. It would be cheating, and it would defeat the purpose. I've got to use Dharma to live for real, not in place of living.
Also there's the fact that if I became ordained, they wouldn't be all that happy with me pursuing other spiritual paths at the same time. So. No saffron robes for me. At least, not until it isn't running away.
I think the decision might actually stick this time.
I was only about two minutes into the chanting when I had the same old thought that keeps recurring: why not become ordained? But finally, after more than a year of going back and forth about becoming a Buddhist nun (yes, I'm sure my f'list has whiplash about this by now), I finally have an answer! Or at least, an answer better than "But I really like sex and alcohol and I don't want to shave my head." Which was a perfectly good answer, but not the one I needed. The answer: underneath all the good intentions, really I would be becoming a nun to run away from life, not to live it. It would be cheating, and it would defeat the purpose. I've got to use Dharma to live for real, not in place of living.
Also there's the fact that if I became ordained, they wouldn't be all that happy with me pursuing other spiritual paths at the same time. So. No saffron robes for me. At least, not until it isn't running away.
I think the decision might actually stick this time.