I Am A Monk

I Am A Monk

(for my children who are confounded by their father)

“Be still with me....you know where I am...keep breathing...”--Imogen Heap

I am a monk

without chanting sutras,

without simple robes,

or affectatious langot.

There is no exact word

to describe the faith

I practice. Some are close.

Ranjung sangay?

The self-enlightened?

Pratyekabuddha?

The path of self-enlightenment?

I would be a poor choice

for such great words.

My study wat

is an old trailer

where I cannot kneel,

where there are no devotees

to help with my simple needs.

There are no attachments

or so I think

as I examine everything within

or attempt to suspend the world.

Unlike a real monk

I cannot walk my city with a bowl;

I need and sometimes carry money.

In this obsessed society

it is not begging to accept money

since cooked rice and vegetables

rarely come or survive in the mail.

Those who give to me

practice their faith in generosity

and reveal truth in charity.

For the few who serve me

I give what I simply can:

a poem,

a caring ear,

a kind word,

my time,

confused attempts at love,

a smile.

I wasn't always on this path.

It would be impossible

to explain my life to others:

the silence of selflessness,

the study of what's inside,

the walk inside a cage.

I fail every day to match ideals

of monks around the world.

I do aspire to a higher way;

to answers that complete me.

I claim no awareness or

enlightenment.

Normal clothing will cover me.

It's not important for others

to recognize me by my exterior.

Many will judge me

with or without robes

and the trappings of a religious.

As a teen,

I once told my mother

I wanted to live in a monastery;

the undiscovered truth I later found

was to get away from her.

Not being Catholic, Thai Buddhist,

our own Congregational Christianity,

some other religious group

with monasteries, I never

found pantheists who share

in communities. Some may exist.

My back on a lawn

in the starlit dark of night

is a way for me

to partially glimpse gODD.

I have achieved the basic

requirements of such a life

without the company of

other monks.

I contemplate and pray.

I read lessons that come

or are presented before me.

I learn from everything

what it is to live striving

for an ideal I'll never achieve.

My monk's name

was given to me by my parents

and those who came before me.

Out of respect for their paths,

right or wrong,

I now keep the name

in reverence for their sacrifices

that put me here,

unable to walk the road

or to visit those who need me

in my advanced years.

My service is simple

without desires for fame or wealth.

What I create is free.

What I take comes freely to me.

I spent much of my previous life

failing at everything I touched.

I was greedy, egotistic, glutinous,

foolish, caddish, and more.

I am accepting now

that I've found where I belong.

I am alone;

with or without

friends and family,

sitting with my experiences.

While I listen for a priest

ringing a bell,

here it becomes birdsong,

squirrel chatter,

wind rippling the metal roof,

the frozen noises

of the siding that complains,

falling icicles, thunder, rain,

voices in a dream or on radio,

music of every student,

even the professional ones.

All sounds come from gODD

in a vast spectrum of the visible

and invisible.

Sometimes a person becomes

what they once thought they

wanted to be and never expected.

I am a monk.

Barry G. Wick