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 trailer⁰
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
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