Things I regret

There are many things that I did as the manager of the monastery that I am not at all proud about. I think I have a lot of people to say sorry to for the way I treated them and the things I did as the manager throughout 2008. I know for a fact that I made some persons stay in the monastery less than pleasant in a lot of ways. I was stressed out, I was over-worked, and I was increasingly frustrated. My tolerance levels were at an all time low that year. Not an excuse, but at least an explanation.

Our management and leadership team often felt at odds with a specific member of the monastery. I don't think there was any specific reason for it, other than just a clash of personalities. But sometimes it did mean that our meetings together, including my meetings with my mentor, would be overshadowed by discussions about all the problems we perceived in this one monk. As you can probably tell by the nature of this blog, I am pretty good at verbalizing problems I perceive in myself and people around me, and the world in general. As a result I would often be asked to write letters to our monastery authorities explaining all the issues we had with this one particular person. It was a very awkward position for me to be in, especially because sometimes he and I would have a great friendship, and other times it seemed like we both needed to get as far away from each other as possible.

Having to think deeply and write about another persons problematic and chronic behaviour wasn't very pleasant. It made me feel awkward sometimes, knowing that I would be responsible for any trouble that came his way as a result. It was also difficult having to continue working alongside someone so closely who I felt I had betrayed. It only served to weaken our friendship at times. Throughout 2008 this was a back and forth issue. Sometimes things were going very smoothly, other times they weren't. I know that I caused him a lot of stress over the years, and when I left the monastery I sent him a text letting him know I was sorry for everything I had done that caused him suffering. In 2009 our relationship had improved, especially the last half of the year. And now we still catch up regularly.

We also had two younger monks staying with us in 2008, both of which I mistreated on a regular basis, mainly because I struggled to deal with their immaturity and lack of practical skills. I struggled because it felt like I was living with teenagers again, who expected me to do so much for them without any respect in return. It was a difficult thing for me to deal with, especially while I was already stressed out and frustrated.

One had been in the monastery since 2006. I pretty much started hassling him from the very beginning of his stay there. I remember I once told him off for wasting water once while brushing his teeth or something like that, and everything grew from there. I remember feeling angry at him because I felt like I was doing so much work to keep the monastery afloat. The vegetarian lunches I sold at UNITEC and AUT was our major source of income, and I was also looking after all management affairs, keeping bills paid and bellies full in that way. This one monk was suffering from ill health. He was also a rather intense character, very unique. And I couldn't really deal with it well.

I was always aware it was a problem, and I tried my hardest on a number of times to get over my nastiness. I remember once just getting so nasty and personal one weekend. It almost scared me that I could be so mean. I had just spent a week of madly running around with the university programs I had going. I had been completely frustrated by incompetent management meetings and morning five minutes meetings. And it was another hectic Sunday for me. I just wanted a little help filling up the water buckets, and he wasn't interested in helping, despite doing nothing much all week. Of course, he was suffering from health problems, like due in part to the way I treated him sometimes. I just lost it at him at that point, and felt very bitter towards him. That scared me a lot, and I promised myself to work harder to get over my intolerance towards the younger monks.

Eventually, the management decided that we were unable to cope with him anymore, that he would be more happy in his spiritual life if he were to leave the monastery altogether. We had a discussion with our overseeing authority, and the decision was made that he would return to Wellington, and prepare to consider married life. I think that my mistreatment of him served to push this result. After he left the monastery I think our relationship improved by a million. The times I did see him we acted like old friends. I would like the chance to say sorry to him again.

In early 2008 we also had another young monk join our monastery. He was the youngest who ever came to stay with us, and the most lacking in life experience. I felt sorry for him, in that he was so young and immature, yet he found himself in a very intense monastery where so much was expected of him. He struggled with pretty much everything practical, and the older monks all struggle to accommodate and tolerate his youthful energy and lack of experience. He was chastised and told off by pretty much everyone in the monastery over the course of his stay. When he would cook with us for the Thursday lunches we would always be complaining about how slow he was. Some days I tried to keep positive with him, and joke through the cooking, other days, when time was running out, and things needed to come together with the meals we were cooking, I just didn't have to tolerance to deal with him.

Then, one morning in December, during the book distribution marathon, when there were only three of us at the monastery, he woke up early, packed his bags and left without any of us noticing. I felt so bad when he left. I knew that part of the reason he left was because of the treatment he received from me. I did some investigative work, and discovered that he had arranged with a relative to stay at their house in Auckland for a few days before heading off to Wellington, and then eventually back to Australia. I felt bad that I didn't get a chance to say sorry for the way I treated him. And I felt bad that I had become the cause of someone feeling bullied in our monastery.

In 2008 a friend of mine left the monastery under a similar situation. I hope he doesn't mind me telling that story. One day, after he had come back from a trip to Whangarei to distribute books, everything just seemed to change for him. It just seemed like a totally different person had returned from the trip away. In the morning he had a back and forth argument with the young monk I described above, and it just seemed so out of character. At the end of the backing and forthing, I dealt with the situation like I deal with most uncomfortable situations I find myself in, I used humour. I made a joke reference to how that was like watching a tennis match, back and forth. He just replied with a "Yeah, well not for long."

So some reason when I heard those words I knew he was planning to leave the monastery for good. That was a Tuesday, I remember because I had to do a cooking class at MIT that day. That cooking class was mostly a failure, because the campus had failed to turn the power on for the kitchen we were using. So, instead I brought everyone back home to the monastery to cook instead. As usual, I made massive misjudgments in terms of the quantities I was cooking, and ended up with much to much food in the end. Which was lucky for my friend who was going to pick his mother up from the airport that evening before spending some time with her in Hamilton. I knew he was planning on leaving, so I figured he was going to need food, so I packed him up with what was very possibly something like 16 litres of food! He left that evening, with the car my parents had donated to the monastery, and left for good.

I'm not entirely certain about the circumstances of his leaving, nor exactly what happened once he left. He wasn't gone for long. He called me up at one point, as our Guru was visiting Auckland. He asked me for advice on the fastest way he could get up to Auckland from down south. There were no buses that would get him there fast, my only advice was to hitch hike up, which he did. I had to laugh about that situation, but also admire his enthusiasm.

When he left I felt very bad. I wished he would have told me first, so that I could have given him some money to help him out on his way, so that I would at least know that he was okay. It was the not knowing what had happened, or whether he had himself organised that worried me the most. His leaving was so abrupt, it seemed poorly planned, so I was worried that he would be struggling to get by, or to slot into whatever life he had planned. But he came back for a while, not to live in the monastery, but to try another style of Krishna consciousness. Then he left again. And now it looks like he's back. In fact, the very day before I left the monastery for good he contacted me over the internet to tell me he was planning on returning to Krishna consciousness. I didn't really know how to respond, whether to let him know I was leaving, or pretend to be enthusiastic that he was coming back.

The final part of 2008 I think I will talk about is a festival that he had at the end of October. That was a weekend of highs and lows for me, and a weekend during which I had a lot to think over and contemplate. I spent the entire weekend, from Thursday until I think Monday, serving my Guru 24 hours a day. That was a very unique, and exhausting, experience.