For about 9 years now I have been posting on one rather dynamic discussion board on the internet. Over the years I have made what I consider to be some solid friendships with the people on that board. My posting on there has gone through it's ups and downs, but after Suzy's death I found myself posting on there more often, partly just so that I could have some people to talk with that I could actually relate with on a personal level. The monastery was really not the place for that, not that I didn't try. A lot of the people on this internet forum are from the same background as me, I can relate to them. And some of them I look up to in a lot of ways.
In 2009 I think I relied more on the internet and that discussion forum more for friendship and a sense of community than I did on the monks in the monastery. I knew that wasn't the healthiest state to be in, living in a community that wasn't providing friendship or a real sense of a caring community, and instead getting that in virtual form. I also knew it wasn't good for the longevity of a monastic life.
As I described, in 2008 when I visited my friend and his wife in Hamilton, I became a bit jealous of his house, his future career and his marriage. We were from the same background, and I was inspired by his example of life. The same holds true to some of the people who post on this internet community as well. I found myself admiring their lives, their families, even their struggles were seemed more tangible and real to me than the issues I saw in the community around me. I actually found myself becoming more attracted to the concept of struggling through life in a material sense than I was attracted to the concept of struggling through life in a spiritual practice, primarily I think because of the fact I struggled to find a single example within my immediate community which I had any desire to emulate at all. All this served to push me more and more away from the community I was immersed in, and I become more and more frustrated having to deal with the community in anyway.
For my parents wedding anniversary I spent the day cooking. I didn't really do my best for this meal I'm afraid. I just kept it pretty simple. But I did try to put together a nice carrot cake with that classic matte white icing that is always used wedding cakes and stuff. I can't remember what that stuff is called, but it starts with a P and you can get a vegan version of it at the supermarket.
(My parents cutting the cake that I made for them)
My parents decided to renew their wedding vows in front of a few friends for this occasion. They happened to have a friend who was a licensed marriage celebrant to give the event that extra sense of authenticity. My mother had sent an e-mail out to everyone in our extended family asking them to write some words to congratulate my parents for the 30 years of marriage. She also made it clear that all four of us sons would be expected to say something as well. They invited a few friends over for the occasion as well, but it wasn't a big event.
I definitely cooked to much food, but I ate too much as well, so I think it evened out. I made some quinoa and blackbean patties, a creamy eggplant kind of dish, and I think one other bean dish. It was all rather rich in the end though, and I definitely got a bit of indigestion both from the quantity I ate and the richness. But that is often my style when it comes to food preparation and consumption.
(Me cooking, with the whole family hassling me :) )
Some of my parents friends who came had a few kids of their own who they brought along. The son was really into cooking, so he enjoyed watching me cook, and learning a few tricks and secrets of the kitchen. I think he also liked the fact that I cooked without recipes. I hate recipes sometimes. He definitely enjoyed the meal when it was ready to be served up.
My parents wrote their own vows to read to each other. I guess they weren't exactly 'vows' so much as just their thoughts on their relationship together over the past 30 years. Everyone who meets my parents, including people within the Krishna community, have always commented on their relationship, or their successful parenting. Sometimes some of the ladies from the Krishna community would stay with my parents and mention things like that to them or to me. The vows that they read out were definitely touched the heart of everyone who was there. There were some damp eyes while they read out their vows, and I would be lying if I said that my eyes stayed dry the whole time, but I imagine that would hardly surprise anyone.
(My parents dancing during their 30th wedding celebrations)
I had a realisation while they were exchanging their vows. I realised that one of the main reason I had I guess resigned to a single life was that I held no hope for ever having the kind of successful relationship that I saw that they have. When it came time for me to have my say as part of the days celebration that is what I said. I told them that they had effectively set the standard so high that it seemed unattainable for the rest of us. And the thought of a second grade relationship really wasn't that appealing at all.
I kinda realised that day that I wasn't really being a monk for the right reasons at all. I realised that my two main reasons for being a monk were that: 1) it gave me more time, free from having to worry about income etc, to do the things I wanted to do with my life. However, as time went by, those things seemed to change from spiritual practices to being involved in social justice activism and riding my bike. And 2) I was a monk because I knew it would be incredibly hard to have a marriage/relationship on the level as my parents.
That weekend gave me a lot to think about. The whole last two years was giving me a lot to think about. I think I started to feel a bit depressed in my situation. I felt like the community I was living in just wasn't fulfilling me in any of the ways I needed it to. I didn't feel spiritual enlivenment at all, I felt like we were just treading water in a lot of ways. We were hardly doing anything revolutionary or even really effective at bringing about a really positive change to the world around us, or even to our own lives. Our management team at the monastery was a total embarrassment in a lot of ways. Although I managed to squash my bullying tendencies by this time, and I was actually able to treat the younger monks with respect these days, I was still really struggling to deal with the leaders and managers. The leader who I wrote much about previously had returned, and a lot of the emotional blackmail tactics had returned with him, though I was much stronger in dealing with it these days. I just found it all so uninspiring. I couldn't see any example of a person within the Krishna community that I could look up to, or see myself following in their footsteps. I couldn't even really see people who had undergone any radical transformation of character as was so promised by the practice. Sure, people underwent some radical changes at the beginning of their days in Krishna consciousness, and that is admirable that people were able to give up their destructive addictions. But still those I was living with were certainly not exemplary human beings, at least no more so than my friends within the activist communities that I was dealing with, people who I started being more and more inspired by as each day went by.
I was still so busy, and overburdened by a still ever increasing amount of responsibilities. I had to pick up the slack of responsibility from the other leaders and managers, and I literally had to make sure they didn't burn the house down on a few occasions. There just seemed to be no common sense prevailing in their actions a lot of the time. Sometimes the things they did were so unintelligent I was baffled that anyone thought it was a good idea at all. I was just getting so incredibly frustrated.
And so, one day, I called the managers to have a quick meeting, and I was totally upfront with them. I was not dealing with this situation at all, I wanted to leave the monastery, though I wasn't ruling out any possibilities, but if we didn't fix these things there was zero chance that I was going to be staying around. Actually, I already had next to no faith that we would be able to work our way through these things. In fact, they practically admitted that during this meeting. They acknowledged that in a lot of ways I just didn't fit in with this setting, or with the managers. They acknowledged their own lackings, and I acknowledged mine.
It wasn't an easy meeting to have with them in a lot of ways. But I was at breaking point, and I needed things to change. Already at that point I knew that there was little keeping me in that community at the time. Not much at all, aside from the fact that I just wanted to keep working on myself, trying to use the opportunity for personal growth. Sometimes I hear people say within that community that the only reason people leave that community is because they no longer want to work on themselves. I definitely have to disagree with that. At least in my situation, I left partly because I knew that I could no longer work on myself within their community, not in a positive way. I left knowing the fact that I would actually have to work on myself with a lot more determination once gone than I did within that community. I would have to ride without the training wheels and knee pads.
I had been the manager of the monastery for about four years or so, and no one else was capable of replacing me at the time. Although I desperately wanted to leave at that point, I still knew that I couldn't leave without first training up others to take over my jobs. Otherwise the monastery would end up in serious financial problems. We had a $1/4 million debt with our book supplier, it was a serious job looking after it all.
The management team decided to give me a couple of days off to think about things, and to write a letter to my Guru explaining the situation, which I did. The letter took a while to write. Aspects of his response were awesome, other aspects were a bit not. And there was a definite attempt to fix things in the monastery. I have even heard that there has been talk about dismantling it, but I'm not certain what the future holds for them. But I'll discuss my letter and it's responses later.
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