..续本文上一页 experiences I was beginning to see that the way to enlightenment did not lie in being shut off from everything that was unpleasant, but rather through learning to understand all that we find unpleasant or difficult. Those particular conditions have been set there for a purpose, to teach us. No matter how much we don”t want them, and would rather like things to be otherwise, somehow they will persist in our lives until we have understood and transcended them.
My hermit life ended soon after that. I was going to be ordained as a bhikkhu, and would live with Ajahn Chah at a monastery where I wouldn”t be allowed the luxury of ascetic practice. I”d have to live in a community of monks and perform MY duties, learn all the disciplinary rules that bhikkhus have to learn, and live under the authority of someone else. By this time I was quite willing to accept all this; I realised that in fact it was exactly what I needed. I certainly did not need any more ecstatic blissful states that disappeared as soon as anything annoying happened.
At Wat Pah Pong [Ajahn Chah”s monastery] I found a constant stream of annoying conditions coming at me, which gave me a chance of learning to deal with the Five Hindrances.
At the other monasteries in Thailand where I”d lived, the fact that I”d been a Westerner had meant that I could expect to have the best of everything. I could also get out of the work and other mundane things that the other monks were expected to do by saying something like: ”I”m busy meditating now. I don”t have time to sweep the floor. Let someone else sweep it. I”m a serious, meditator.” But when I arrived at Wat Pah Pong and people said, ”He”s an American; he can”t eat the kind of food we eat,” Ajahn Chah said, ”He”ll have to learn.” And when I didn”t like the meditation hut I was given and asked for another that I liked better, Ajahn Chah said, ”No.”
I had to get up at three o”clock in the morning and attend morning chanting and meditation. There were readings from the vinaya too. They were read in Thai, which at first I didn”t understand; and even when I could understand the language, they were excruciatingly boring to listen to. You”d hear about how a monk who has a rent in his robe so many inches above the hem must have it sewn up before dawn ... and I kept thinking, ”This isn”t what I was ordained for!” I was caught up in these meticulous rules, trying to figure out whether the hole in my robe was four inches above the hem or not and whether I should have to sew it up before dawn. Or they”d read about making a sitting cloth, and the monks would have to know that the border had to be so many inches wide; and there”d be a monk who”d say, ”Well, I”ve seen a sitting cloth with a border different from that.” And the monks would even become argumentative about the border of that sitting cloth. ”Let”s talk about serious things,” I”d think; ”things of importance like the Dhamma.”
When it came to the pettiness of everyday life and of living with people of many different temperaments, problems and characters, whose minds were not necessarily as inspired as mine seemed to be at the time, I felt a great depression. Then I was faced with the Five Hindrances as a practical reality. There was no escape. I had to learn the lesson that they were there to teach.
As for the first hindrance – greed – you would be surprised at some of the forms that it takes for monks. As a layman, you can spend time trying to seek out suitable objects, but because monks live a celibate life and have few possessions, we find our greed accumulates over things like robes or alms bowls. We are allowed one meal a day, so a lot of greed and aversion may arise with regard to food. At Wat Pah Pong we had to accept whatever hut we were given, so sometimes you were fort…
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