a bit of gratitude

In 1975, I flunked out of a Zen Buddhist monastery.

I say "flunked out" partly as a means of bringing a little zip to the preceding sentence and partly as a means of describing how I felt at the time. I felt like a failure -- signed on for six months and left after two. How could I ever hope to attain whatever it was that Zen Buddhism had to offer without getting my ticket punched, without, well, you know, doing all the things that marked a 'serious' Zen student ... going to a monastery, getting my head shaved maybe, passing koans, learning a foreign language, and being designated by increasingly-important names like "sensei" or "priest" or "osho" or -- the big banger -- "roshi?" How would anyone know that I was a Zen Buddhist in good standing ... or, preferably, advanced standing?

None of this thinking was out-front and honest. It kind of lurked behind the scenes. But it was there and no doubt about it. I knew it was there by the utterly-deflated sense of failure I felt when I returned to my home in New York City: "flunked out," "mediocre student," "not someone to take seriously," "a dilettante," "a poseur," "a believer" "an unenlightened yokel" ... yup, I felt like shit. Those who stayed on and went the course were ... well, they were better than I was and I was in no mood to be anything but "the best." Which I clearly wasn't.

I remember all this not so much as a means of suggesting anyone should relinquish a dream of going to a monastery or of staying or of becoming a monk/nun, or of taking whatever other course seems appropriate to their lives. I just remember it today after reading a heartfelt expression on a Buddhist Internet bulletin board ... to go to a monastery. I read it and sympathized and felt a great wash of gratitude for my own experience ... the failure, the flunk-out and the person whose life was lucky enough to find some spiritual meat on the Zen Buddhist bone. Others may stroke their Buddhist beards in 'compassionate' understanding of a wider and more glorious world ... poor soul, he just doesn't get it. And perhaps they're right ... but the point is, I no longer care if they're right.

I flunked out ... and that was one of the best spiritual-life building blocks I ever came across. Spiritual life really does have some meaning ... but it's not the meaning the wise and wizened and the well-dressed cloak it in... or mine either.

It just seems to me that every person is his or her own monastery. Literally. And the sooner anyone finds that out, the sooner they can stop living on spiritual popcorn. Don't get me wrong -- I like popcorn as well as the next fellow; I like Zen Buddhism as well as the next fellow. But after a while ... well after a while, how about sinking your teeth into a Big Mac?

As Emily Litella was wont to say, "Oh ... well ... never mind!"

Just lolling around feeling a sense of gratitude.