We Aren’t All Meant to Be Monks!

We are not all meant to be monks living the spiritual life free of all desires, but we are meant to experience peace. If we were all monks, there would be no sex (no babies), no drugs, no rock and no roll, and while this utopia is a very peaceful, quiet world it isn’t a balanced one. Without darkness there is no light. Without light there is no darkness. We must accept both as one.

Photo by: Sam Austin

There are two ways to free yourself from desire: the first is to simply let go, the second is to fully indulge until you realize that you no longer needed it to begin with. Both are okay! Some of us were meant to indulge before we can come to understand that it is nothing. But pick and choose your battles wisely. So, go, live your life! Seek fulfillment of all your wildest dreams but, don’t take yourself too seriously. Because, just as the very wise Cat Stevens’ song proclaims:

“you may still be here tomorrow but your dreams may not.”

One this note, I feel it is too appropriate not to quote a poem from Leonard Cohen’s “Book of Longing”:

“Steve Stanfield is a great Haiku master.

He lives in the country with Sarah,

his beautiful wife,

and he writes about the small things

which stand for all the things.

Kyozan Joshu Roshi,

who has brought hundreds of monks

to a full Awakening,

addresses the simultaneous

expansion and contraction

of the cosmos.

I go on and on

about a noble young woman

who unfastened her jeans

in the front seat of my Jeep

and let me touch the source of life

because I was so far from it.

I’ve got to tell you, friends

I prefer my stuff to theirs.”

Weather you find yourself to be a Roshi, a Sanfield, a Cohen, somewhere in between or something else entirely, know that there is no wrong way to live your life. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either scared or trying to sell you something.