When I first became a monk,
it was difficult, it was a shock to the system.
Even though it was something that I really wanted to do,
it wasn't quite how I imagined it would be.
My Life as a Buddhist Monk
And the two old lamas in my local Buddhist center in Birmingham,
these two Palpung lamas,
they would train us, me and another monk and another nun,
we took the precepts at the same time,
they would train us in what was perhaps the old ways of Tibet,
so it was quite hard training, especially with learning Tibetan.
And this was quite a shock.
When I was at art school, it was all very easy,
and there wasn't any learning by rote or anything like that.
Just learning how to learn again was a shock!
And being celibate, giving up alcohol,
trying to be mindful not to purposely lie and all of that.
Just having to put the robes on everyday and walk from my mother's house to the Buddhist center,
through the streets of Birmingham,
with everyone looking at you,
part of me was very proud, not in an arrogant way,
with the feeling that, "I represent Tibetan Buddhism, what an honor,"
but at the same time, "Oh my goodness, everyone is looking at me!
How awkward!
I feel a bit strange!"
So there was an awful lot to get used to.
At first, and I think it was probably some kind of purification because you've taken such a commitment,
it's such a huge leap,
and they say that if you have a monk or nun in your family,
it will purify a lot of bad karma, not just for yourself but for your whole family.
It's like it pulls your whole family up,
it lifts them ups because of your commitment.
And I can see that,
but I was a little bit wobbly and my mother said,
"Well, why don't you go and see Akong Rinpoche and express how you feel?"
So I traveled all the way up to Samye Ling and sat in an interview with him,
and I said, "Oh Rinpoche, I'm feeling a bit all over the place,
I can't quite get my feet on the ground."
I was really trying to get to grips with things.
"I'm really trying," I said.
He said, "No, you won't try, you WILL get your feet on the ground."
A real direct command there.
And it kind of shocked me out of all this faffing about,
and I was fine afterwards.
And then I soon started to gain confidence in this new identity,
the identity of a monk, representing the Buddhadharma,
an object of refuge.
You take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha,
of course I wasn't a realized Sangha,
but I represented that, and you have to learn the decorum for that.
If someone wants to make an offering to you,
or give you something because it's a meritorious act,
then you have to accept it graciously,
without having an opinion of whether it's a good gift or a bad gift.
You certainly shouldn't turn it away.
The difficulty is that there isn't an overall social acceptance
or even knowledge of what you are as a monk or nun.
So you're not treated in that way,
you're not allowed to properly exist as a monk or a nun financially,
or just in terms of general decorum and respect.
And nor can you expect it either,
because you should be humble.
Luckily, within an established Buddhist center,
there's a bit more of an infrastructure that supports that.
You join together as monks or nuns
and there's that strength of being in a Sangha,
and I think that's really good.
If you are strong enough in your own conviction and your own practice without being distracted,
you could be a monk or nun out in the world,
but it's hard, it's really tough to do that.
It's not generally socially accepted.
And if people do come across you or greet you,
then they're interested in you as more of a novelty.
It's like, "Ooh, how unusual, they're a monk or nun,"
so it's more of a novelty,
and novelties wear off!
How many times have I heard it said,
"Oh yes it's really cool, it's fashionable to be Buddhist."
It's always fashionable to be Buddhist!
Fashion comes in, fashion goes out of fashion.
For me, Dharma in the West has just grown and grown,
it's not just a fad, it's not just a fashion.
It's actually helping people,
and it's actually becoming very established and well-honed.
And the practitioners as well are becoming more established and well-honed.
I had a dream,
and of course, we shouldn't read too much into dreams,
but this one was quite significant.
I dreamt that I was walking down the road in India,
I was walking with some lamas and I passed an ascetic on the road,
he was like a yogi and he had this very rough cotton robe around him,
and I stopped and he reached out and felt the quality of my nice, posh, beautiful robes.
And I did dress quite snappy as a monk, I liked my robes, I used to make my own robes.
And in the dream, we agreed to swap robes.
For me, when he handed me his earthy robe,
it symbolized something more real, something more down-to-earth.
I think for me personally, I was almost too good at being a monk in some ways.
Perhaps my fault was being a little bit proud.
It was easy to be a bit arrogant.
There's a certain confidence, a big confidence that isn't always good.
One can get carried away.
So this dream was like that, of swapping the safety of these robes to something a bit more down-to-earth.
And I was very happy with the new robe in the dream,
and he was very happy with the fine quality robes that he put on!
But it was a very difficult decision to stop being a monk.
I think it was a harder decision to stop being a monk than actually becoming one,
because you're already set in your ways,
you have a very strong identity.
But there came a point where I had to leave.
It was a good test of being thrown into samsara,
and a good test of really what you've been practicing all those years sitting on your fluffy meditation cushion!
It was time to really put it into practice.
And that's hard.
I took myself to London.
I thought, what am I going to do?
I've stopped being a monk, what can I do?
What career could I possibly have?
My CV is being in a monastery for seventeen years.
OK, I did a four-year retreat, is that something I can write in my CV?
They'd say, "He might be patient, he might know how to get on well with others!"
And I was 38 years old, something like that when I stopped being a monk,
and it was a bit like having the rug pulled from under my feet,
and the whole identity that I was used to had gone.
So I had to almost redefine myself, reinvent myself.
And I had to find a place within society that would fit.
As I was an artist anyway, I thought that I would continue being an artist.
I have something that I can share.
If I'm able to communicate my own experience,
what I had learnt or experienced as Dharma truths,
if I can communicate that through calligraphy or iconography,
in a way that people can see and perhaps,
like a window into something,
they could understand and it could help lift them or it could be thought-provoking,
then I've done a good job.
So this was my quest.
And at the same time, yes, you can sell work for some money,
and I can feed myself and pay my rent
and all the normal basics of life.
You know, if we're out in the world,
then we have to be responsible in the world,
and we need to pay the way.