Dear Tiny Buddhas,

Thank you so much for your input! But I would like to Peter’s final thoughts, as I do not fully concur with his.

I definitely do not want to cling to an idealized or romanticized portait of how the monastic way of living ought to be – moreover, how could I, as I have never really visited (besides as a tourist) nor experienced it so far? I remember that a couple of years ago, I once applied for a job in a small bookstore where I was also told that I kept an ‘idealized’ version of what the job would imply. I then thought, indeed, that the job would indeed look like a kind of paid holidays: sitting in a cosy armchair, being surrounded by tons of books out of which I could freely take out one and read, and occassionaly help a ‘lost’ customer who would enter the shop instead of the supermarket next door. The bookstore’s owner immediately brought me back to my senses: I would pass my working time unpacking boxes, making inventories and cleaning up the shelves… In any case, the employer didn’t hire me, so I can’t tell whether she was right or not. Now, about five years later and a couple of jobs done myself, I think she is!

The latter part of Peter’s comment is where I certainly do agree. The grass looks always greener on the other side, whereas it isn’t (or not necessarily not). But it is only by crossing that ‘greener side’ that one realizes that one has simply been chasing wind all the time: I, too, always clinged to an imagined path that I ought to follow, but so far, I only stumbled from one disappointment into another. But on the other hand: don’t we always, and out of empirical necessity as we are beings having a threedimensional location in space and time, follow a ‘path’ in a certain sense – whether we like it or not – and that we ought to change that path for the better and within the means that are possible to us?

As to the quote “If you cannot find the truth of your life right here, you will not find it anywhere else”, I definitely agree with it. I certainly do not need a monastery or a temple high up in the mountains to read or to contemplate – things I do regularly in my own bedroom right here and right now – but, to put it rather bluntly, that doesn’t pay the bills. And then, perhaps, brewing beer or making cheese is a better tradeoff  instead of answering phone calls from angry customers? 🙂

All the best to you all,

Plotinus