I want to run away and join a monastery.

There's such little time left for me to reach enlightenment. I know its so unrealistic. My study guide is Buddhanet and Wikipedia. I don't have enough discipline to meditate for hours and pray, but I'd love to try. The environment I'm in ( school) is not good for me karmatically ( whether that's a word). I'm disgusted by everyone,by their ignorance. I want to reach enlightenment and become a budhisattva. There is a monastery in the catskills but I'm not going to that crap. I can't get a Buddhist teacher to help me prepare for monastery life. This plan is so unrealistic but I really want to run away to a monastery.

 

Do it. Don't let anything hold you back

 

I would if I could. Sneaking off to India or any theravada monastery would be hard.

 

The monastic life is often romanticized - I would recommend you find a local temple and try to get involved there.

Peace
-Flowemama

 

If you are truly interested in Buddhism, then you already know that running away, whether it is to a monastery or elsewhere, will not solve the problem that you are running away from.

 

a) compassion
b) goalessness is next to godliness, figuratively speaking.

 

QFT:2thumbsup:

 

:iagree:

If I were you I'd google 'Buddhist groups in' wherever you live, and I'd visit each and every one of them out of curiosity.

 

I know I don't need to leave, but I think monastic life would make me more determined and much more happier than where I am now. Not having any social anxiety, not having to worry about judgemental people, and having a quiet place to meditate/think/study.

 

All those are states of mind. It is not others you need to worry about, it is your own undisciplined state of mind.

 

Doesn't anybody join the Foreign Legion any more? :mickey:

 

No social anxiety? Ha ha! Think rules. Lots and lots of rules. They may not be judgemental people, but if you break the rules, they will tell you.

 

Wow, no judgemental people? Give me some. Whatever he's smokin' I need some too.....

 

I know fuck all about buddhism and enlightenment but I can tell you this:

Superiority leads to neither.

 

What if it turns out that you, yourself, are judgemental? You have, after all, judged others as being judgemental. How will you ever get away from you?

If I told you that your hair looks nice today, will you take it as a compliment, or as an insult? It could go either way, since I might mean that it didn't look nice yesterday. It's all in your head.

 

Also, you have the option to not believe their judgements. You don't believe them, do you? Dooooo yoooou?

 

Deep man.
But! very true.

 

it's been said a million times, but really "wherever you go, there you are."

no matter how far you go or where: monastery, ministry, mezzanine, mars, you'll be along for the ride. thedope said it... the mind you're enliving is the source of your current desire for an escape into a place you think will be more peaceful. for a while maybe, but soon your own inner clamour will be just as loud if not louder than it already is.

you're looking at a reflection in a pond and thinking it's the moon, wondering why everytime you touch it, it goes all messy :willy_nilly: