June 2023

After the initial glow of ordination wore off I entered a period of inner darkness and turmoil and regret. I experienced nostalgia for the things of the world I had given up and, stronger still, guilt for the relationships I had severed in order to “leave the world to search for Truth.” Like a hamster rolling its exercise wheel my mind would go over and over and over these things, getting exhausted and going nowhere. What is more, it seemed that my fellow monks did not understand—or care—what I was going through. The open gate looked very inviting.

I was told to “trust the process,” which seemed like cold and frustratingly inadequate comfort in the face of the psychic pain I was experiencing. And yet, a deeper part of me—the intuitive part that compelled me to begin training in the first place—knew that this was true and that I was on the right path for me, however rocky in the moment. The meditation hall would pull me in, and seeing the other monks just doing their training, despite their own evident difficulties, helped put mine in perspective (sometimes). I had no choice but to trust the process…or leave. In a word, I had to muster pure faith—faith in both my intuitive heart, and in the process of training itself.

The process is painful at times because it asks us to change deeply ingrained opinions of who we are; the process threatens our very ego identity, of who we have been conditioned to think of as “me, who I am.” These opinions have been indoctrinated in us by our family situation, our society and culture, our education, and our karmic inheritance. These assumptions conspire to create a mistaken notion of a solid, separate self that we delude ourselves with to fit into a materialistic world. Training compels us to examine the veracity of these assumptions at a very deep level—a level deeper than intellectual analysis or emotional constructs. As Rev. Master Jiyu writes in her commentary on the Kyojukaimon, referencing a verse of the Dhammapada: “We must indeed know the housebuilder of this house of ego, know all his tools, know all his building materials; there is no other way that we can know immaculacy. The house builder of the house of ego must be known absolutely, recognised at all times.”¹

We fear this dismantling because, however miserable and unhappy and lonely the egocentric self might be, it seems real and solid and, if it is gone, then…“Who am I?? Will I disappear into nothingness??”

The answer is, “Well, yes, you will disappear into no-thingness. ” Because once we have chipped away at the self, what is left is the “Immaculacy of Emptiness” which, as Rev. Master said, “is the fullest ‘Emptiness’ you can know.”² Or the “void, unstained, and Pure” of The Scripture of Great Wisdom. It is the fullness we experience in deep, pure meditation when we let go of thoughts, memories, opinions, fears, anxieties, guilts, resentments…all of the ephemeral, passing states we mistakenly identify with as “me.” The full, Immaculate Emptiness that naturally arises is who we truly are.

With time and training, I walked out of that period of darkness. Which is not to say that there were not periodic difficult times. There is a natural ebb-and-flow to training, as karmic consequence comes due and the self “kicks against the traces” of training. The conversion process can be painful because, like mold in bread, the tendrils of ego thread deep into our psyche; at other times the process is easy and joyful. In whatever passing state we are in, it helps to remember Rev. Master’s advice in the Kyojukaimon: “No matter what state you may be in, whether you are well or sick, brightly alive or dying, hold fast by the Lord of the House.” And trust that the process of training will bring us home to our True Self.

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