The Month I Left My Name Behind
By: Venura Jayaratne
Last year, after I had graduated
from high school, I was given the great privilege by Bhante Wajirabuddhi Thero
to undergo a temporary ordination. So, from the 30th of May 2025 to the 2nd of
July 2025, I had abandoned the identity known as “Venura Jayaratne.” With my
head shaven and white clothes discarded, I had donned a set of robes, ochre in
color, and with them came a new identity: Samanera Rahula. It was for these 32
days that I had strove to live like a monk.
The first obvious question that
may come to mind upon reading such a statement is “why would somebody want to
become a monk, even if just temporarily?” There were a number of reasons why I
was willing to do this for an entire month, but the primary one had to do with
when I was doing this.
The summer of 2025 was the last
summer I would have before my first year of college. I knew that my time to
properly immerse myself in the Dhamma would be highly limited during college,
especially considering the fact that I would no longer be going to Dhamma
School. As such, I wanted to make sure that I had at least a strong foundation
in the Dhamma before beginning my first steps into “adulthood.” I had therefore
promised myself before I started my monkhood that I would learn as many
relevant suttas as I could, as well as take some time to deepen my
understanding of the Abhidhamma.
And so, on the morning of May
30th, the first day of the 2025 Youth Retreat, I had my head shaved and the
robes that I would wear for the next month given to me. I knelt in front of
Loku Hamuduruwo and took upon myself the Dasa Sila (10 Precepts).
My very first challenge of my
novice monkhood was the Youth Retreat. I do not believe it necessary to
extensively speak on my experience with the Youth Retreat of that year, since
it was not much different to how it would have been had I still been a layperson,
but I will instead highlight a unique challenge that I did face while I was a
monk during the Retreat. Since many of my peers in the Retreat were, at least
as the identity of Venura Jayaratne, my friends, there was the extra temptation
to treat them as such, talking to them as if I was still a layperson rather
than as a novice monk. This temptation, alongside the fact that it was still
the first few days of my monkhood, led to me lapsing in the mindfulness I was
supposed to be cultivating as a monk. This was in no way the fault of the youth
during the Retreat (they were actually being more mindful while I was a monk, correctly
referring to me as “Bhante” and never as “Venura”) and was instead a failure on
my account that I had to address. I began to more stringently analyze my own
behavior, categorizing my actions, words, and even thoughts as that which was
either “seemly as Samanera Rahula” or that which “still belonged to Venura.” It
was in this way that I strove to act and behave more and more like a monk
throughout the first four days of my monkhood. These were just the first steps
I took towards truly understanding the higher level of discipline that I would
be immersing myself in for the rest of that month.
After the Retreat ended, my
routine had stabilized into something more comfortable. Every day, there would
always be morning and lunch dana, to which afterwards (asides from managing a
few chores around the temple) there was a significant amount of free time that
I had each day to myself. One might think that this simple, mundane routine
combined with being isolated and divorced from all forms of entertainment would
make my time as a monk rather boring, but the truth of the matter is this is
not the case. Instead, there was an overall sense of all-encompassing serenity
that was always present in my mind during my monkhood, the stresses of my lay
life completely and utterly absent. It was a sort of calmness and clarity that
I had not felt even during my longer summer breaks between each year of school,
periods that were otherwise often filled with a restless desire to do something.
With this combination of clarity
and isolation, I was able to spend a vast majority of my time during my
monkhood reading a number of suttas. While many of them I had sought out to try
and clear up misconceptions about my understanding of the Dhamma and
Abhidhamma, some of them I had read with the purpose of taking back into my
laylife, arming myself with the teachings of the Buddha in preparation for my
time in college. I wish to highlight just two of these suttas because of how
genuinely meaningful and useful they were to me, both in my remaining days as a
monk as well as during the year of college to come.
The first of these suttas is the
Kakacupama Sutta (“The Simile of the Saw”, MN 21). The story of the sutta, in
short, is of a monk who, upon spending too much time with some nuns, begins to
get more vengeful and defensive of them when they are criticized around him.
Upon hearing this, the Buddha instructs him (and the other monks present by
proxy) not to react with any sort of ill-will or hatred towards any individual criticising
them or their friends, instead telling the monks to train in such a way to only
feel compassion and loving-kindness towards the critical individual. He relates
a number of stories and similes of increasing severity to drive this point to
the monks, stating at the end that “even if low-down bandits were to sever you
limb from limb with a two-handed saw, anyone who had a malevolent thought on
that account” would not be following the Buddha’s teachings.
The reason why this sutta in
particular is so impactful is because of how extreme it is. There is never a time when anger is truly
justified, even when the worst kinds of suffering are inflicted upon us or
others around us. In essence, the Buddha completely rejects the concept of
revenge as a whole, instead telling us that, no matter how tempting it may be,
we would be better off if not even a single thought of ill will arose within
our minds. And if by chance we did feel such a moment of anger, we can and
should discard it as soon as possible, because that anger that we feel is, at
its core, a temporary emotion. It is not permanent. And because it is not
permanent, we do not have to keep it, and we certainly don’t have to claim it
as our own.
Unfortunately, we now live in a
time where a teaching such as this is more important than ever. The internet
and social media are now overwhelmingly present in many of our lives, where
content is tailor-made and spread with the purpose of making us mad. The way
that these online platforms work also doesn't make things easier for us. They
are built in a way that passively enables us to spiral further and further into
an endless cycle of anger, rage, and overall cynicism directed towards the
world at large. It’s very, very easy
to become a victim to this kind of thing, and the only way to combat this is to
be equally as mindful. I too have been a victim of this sort of thinking many
times in the past, and only with the practice of the Dhamma - the practice that
I have cultivated through the years of Youth Retreats and this very monkhood -
am I able to just begin to reject the constancy of aversion and suffering for
my own lasting welfare and happiness.
The other sutta I wish to
highlight here is the Sappurisa Sutta (“A True Person”, AN 4.73). In short, the
Buddha instructs the monks on what distinguishes an untrue person lacking in
integrity from a true person who has strong integrity. He states that the
untrue individual highlights others flaws over their strengths and highlights
their own strengths over their flaws, while a true individual highlights others
strengths over their flaws and willingly highlights their own flaws over their
strengths.
But the truly unique part of this
sutta is the simile the Buddha tells at the end, to which he describes the
natural degradation of integrity a monk might face in their practice. He
describes the situation of a newlywed bride, who initially and immediately sets
up a “keen sense of conscience and prudence” for the wellbeing of her home and
family, but after some time due to familiarity and exhaustion she exhibits
annoyance at having to manage her daily tasks, losing some of her prudence and
becoming more arrogant. The Buddha states that in this way, monks who are not
mindful of this will undergo the same phenomenon, becoming lazier and less
stringent in their discipline as time passes and exhaustion begins to set in.
He then finally instructs the monks to train to “live with hearts like that of
a newly wedded bride,” no matter how long their practice has been enduring for.
There was a reason this sutta was
so meaningful to me at this time. I had read this sutta about halfway through
my monkhood, and even after just two weeks I had noticed myself slowly starting
to subtly slip in the same ways the Buddha had predicted. I was less mindful
while eating, less mindful while walking, less mindful while working, and
overall just less mindful in general. I would even occasionally catch myself
counting down how many days I had left until I would stop being a monk. I was
beginning to get slowly lazier in my practice. What I realized then was that
the challenge of monkhood wasn’t merely about the strict behavioral rules or
separation from forms of entertainment. No, instead the challenge was about
maintaining such a high level of mindfulness, concentration, and discipline for
an extended duration of time. It’s one thing to meditate for a few minutes or
even an hour, but it’s an entire other thing to meditate for a week, a month,
or even an entire year straight. And if I let this sort of due diligence slip
for even a moment, I was opening myself up to an accumulating sluggishness.
But this struggle of mine was not
a new or unique one. It was a struggle faced by many monks in the past before
me, those who have practiced for much longer than I have even back during the
Buddha’s time. The Buddha, knowing this weakness among many, encouraged the
monks to train like the newlywed bride - diligent and prudent as if that day
was the first in their training.
The Sappurisa Sutta stuck with me
well after I had disrobed too, because, in a very real sense, the Buddha speaks
not just to the monks, but to all of us with this phrase. As we progress in our
lives, we begin to take on more responsibilities and encounter challenges of
greater magnitude, accumulating stress in the process. When this stress begins
to build up, it’s not hard to become demotivated, and when that happens we open
ourselves up to lethargy. We begin to procrastinate and lose our prudence,
taking shortcuts and making mistakes where we may not have before. Or perhaps
we begin to lash out, projecting our own problems and stress onto others. It
becomes very easy at this point to question why we are even doing what we are.
“What purpose does my work serve?” This is natural, but that doesn’t make it
good, and it certainly doesn’t make it necessary. The Buddha reminds us here
that we have to remain diligent, prudent and conscientious. We cannot
compromise and exhaust our own professional and moral integrity, no matter how
tempting it may be. No matter how difficult or exhausting the challenge is, we
cannot let ourselves give up. Only with diligence and wisdom can we achieve any
goal in our lives, especially if that goal is attaining Nibbana.
I write this journal one year
after my monkhood for good reason. I had gone through a somewhat rough first
year in college, the first time in my life I really began to understand what it
meant to have no true breaks. Every day in college was just another day before
the deadline of the next assignment. Every hour spent relaxing was an hour I
could have spent working on homework due in a few days. There was a slowly
creeping, gnawing feeling that every moment not working was a moment wasted. I
had begun to question what I was doing, whether what I was doing was even worth
it. Doubt was quickly beginning to set in, and with that doubt came moments of
frustration too.
However, as I struggled through
that year, my mind would occasionally flicker back to my monkhood the summer
prior. And whenever it did, the Dhamma and Abhidhamma that I had strove to
learn and practice would resonate within my mind once more, reminding myself:
“Had I not become a monk for the very purpose of preparing myself for this? Had
I not remained vigorous and disciplined for an entire month straight? If I
could persist in the higher training, the life of homelessness for that long
with little trouble, then what makes this year truly any harder?”
Every time these thoughts would
appear, reminding me of the Dhamma and Abhidhamma that I had strove so hard to
practice, my mind would clear of its frustration like a storm cloud parting to
reveal the clear sky and my vigor would refresh anew. I reconsidered my stress,
the stress that had accumulated slowly over the year and was causing my doubt:
"This stress of mine, it is conditioned. And because it is conditioned, it
is impermanent, passing away when the conditions that make this stress arise
within me pass. Therefore, is it right to claim this stress as my own, call
this stress mine?"
Of course not. This stress arises
only because it is conditioned to exist. These conditions, whether they be
deadlines, interpersonal relations, or even internalized feelings of
inadequacy, will, for many people, inevitably arise, but like all other things,
they too will inevitably cease to exist. It is for this very mindset that I
realize in hindsight how I was able to persist so resolutely during my first
year in college, striving forth to complete all of my work and assignments with
diligence despite the challenges relentlessly thrown my way.
The Path to Nibbana is a lifelong
journey, one that requires endless diligence to fully traverse. However, the
average daily concerns and workload that we are burdened with often distracts
us from our practice. It is easy to forget the Dhamma unless we constantly make
an effort to refresh it within ourselves, striving to not just learn it but live by it too, and for 32 days straight
last year I had made an effort like this. But despite this, my progress along
the path of the Dhamma is far from complete, and because of that we must always
do our part to engage with the Dhamma whenever we can. Looking back after this
year’s retreat, one year after my novice monkhood, and all the way back to
eight years ago when I participated in my very first retreat, I realize that
this is the entire point of the Youth Retreat. A yearly opportunity to both
learn new Dhamma and refresh the old Dhamma, a period to live truly in the
moment, alongside and even like a monk.
So, as a message to myself as much as it is a message to all who are reading
this: Never, even for a moment, give up your own integrity and values. Always
practice every single second what is right, practicing as if it was novel and
practicing as if it was your first day. It is only in this way that we can be
happy and peaceful. Only in this way can we maintain a life of lasting welfare,
free from suffering. And only in this way can we work towards the ultimate
bliss that is Nibbana.
I would like to take this opportunity to give my highest
gratitude to Bhante Wajirabuddhi
Thero for
granting me the opportunity to ordain temporarily, and Bhante Wajirabodhi
Thero, Bhante Deepankara Thero, and Bhante Piyananda Thero for guiding me
patiently along the path of the Buddha-Vinaya. I would also like to give my
gratitude to Bhante Manijothi Thero as well as for supporting me throughout my
journey last year. Additionally, I want to thank Deshon
Mohsin for being
a great kalyana-mitthra (noble friend) who continued to stay with me after the
Youth Retreat for an additional two weeks, giving me moral support and helping
me remain dutifully on the path of monkhood. Finally, I am most grateful to my
parents for giving me permission to ordain as well as encouraging me for the
entirety of my life to live righteously as a disciple of the Lord Buddha.
Theruwan
Saranai!
