Simplicity is the Key to Brilliance

I find it interesting in life how the good times and the bad are often so enmeshed, and yet separate from one another. Yesterday, as I was cleaning out from under my bed, I found a great deal of papers, letters, and other such items from the time I had spent in the monastery. That time seems like it was a life-time ago, and that I was a different person. Sometimes, I think I had perhaps been a better person than as well.

I had spent much of my teenage years practicing martial arts just for the sake of practicing it. I had no real intention of ever using it in a self-defense or combative form, and found myself more intrigued by the zen aspects of the practice. This is what eventually led me into a Buddhist practice to begin with.

Nowadays, with all the school I have to do, the working out and training; I wonder if I have strayed to far from that person, that man I was becoming. I am not a religious man by any means, and never truly considered myself a Buddhist even when I was ordained as a novice monk in a Buddhist tradition. However, I was, at one time, a diligent practitioner who saw some real progress and transformation. My biggest struggle (and perhaps my Zen Koan!) was the common ground between a Zen practice and a martial arts practice that deals with real-life combat scenarios.

I had a friend who would often tell me that he felt I didn't have it in me to kill someone. Although I would disagree with him, I think that now I would have to agree. Deep down I honestly care about people, and at times (too many) I may not show it but I have felt a great deal of empathy and compassion for people in my life. The problem is that I have feel I have lost the mindfulness and wisdom that should go along with that compassion.

When I left the monastery I was told that it is very difficult to practice without a sangha (community of practitioners), but I disagreed. Oh, did I discover how wrong I was! The set schedule made it much easier to come back to oneself, and the peacefulness of a monastery is only the beginning of the True Path!

Where does one begin again? Anew? Those are my questions, and the answers lie within the questions.