Happy Monk-ee Day!

Tomorrow at 11:30am will be the six year anniversary of my ordination.  I realized that tonight on my way to Mt. Baldy with Ed and Daphna, two friends here at school.  I drove and they treated for dinner.  Of course, we were talking on the way there, so I missed our exit by about 15 minutes.  Ooops!  Anyway, Daphna said "Happy Monk-ee Day?" and I think it fits.

They asked me if I was getting more excited about my upcoming trip to Korea, and I said yes.  As this semester comes to a close and the end of my time here in CA draws near, my future plans are starting to feel more real.  My Korean studies are coming along as well.  I did a reading quiz on Saturday evening with my Korean tutor, and realized that Korean was starting to feel like a language, and Hangul (the writing system) was less a collection of sounds and symbols and more like...well, a way to write a living language. 

I felt the same way about Japanese at first.  I was parroting sounds to communicate.  In time, however, those sounds became real words to me.  I could speak in Japanese and those seemingly random sounds carried real meaning for me, as they still do today.  Speaking of speaking Japanese, Ven. Yi Kung, a member of the board of trustees for UWest and a professor here on campus came to the residence hall after her class tonight to visit.  We gave her a short tour.  I've met her several times, but she doesn't speak much English (her classes are in Chinese). However, she studied at Tokyo University, so her Japanese is quite good.  For the first time, we were able to communicate directly.  How odd!  A Taiwanese nun and an American monk, in L.A., speaking Japanese. 

But I digress.  I hope tomorrow at 11:30 I can take a moment and just sit and reflect on these last six years.  I never would have guessed then what direction my life would take, but here I am. 

Comments

[dara]

Congratulations on 6 years of ordination! Something to celebrate and hold close, indeed.

[Varuni]

Dear Bhikku Rinchen Gayatso,

For the moment, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts on your practice in this interesting blog.
Good luck with studies and may you find the balance you are striving for between work and monastic life.

best

Varuni