A Monk Amok: I've been Bikkhu-ed

A lot has happened in the past week. First of all, I finally graduated. I now have a master's degree in Religious Studies with a concentration in Buddhism. My thesis was approved (now I have to print two copies and submit them to the library) and have finished all my other papers...almost. I have one short paper to finish up this week, but that should be no problem.

Of course, I participated in the graduation ceremony on Saturday the 10th. There were 26 graduates with 20 participating in the ceremony. Ohhh it felt sooooo good to graduate! Below are a few pics.

This is me with Grace, our Admissions Counselor. The nutty professor in the back is Dr. Locke, the acting chair of the Religious Studies department.

This is me with Eric Ahn, one of my RA's. He and Tina, another RA, rushed the stage right after I got my diploma to give me flowers. Someone else did, too, but it was all a blur. It's a UWest graduation tradition.

This is Tiffany and Shakya. Shakya came back a bit early from Berkeley where's he's been studying this semester to attend graduation. He's here for the summer, so we get to hang out for a few weeks before I head back to IL. A few days after I get there, he's flying out for a week-long visit.

Then on Sunday, I attended the Wesak (Buddha's B-day) celebration at Dieu Phap, a Vietnamese temple about ten minutes from campus. The abbot, Venereable Vien Ly, was a classmate of mine. The Very Ven. Anhue, Vice-Abbot of Dieu Phap and an American monk and former teacher at UWest also lives at that temple, along with perhaps the senior most (in terms of number of years as a monk) American monk alive today, Very Ven. Anduc, aka Suhita Dharma. He's the African American monk in the pics below. He was ordained in 1965 and currently does work with prisoners. He's also establishing a temple in Mexico with some spanish speaking students. A very interesting crowd.

Well, after the Wesak ceremony, I was ordained a Bikkhu. There were at least ten monks in the Vietnamese tradition, including those mentioned above, and one monk in the Tibetan tradition, Ven. Jamyang Gyatso (Sakyapa) and Ven. Mangala, a Theravada monk from Sri Lanka and a fellow student at UWest. The abbot and vice-abbot agreed to do the ordination to assist with my transition into the Jogye order in South Korea. Already being a Bikkhu makes that transition go smoother.

I've wanted to do the ordination for several years, but didn't have the opportunity. I'm so grateful for their willingness to do it for me. Some of the monks in attendance had travelled from far places like Canada and Iowa for the days events and stayed on longer to participate. I thanked them all heartily. I want to be clear, also, that this wasn't just a means to an end--transferring into the Jogye order. I really wanted to do the Bikkhu ordination as a deeper commitment to the Dharma and the monastic path.

During the ceremony, we receive a kneeling cloth, a water strainer and a begging bowl. I already had a Tibetan kneeling cloth (called a "dingwa"), but the Mahayana traditions tend not to use begging bowls and water strainers, so we used a small metal tea strainer and Ven. Vien Ly arranged for a small begging bowl for me. It's not what one would actually use for a begging bowl, but it was symbolic.

I was in horrible pain for part of the ceremony given the way I was told to sit, so much so my hands were shaking. I lived through it by concentrating on Ven. Anhue's voice.

Afterwards, we took a few photos:

This is a shot of most of the monks who participated in the ordination. There were, I think, ten monks from the Vietnamese tradition, one from the Tibetan tradition, and one from the Theravada tradition. Ven. Anduc (aka Suhita), the African-American monk slightly to the right in this photo may well be, in terms of his monk-age, the longest-standing American monk alive today. The monk in the red robe is Ven. Anhue, an American and former teacher at UWest. The first character, "Hue," of my ordination name is the last character of his name. On the far right of the photo is Ven. Vien Ly, the abbot of the temple and my classmate.

In this photo, to my left is Ven. Kiet and to my right is Ven. Mangala, both classmates from UWest. Ven. Kiet is a Vietnamese-American monk and Ven. Mangala is a Theravada monk from Sri Lanka. Then there's Ven. Anduc again and one of the Vietnamese monks whose name escapes me at the moment.

I'll put more photos in the photo album later.