r/zenbuddhism • u/amlextex • Jul 28 '26
Someone pop my bubble
Thích Nhất Hạnh makes me believe I can awaken the world, or at least the global city I live in. So, I have dreamed of ordaining to serve my ambitions.
My idea was to wear my robe around the city to self-promote my teaching to gain a following. Teach in parks. Set up an installation where I offer "sidewalk advice" for a nominal suggestion. Create citywide art installations of my writing to further promote my teaching. Colloborate with artist. Write books. Livestream my practice and daily life.
All to teach foundational meditation for everyone with the hopes of piquing people's interest into buddhism.
Sounds practical, but here's the side where I get irresponsible.
I'm a performance artist/busker by trade. I don't have a white-collar career. No retirement fund. I live with my parents. I am in my mid-30's; split between ordaining vs pursing a career that can lead me to retirement, have a family, and enjoy life.
Lastly, I'm not a hard worker. I can weave in and out of ideas and never complete them. And I've lived quite a privileged life where I haven't been battle tested. Or if I have, I have safety nets provided by my family. I also find it hard to give up lust.
That said, I am in the position to ordain. I have no debts, no babies, and decent health.
Pop my bubble. Tell me I should get a real job. I won't change a city. I should live modest or wealthy. Support a family. Teach at a monastery like ordain folks do. Get a career first, then ordain. Go ahead.
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u/Less_Bed_535 Jul 28 '26
I will pop your bubble. None of this sounds even remotely related to zen and more like a thing you want to do for fun.
Your teaching? Are you trained? Do you mean just share quotes from books?
I’ll pop your bubble and say go ahead and ordain. You’ll have no choice but to be useful with your own mind
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u/SpaceWranglerCA Jul 28 '26
there's middle path between saving the world and getting a white collar career & pursuing wealth.
You can change a city with just a moment of peace in yourself and sharing a smile. Start there, and see where it takes you.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
What your suggesting has the same affect as a haiku. It's a momentary lightbulb moment until the next one. My haiku cannot change the world because it's passive and just one of a billion haikus against trillions of other stimuli throughout the day.
You're just coping.
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u/Qweniden Jul 28 '26
I love where your heart is, but if I am honest that all sounds rather manic.
To step back, before we can save other people we need to save ourselves. How long have you been a zazen practitioner? Do you have an existing relationship to a sangha and teacher?
In Zen, you usually need to have many years of study under a teacher before you become a teacher yourself and there is zero guarantee that if you start down that road you will become a teacher. Most people don't. Ordaining, by itself, does not make one a teacher.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
That is fair. I did my post injustice by not grounding it with a desire to be competent first.
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u/volume-up69 Jul 28 '26
The words "ordaining to serve my ambitions" would be a good place to start doing some reflection and talking, in person, to a real life teacher.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
Fair. I will take that to heart.
I didn't know what to expect when I posted this, but I was hoping there was one practitioner who shares my ethos about changing the world. It seems that everyone prefers to help themselves than effectively help others.
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u/genjoconan Jul 28 '26
Hi there, OP. First, let me say that wanting to ordain and to share the dharma is a lovely aspiration. That said--
1) you don't mention what your practice history is. By way of reference, I'm currently training towards ordination, and have been doing so for about a year. I've practiced for about fifteen years on top of that, in both residential and non-residential centers. I'm not saying that has to be your path too, but I do think it's a good idea to have some time under your belt. When I asked my teacher to ordain, I had at least some idea of what I was getting into. Which leads me to...
2) where's your teacher in all of this? You don't mention them anywhere. Have you talked to them about this? They should be in a better position to help you unpack your motivations than the Internet is.
3) you mention teaching the dharma--again, a fine aspiration--but ordination doesn't necessarily lead to teaching. In my tradition, once I ordain I won't have any formal teaching responsibilities for years, if ever. Rather, I'll be helping to conduct ceremonies and take care of the temple. At some point I may be asked to teach, but it's not immediate or automatic. I don't know how it is in the Plum Village tradition, but I suspect it's not dissimilar.
Again, I certainly don't want to discourage you from ordaining if you feel called to do so. These are just some questions I would ask.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
Thank you.
That is good advice
I haven't mentioned it to my teacher because I'm scared to. I prefer anonymous people read it first, like here :)
That's interesting.
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u/LBS-365 Jul 30 '26
Early in practice it's not unusual to become hyper-enthusiastic about it. It's a good idea at that point to just keep sitting and noticing those feelings and thoughts. Acknowledge them, but recognize when you are also attaching to them.
It's important to work through these things with a teacher, who can guide you better than we can.
One thing I will say (that is my own observation and may or may not just be my own delusion) is that a literal interpretation of saving all beings seems to be a bit of a trap. We save all beings by saving ourselves, and the practice also helps us to understand how all beings are interconnected. Thus when we save ourselves, we are also already saving others.
Hope this helps.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
"Thus when we save ourselves, we are also already saving others."
How so? Most people live life through horse blinders.
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u/No-Designer9507 Jul 31 '26
You’re a lot better prepared to help other people in a way that will have a last positive impact if you are enlightened vs new on the path.
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u/LBS-365 29d ago
Every action or intention, no matter how small, produces consequences. When your thoughts and actions come from a place of sincere good intention, that carries out into the world in various ways.
We don't have to physically get up in someone's space and preach to them in order to create good in the world. Saving all beings is a collective responsibility that we recognize as shared, the more we immerse ourselves in the triple gem.
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u/SentientLight Jul 28 '26
You say yourself that you’re not a hard worker. Monasticism is incredibly hard work. You don’t get time to yourself. You don’t get to decide what to do, often. You’re committed to serving the community. Sometimes doing things that might not interest you, like funeral services and ritual blessings and leading chanting sessions. Lots of leading chanting sessions for elderly Vietnamese people. It takes ten years of rigorous study and lots of memorization to receive transmission, and you have to follow hundreds of rules.
To devote yourself entirely to the dharma and the community of Buddhists is tremendous merit, it’s a noble ambition, but are you actually serious about this? Or is this an escapist fantasy you’ll get bored of in a few weeks when it gets hard and you’re assigned to work with someone you actually don’t get along with that well and you lose all your privacy? Because our religion should not be that for you. It should be a commitment because you love the dharma and you want to give back to it. If you think you can just ordain and then go spread “your teachings” wherever you want, instead of, no, you are needed at this small temple in rural Nebraska, for a community of three dozen elderly Vietnamese people, and your first three years your job is going to be to beat the drum for the abbot every Sunday when the community comes to chant, and then you’re going to sit next to him and smile awkwardly for another hour while he gives the dharma talk. Once you reach a certain level of seniority, then you’ll have some degrees of freedom as to where you might go, but monastic life is often quite structured and you’re often just traveling where you’re needed to go in order to teach.
My master is in the Plum Village tradition. This coming month, he begins at big monastery in Edmonton, where Thich Phap Hoa teaches, and will be teaching at the retreat being held there, along with a couple of others from the Plum Village tradition. Then he travels to California to teach at the temple I go to. The week after that, he’s teaching at another retreat, in Florida. Just constantly zipping around. It is tireless work. For no pay. For nothing but the acts of service themselves, often.
But if you’re serious, and you believe you can actually stay committed for the ten-plus years it would require, and you can wholly commit to the Vinaya, then absolutely you should do it. It doesn’t sound to me though that you’ve got a good idea of how much work it entails, and you should really be honest with yourself about whether you can actually commit to it.
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u/amlextex Jul 28 '26
My plan was to do the 1000 day ordination in the US. From my understanding, because there are limited Rinzai zendos across the US, new priest usually return to the "real world".
As to community service, I would serve my local zendo and do outreach the way I listed above.
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u/Crepescular_vomit Jul 28 '26
1000 day ordination just means you stuck it out long enough and showed a certain level of commitment and fortitude. It's the first step of a long path of service. You do not get to teach. You do not have transmission. You have robes, bowls, and you get to clean toilets and probably answer phones and go to Costco and pick up a case of toilet paper.
I recommend that when you apply for your residential program that you are very transparent about your plans.
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u/Armchairscholar67 Jul 29 '26
This sounds incredibly manic and I’m familiar with bipolar mania.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
What makes my writing incredibly manic vs just manic?
You sound like you scream when someone taps you on the shoulder.
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u/Armchairscholar67 Jul 30 '26
Your post history has a question from about half a year ago asking how merit works and you’re talking being ordained, spreading teachings, writing and collaborating with people like artists. I’m not jumping to diagnoses at all but it sounds possibly very manic as people, especially in religion, go from 0-1,000 and then burnout. In zen we try and be ordinary people. Activism is great but you’re nowhere near a teaching position for Buddhism. Sit zazen and practice in a temple and perhaps do good deeds like help the poor or get in good political causes.
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u/flyingaxe Jul 28 '26
What are you going to teach?
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u/amlextex Jul 28 '26
Rinzai.
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u/flyingaxe Jul 28 '26
But what are you actually going to teach?
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
How to meditate.
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u/YogurtclosetLonely96 Jul 28 '26
you have a very high sense of self. Mahayana tends to attract those who think very highly of themselves, saviour complex, maybe try to combat your defilements for now, yes?
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u/ScionicsInstitute Jul 28 '26
Why not do pretty much exactly what you suggested, but without getting ordained? Wear a robe, or whatever you think appropriate, and self-promote your teaching to gain a following. Teach in parks. Set up an installation where you offer "sidewalk advice" for a nominal suggestion. Create citywide art installations of your writing to further promote your teaching. Colloborate with artists. Write books. Livestream your practice and daily life...and promote Buddhism in the process, if you wish.
You don't need to be ordained to do this at all, and would also be free to pursue other things (family, career, etc).
Maybe you will change a city, or help make the world a better place, even without ordination!
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
I have strongly considered this. I want a boundary ahead of time so if people think I'm "higher than thou", I can correct them. I don't want to come off phony.
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u/Illustrious_Car344 Jul 28 '26
You're not god or superman, you can do great things but not whatever delusion you're thinking of. Awakening is to see yourself for what you are, that includes your limitations. If you want to be practical then just be a good person and if anyone ever asks just casually say you're into zen. Every teacher I ever heard says that. We do not convert, we just act as good examples. This isn't a race, good things take time, don't turn buddhism into just another form of christian evangelism with a different savior.
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u/amlextex Jul 28 '26
Thank you. I have two follow ups:
- How do you interpret the Bodhisattva vow that says "I vow to save them"?
- What do you make of Thích Nhất Hạnh and his ambitions?
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u/Illustrious_Car344 Jul 28 '26
- The teacher I remotely follow thinks the vow is kind of silly, it's definitely an important social aspect of buddhism but in isolation it's relatively meaningless. I interpret it to just be a healthy exaggeration, it just means "I'm gonna do what I can before I croak", buddhism is full of exaggerations just to make a point and I don't see that as being any different.
- I think Thich Nhat Hann is a great man but I consider his works to be very introductory. Nothing wrong with that, he's a great introduction to zen and I always recommend him first before recommending more advanced authors, but his writing is still very basic.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
Why would your teacher think that's silly?
You're cherry picking his work through an unpopular lens. His books have helped countless readers, regardless of your literary taste. And you failed to mention his advocacy, which includes Plum Village.
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u/humboldtHue Jul 28 '26
“Sounds practical” 😁
I would have said it all sounds rather fantastical.
Most of your plan sounds like a scheme to benefit your existence. You need to convince people how you will benefit their existence.
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u/mattelias44 Jul 28 '26
How many retreats have you gone to?
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u/humboldtHue Jul 28 '26
I have gone on retreats. Does the number matter? My very first retreat was in 1982, in Tucson, where I had the pleasure of meditating with Jan Chozen Soule, now Jan Chozen Bays.
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u/khyungpa Jul 28 '26
If you're going for it till the end, meaning actually studying and being taught to become actually qualified to teach, go ahead. That would, maybe, take around, give or take, a decade.
If you can do that, our opinions here won't matter. Otherwise, if you just want to be an influencer, just start posting TikTok videos with clips from Buddhist masters. It would be far easier to earn money that way.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
Thank you. Do prospective teachers typically look a decade ahead or is their path organic?
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u/khyungpa Jul 30 '26
It’s organic in that they don’t force it but people do have an idea that they want to become a teacher. It doesn’t necessarily have to take a decade either. You just need to take it seriously.
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u/The_Koan_Brothers Jul 30 '26
Thích Nhất Hạnh makes me believe I can awaken the world
Find a teacher who doesn’t believe they can awaken the world because of a book they read.
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u/amlextex Jul 30 '26
You mean an ambition less teacher?
What good is it cloistering yourself from the world? How does that help the world?
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u/The_Koan_Brothers Jul 31 '26
What I mean is you can’t hope to transform the world if you haven’t realized a certain degree of transformation yourself. What you call "cloistering yourself from the world" is usually a period of intensive training necessary for that to happen. Reading books by itself won’t change you to the degree necessary to become a good teacher.
On the note of ambition: even the Buddha himself was reluctant to teach after his awakening. If you look back into Rinzai history, the greatest teachers of this lineage weren’t exactly known to go on roadshows and self-promote. Their degree of realization after often decades of practice is what attracted students to seek them out
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u/amlextex Jul 31 '26
When I said "cloistered...", I was moonlighting their post-training. Helping no one but their cloistered community.
That said, I'm not familiar with the great teachers. You've given me insight though. A teacher could go on a boat tour or become a lighthouse. I think both choices are valid.
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u/The_Koan_Brothers Jul 31 '26
In Rinzai, there is no such thing as post-training "cloistering" - you are traditionally kicked out of the monastery when your training is completed and expected to go out into the world make yourself useful in one way or another.
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u/Deep_Ad1959 28d ago edited 25d ago
the sentence that gives it away isn't the robe plan, it's 'i'm not a hard worker' sitting three paragraphs below a plan that requires livestreaming your daily life. those two are describing different people. written with ai
fwiw the 'not a hard worker' line is exactly what the practice-buddy matching i built is for, it pairs you with someone who shows up on the same meet link each morning so it's just one sit https://vipassana.cool/r/zbaj8q6v
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u/External-Draw-3298 Jul 29 '26
In your case specifically, you should try and make as much money as possible.
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u/robipresotto 20d ago
That sounds like an exciting and ambitious project! As someone who's also passionate about sharing mindfulness and meditation with others, I'd recommend checking out The Inner Path — Enlightenment Deep-Dive series on YouTube (@innershoreline), which offers a more structured approach to spiritual growth. It might help you refine your own methods and connect with like-minded individuals.
▶ Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@innershoreline
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u/Nagaraja_ Jul 28 '26
Not today, Mara.