Announcing Project Monk

Just got back from a logis­tics meet­ing feel­ing incred­i­bly excited about a new per­sonal project I’m doing. Next Sat­ur­day I’m fly­ing off to Udon Thani, a small town in Thai­land, for about a week. I’m going to visit my friend Pai­boon, who’s been a monk for the last five years, at the for­est tem­ple of Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke.

I last vis­ited him four years ago; I told the story of my first visit to the for­est tem­ple and the sub­se­quent 10 days in a Vipas­sana med­i­ta­tion retreat in the now retired Life Coaches Blog. I’ve always wanted to visit with him again, but I never got around to doing it.

Pai­boon & I, four years ago in 2007.

Since those four years, I’ve pol­ished my inter­view­ing and pho­to­graphic skills work­ing as a full-time writer, and I dreamed up this idea of not just revis­it­ing Pai­boon, but apply­ing my skills there to come back with a short video inter­view about his life as a monk in this remote for­est temple.

I thought his friends back home would be curi­ous to know why he gave up his sec­u­lar life and career four years ago to become a monk, and espe­cially curi­ous about why he’s stayed a monk for the last five years, when at the begin­ning he only wanted to become one for three months. What has he gained that makes him pre­fer a life of aus­ter­ity over a sec­u­lar life, and what nuggets of wis­dom can he share with us after fol­low­ing the Buddha’s path for half a decade? Does he ever think he’ll come back to a sec­u­lar life, if not, why not?

Even though I’ve had this idea for some time, I pro­cras­ti­nated on it, telling myself that “I don’t have the time/money/expertise/equipment.” It wasn’t until I shared the idea with a close friend of mine that he pushed me and con­vinced me that not only could I do it, I had to do it, if only because the project scared and stretched me. And it spoke to my soul as part of my pur­pose; to live “a life of artis­tic expres­sion and coura­geous explo­ration, inspired by love, wis­dom and honor.”

I never could have planned for it before­hand, but one of the rea­sons I’m so excited is that just by vis­it­ing with a friend today I man­aged to bor­row a whole set of lenses for use in the video shoot. I don’t have a lot of equip­ment, and the bud­get for rent­ing gear is tight, so I appre­ci­ate any help I can get. It’s just as W. H. Mur­ray said:

Con­cern­ing all acts of ini­tia­tive (and cre­ation), there is one ele­men­tary truth the igno­rance of which kills count­less ideas and splen­did plans: that the moment one def­i­nitely com­mits one­self, then prov­i­dence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the deci­sion, rais­ing in one’s favor all man­ner of unfore­seen inci­dents, meet­ings and mate­r­ial assis­tance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

I’ve gone on jour­nal­is­tic trips before, com­ing back with writ­ten arti­cles and pho­tographs. But I’ve never gone on one shoot­ing video, and I haven’t shot any video since my school days a decade ago. So this project has got me equal parts ner­vous and excited; but I’m happy to be stretch­ing, and hap­pily look­ing for­ward to see­ing my friend the monk again.

Related Posts

1. Back from Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke
2. Sun­day Dhamma Talk or Bud­dhism & the City