Right Effort Right Concentration

Right now I am practicing neither. I've been at work for about an hour now and probably put in 15 minutes of work. The rest has been Buddhist stuff and an email conversation with my wife.

Now I'm writing a blog entry about spirituality.

But I feel like I need the way. I've often in my life felt the desire to do something like become a priest. To teach people the joy and love that can be attained through spirituality but to teach them something that didn't suck. Most of what I've viewed as Christianity didn't qualify. I never considered the idea of becoming a Buddhist monk because like most of you I have this idea that they're all head shaved ascetics who live in a monastery and don't have any fun.

let alone sex.

But recently I've learned that isn't true anymore. Sure there still are tons that do but there's also tons of well respected monks like Nishijima Roshi that worked for a cosmetics company for years. And some less respected but no less well versed in the Dharma like Brad Warner who worked for a company that made Godzilla movies till he got to the point where he could make money on his books and on speaking engagements.

Does this mean I want to be a monk?

I don't know really. That's sort of a big commitment and I don't know if I'm up to it.

I'm not even certain why am I considering it. Is it because I think I'll achieve some magical sense of peace and no longer be concerned with these worldly toils? Probably, but then logically I know this isn't true. On the other hand there will be some sort of calm that comes from the true realization that we are all one, connected, interconnected, the same. That all this suffering in the world is transitory and not real. Things that I know with my head but still don't quite stick in my daily life.

If I did then how would I support my family?

I don't know. I think I do want to take the precepts, a zen ceremony. Hopefully I can make it tonight but I think I need to restart a server for someone. Maybe I can get a coworker to do that and I can go discuss it with my teachers. I'll shoot for that.

Monk hood. Am I being selfish instead of wanting to do it to help people?

maybe

Is my sudden re-conversion to Buddhism stemming from some stupid new-agey kinda hippy bullshit.
probably

Is there a larger part of me that has always felt that God has been talking to him?

Yes.

Am I getting back to work now and planning on accomplishing something?

Definitely