shy's journal

Visiting a Buddhist Monastery

(I want to call out how grateful I am to find the Bear platform. It seems to be exactly what I need, and I'm really excited to post more thoughts here!)

Outline

Starting spirituality with Buddhism

This is the story of how I started my recent journey on spirituality.

I went to a Buddhist abbey for a week in June this year, after having started work for three months. I felt really at odds with corporate life as I was transitioning from college. I still received my college's Buddhist newsletter as I'd been a "Shrine Room Worker Bee",1 and so received a list of "Summer 2024 Buddhist Meditation Retreats" in my inbox.

When I found a retreat not far away in East Washington in the mountains, specifically for young people, who were "exploring Buddhism", I was thrilled. I wanted to go to:

  1. take a much-needed break
  2. use the opportunity to ground myself as I transition from school to work
  3. have an opportunity to be "off the grid" (we were expected to give up our phones)
  4. experience the nature in Eastern Washington

Point #2 was especially meaningful because I've been harboring the idea of long meditations since 2016 when a close Burmese friend told me about a multi-day meditation retreat he did as part of a customary rite of passage into adulthood. While he had constant thoughts at first, after a few days, his thoughts ran out, and he experienced a stark clarity of mind. I found that really amazing, and wanted to see it for myself too.

With my manager's blessing to take a few days off, I was on my way to Sravasti Abbey.

I was lucky to carpool with another girl who was also going from Seattle. We were glad to find out neither of us considered ourselves "Buddhists". We'd been both bordering on burnout at work and simultaneously stressed by social and environmental justice issues. Having been exposed to Buddhism in some form before, we thought it could do us some good. We discussed it was good to go by car because if the abbey was a cult,2 we had a way to leave. We even decided on a safe word, though I don't remember it anymore.


(See part 2)

  1. My dormitory happened to be next to the Buddhist Shrine. I was paid minimum wage to make sure people didn't destroy anything which was pretty good for a student job.↩

  2. Interestingly, we'd both done our research to make sure the abbey was "legit". I liked to tell people facetiously later that I decided the abbey was fine, because "they had an Instagram page", which looked well-managed and hard to fake. My manager was so alarmed and said if he'd known this earlier, he would not have approved my leave.↩