I’ve really been settling into life here in the monastery. At first the daily routine seemed a bit mind numbing, to be honest, because I generally live my life trying to avoid persistent daily routines, especially while I’m traveling. I came here expecting to see lots of new things and push my comfort zone, not to see and do few new things over and over. I've come to realize, however, that my mind is simply constantly seeking new stimuli, a product of my youth and my American lifestyle. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if I’m to live on a monastery for 6 months, I have to get used to a more established, consistent lifestyle, without the excessive sensory input that I'm used to. After a few days bordering on boredom, I began to feel very content with the slower lifestyle and even started enjoying the routine. I mean, it’s hard to be unhappy in a place like this. I'm still not much of a morning person though, so getting up at 7AM can sometimes be a challenge; we can only eat until 7:30, so I've really had to shovel the food down some mornings. Another thing I've really had to get used to is not drinking coffee every morning; at home I drink a whole lot of coffee throughout the entire day. Coffee is allowed on the monastery, but all we have right now is instant coffee which always winds up making me sick, plus I just hate the taste. I've been drinking black tea every morning, which helps, but for a while I had to just keep my eyelids pried open... that really did the trick.
After woofing down a fruit smoothie and some Weet-Bix (kinda like shredded mini wheats, but flaky mini wheats instead), morning work begins. This time of the day is nice for me because I'm the only one working, so I get some good time to let my mind and body become aware of mobile existence sans caffeine. The work is usually not very demanding, though at times can nearly put me back to sleep; generally just weeding or cutting out materials to be used later in the day. Luckily, after years of working as a house painter at home, I've truly refined the delicate art of completely zoning out during monotonous work. Using this well-established base, I've begun practicing working meditation, which is similar to zoning out, but exactly opposite in that instead of zoning out, I now zone in to become “mindfully aware” of what I am doing in an objective way. Now, becoming mindfully aware of monotony seems a bit maddening, yeah? I thought so too, but I just started pretending I was happy about it, and now suddenly, strangely, I find peace and joy in the simple and repetitive movements. Another major shift in my mentality out here is what I call my “work mode.” At home, work mode usually comes when I'm doing physical labor and it means I think about nothing but efficiency and productivity; not contentment, pleasure, niceness, or pleasantries. People sometimes mistake my work mode for anger or mean spiritedness, but I never mean to offend people and am rarely offended or mad, I just have nothing but productivity in mind. Productivity is of course very important here, but I quickly learned that productivity should not be the sole purpose. Rather, it should be a by-product of happiness, consistency, and diligence. Generally, my work mode is now primarily made up of these three attributes and, low and behold, I get things done just as efficiently, and with only a small fraction of the perceived anger and frustration. And anyway, no matter how hard I bust my ass, there will assuredly be more work, so I might as well enjoy myself.
After two weeks adapting to this slow, mindful, meditative, low-stimulation lifestyle, I decided to check out Auckland city for the first time. Major sensory overload!!! I had no idea what to expect from the city, where I was going to go, or where I was going to stay, but I blindly caught a ride with a monastery visitor who was driving back to the city. I figured I could find a hostel, but I also really had a hankering to just sleep on the street; bum it like a real tramp. Possibly for the best, it was a bit rainy outside when I arrived, so I decided to just cave and get a bed in a hostel, as slight drizzles can quickly develop into torrential downpours here in New Zealand. I had completely forgotten about the date, October 30th, and was surprised to be greeted by a bloodied zombie at the front desk. I was confused by the scenario, but decided to assume it was just an extra from Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive just fulfilling his zombie dreams. The zombie told me, “Yeah we have a room for $19, but it smells like garbage…do you still want it?” Uhh, well, when you put it like that... Word to the wise, don’t hire a zombie as your salesman. I took the garbage room anyway, figuring it was a happy medium between roughing it on the streets and lounging in the lap of hostel luxury. I tossed my pack on my bed and headed out to Queen Street, the main road in inner city, doing my best to get my bearings without sticking out too much as a tourist. Large groups of teenagers were walking around in strange garb and I began to wonder what was really going on here. These Kiwis are weird man, what is this, like Halloween or someth—oh yeah. As much as I usually love celebrating Halloween at home, I was a bit disappointed by the timing this year. I wanted to attempt to meet a few locals and maybe get a back stage pass to Auckland city, but Halloween is a holiday of false identity and debauchery, so I gave up hope making any real connections with people. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Kiwis love to drink… a lot. Especially kids my age. Obviously, American college kids party a lot too, but people are allowed in bars at age 18 here, so drinking is pretty serious business, and Halloween only ups the ante. I wasn’t really into the scene. Not at all actually; I can get belligerent with strangers at home if I want to. So I bumbled along the roads for a bit looking for a more relaxed scene, but to minimal success. I wound up at a more up-scale bar and talked to some business guys for a while, which was cool, but not really what I was looking for. Eventually I met a boat captain, he was pretty cool. We talked for a while, but I decided to turn in a bit early as to avoid the real ghouls. On my way home, I saw some kid get full on tackled from behind by a cop, total face plant and all, though I wasn’t around beforehand to see what the kid had done. Either way, it was some pretty negative energy on the street and that pretty much did it for me; it also taught me not to mess with cops in a rugby-loving nation. I got back to the hostel and crashed, greatly disappointed with my first night in Auckland city. I spend the whole next day exploring several parks, art galleries, record shops, the library, and different pockets of inner city and was much more pleased with what I saw, though I was still a bit jaded by my negative Queen Street experience.
I was lucky enough to catch a ride back to the monastery after my day of exploration and could not wait to get back. I needed to just sit in a quiet place and drink some tea for a while. I don’t know what’s going on with me, but this low-stimulation thing is really taking over quick; scary enough it reminds me of Be a Perfect Person In Just 3 Days by Stephen Manes, a book I read as a child that negatively describes "perfection" as forever sitting in a dark theater drinking weak tea. I haven't gone that far yet, thankfully. It’s all good, I just need to avoid Queen Street next time, and maybe find some weeds in the city to pull when I need to find my center. Back on the monastery, its life as usual, and that’s cool with me right now.
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