Yes, I’m a Buddhist monk.

A Buddhist monk is someone who dedicates their life to the path of spiritual development and ultimate freedom that the Buddha, the awakened one, discovered and taught.

The core piece of the Awakened One’s teaching is the four noble truths.

1. There is pain inherent in our existence,
2. The origin of this pain is craving for sensuality, existence, and non-existence,
3. The dissolution of that pain comes with the complete abandoning that craving,
4. There is a path to developing the spiritual qualities necessary for the complete dissolution of that pain.

A monk is someone with faith in those core teachings and trying to put them into practice according to the thousands of rules the Buddha laid out for monastics. This involves a life dedicated to morality, simplicity, purity of intention, and letting go.

I consider myself a follower of the Buddha. I have great faith in his accomplishments and the thought and care that he laid out in structuring his teaching and training. I try to follow the rules he laid down as closely as possible.

As far as what texts I believe to be the most authentic version of his teaching and training, I believe the suttas and the vinaya from the Pāḷi Canon to be the most authentic version of his teachings which are generally accessible.

The role of a monk is aimed at ultimate freedom and coming out of the cycle of pain. It is intended to provide inspiration and guidance towards a direction that has the potential to liberate us all.

The main way to relate to a monk is with an understanding of that role. If one feels inspired to approach and seek teachings, make offerings, or offer gestures of respect, from a Buddhist perspective it is considered an act which has great kammic rewards in one’s life or after death.

Monastics are very much available for spiritual guidance at the right time and place, but aren’t generally looking for unnecessary socializing. Approaching them with an appreciation for and desire to support and learn from their direction is the most appropriate way to interact.

Monks do talk. Actually, the Buddha prohibited monks from taking vows of silence. However, he laid down a number of restrictions around the circumstances in which monks speak on the Buddha’s teaching.

Short questions are always welcome. However, alms round isn’t an ideal circumstance for long spiritual discussions both because of the time limitation monks have around eating as well as because it is worth sitting down and having someone’s full attention. Afternoons or after the meal tend to be a better time for longer discussions.

The Buddha actually prohibited monks from offering blessings or a whole variety of fortune telling, prognostications, healing, or wordly forms of livelihood. So, I can’t do blessings as a form of livelihood.

I try to be a good example. When the circumstances are appropriate, I teach what I’ve learned.

Most of my daily life is spent meditating, studying the Buddha’s teachings, teaching, and attending to daily chores such as alms round, cleaning, etc.

There are a variety of tools that the Buddha offered on how to cultivate wholesome qualities and how to abandon unwholesome qualities. So, depending on the day, the circumstances and the internal state, I’m usually using one or more of them.

Broadly these are:

• establishing wholesome qualities like kindness, compassion, contentment, observation,
• abandoning unwholesome qualities like sensual desire, hostility, agitation, sluggishness,
• establishing awareness of the body, feelings, the psyche, the qualities which are arising,
• converging the psyche,
• seeing things as they are, and
• abandoning craving.

It is totally appropriate to approach a monk with questions about the suffering one is going through and how to deal with it or how to develop qualities that might be able to help support living a skillful and fulfilling life.

Personal questions aren’t encouraged because the role of a monk isn’t intended to be a personal one. It is intended for guidance and inspiration that ultimate freedom is possible.

Most commonly, people see me walking in the mornings with my bowl. When I’m doing that, I’m accepting the food for the day. Monks aren’t allowed to use money or store food, so unless I’m fasting or a lay person has arranged to offer a meal that day, I go on alms to accept the food for the day.

The Buddha also laid down a rule for monks that they should not accept rides in vehicles unless they are ill. It changes the nature of one’s life when one tries to follow this rule and keeps a standard of simplicity. The standard of not just living without money, but also living a very simple life of poverty was important in keeping one’s focus on spiritual development.

The monastic direction is an example that sustained happiness, peace, and freedom don’t come from acquiring material things, they come from abandoning material things, cultivating wholesome qualities, and letting go.

It is important that monks be accessible to normal people. Walking, whether it is for the sake of traveling or for going on the daily alms round, is an important way to be available for people who might be interested in making contact with a monastic.

When traveling in a vehicle, one often destroys many living beings in the process. In general monastics go to significant effort not only to avoid intentionally killing living beings, but also avoid things like digging in the earth, which may unintentionally kill them. When walking, one generally does much less damage.

The Buddha laid down a rule for monastics that while in town, unless one is ill, the monastic should not wear footwear. Outside town or when one can’t walk barefoot comfortably, sandals are permitted. Shoes are mostly prohibited for monks.

There are both practical and spiritual reasons for going barefoot. On a practical level, a monastic life is aimed at trying to live with the bare minimum of what is needed to keep the body going. If one can do without something, it is one less thing that one has to carry around and worry about.

Also, while barefoot one is more in touch with the beings or plants that one might be stepping on. One is aware of whatever damage one is doing to one’s environment, because one is vulnerable to the pain that might come from that damage. Going barefoot makes one more aware and sensitive to the world around.

On a spiritual level, when one is walking barefoot one is more in touch with the body. The more one is aware of the cold or the hot, it is a means to establish awareness of what is going on which is an important piece of the path to awakening.

Being barefoot and experiencing the discomfort of it is a constant reminder of the vulnerability of the body, its fragility, and how precarious life is. Because the Buddha saw that attachment to the body drove much pain and suffering and the process of birth into this material world, much of the training is towards abandoning attachment to the body. Giving up the comfort of wearing shoes is an important reminder of its vulnerability and a reason to let go.

The Buddha laid down rules for monks against receiving money and storing food. So, each day, unless they are fasting or someone has made an invitation to offer them food, they go on alms round. The bowl is to receive food that people freely offer. That is the food that they eat for the day. If there is extra food that day, they either give it away or offer it back to nature.

The Buddha laid down restrictions on the type and number of clothes a monastic should have to limit clothing to just what is necessary and functional. Monks generally have three robes, an inner robe, and upper robe, and a double-layer outer robe.

The robes are practical and also serve as a useful signal that one is living a life of renunciation. It is useful for people to be able to recognize that a monk is on a spiritual path and approach them with that understanding. It helps frame the discussion and relationship in a way that is less personal and more spiritually directed.

The Buddha was very clear that money should never be accepted as a monastic or even for a novice beginning the training. The fundamental direction of the monastic life is towards abandoning the pursuit of sensuality and sense pleasures. Money primarily serves to purchase things of the world. Because of its fungible quality, the lay person can’t know whether that money is being spent on necessities or indulgences.

Additionally, accumulating money can also assure security and stability. The giving up of money forces monastics to live a life much more vulnerable to uncertainty over whether people offer food or other requisites or not. Facing the uncertainty of life is a key part that allows one to see the vulnerability that is inherent in the human condition. No matter how much money one has, everything that has come together has the nature to fall apart.

The monastic form is built to try to accept that reality and consciously abandon the pursuit of trying to control and identify with our bodies and the world and cultivate rewards that come from wholesome qualities, and develop the freedom that comes from letting it go.

Monks are allowed to accept places to stay, but there are some restrictions. They aren’t allowed to share a room with an unordained person for more than three days, and aren’t allowed to share a room with a woman even for a night.

However, when traveling, monks most commonly sleep outside. A monk may live outside for many months or may accept an offer if it becomes available.

During the four rainy months of the year, monks are supposed to be sheltered in one place and not travel during either the first three or last three months of that time. Generally these four months are observed from full moon to full moon (E.g. in southeast Asia these are observed from the full moon in July to the full moon in November, in California I am observing it from the full moon in October 22-Nov 21 to the full moon in Feb 18 - March 20).

No. Celibacy is one of the foundational principles of Buddhist monasticism. The first rule that the Buddha laid down, and one of the most serious ones, is that if a Buddhist monk has sex, he is immediately “defeated,” immediately no longer a monk, and cannot re-ordain for the rest of his life.

The reason for this is that the core of the Buddha’s teaching was that craving is the root cause of the cycle of birth, aging, and death and all the pain that goes along with it. The craving for sensuality, including craving for any of the pleasures of the senses, is the coarsest form of craving. The only way of coming to an end of the cycle of pain is to come to a complete end of that craving that fuels the fusions that pull us back into the world. One of the qualities of a fully awakened being is that they are completely celibate (AN 9.7).