Among the periods of spiritual and psychic cultivation I've underwent in my monk's life are a full year of total silence in the halls and woods of a lakeside monastery, six years of rigorous retreat with a Spartan diet, little sleep, long rounds of meditation and profound plumbing of humility, twenty-five years of late night vigils—often at midnight or 3 in the morning, twelve years of psychic, psychological and ministerial training to take lifetime vows as a minister/monk, and, not least, fifteen years of daily cleaning toilets, showers and bathroom floors for facilities of many early-rising men. Oh…among other ministerial duties I was for many years the chef of several monasteries, catering meals for dozens of men whose appetite was healthy and enjoyment of food more heightened than most.
I began my monk's life at 18 as a task force guest at the main monastery on the island of Kauai, Hawaii and by age 19 embraced the aspirant vows in the Order's Wailua University Theological Seminar. There, as a monk, I would receive a degree in English, a Masters in Philosophy and a Masters in Religion, and eventually the equivalent of a Ph.D in spiritual psychology. As a young monk I also pursued a degree in journalism from the University of Lincoln, Nebraska, but ended up living in Sri Lanka at that time and unable to finish out the degree.
