Buddhist Monastery Framework

Will shares his experience living with Buddhist monks in Nepal and his reflections on their philosophy of desire.

"I had heard that you could find a monastery to put you up if you teach them English. So I found a monastery in Nepal that would put me up. It was pretty rural, a few hours outside Kathmandu. I flew there, taught them English—I taught myself to teach English before I came over—and in the downtime, I was able to speak to some of the older monks who had good English and ask them about their ideology.

I'm curious about the region and was asking questions, but one thing I just couldn't get over was that they don't believe in desire. They believe desire is what leads to suffering—if you desire something, you're creating a contract with yourself to be unhappy until you have that thing.

I'm very American Dream-pilled. I believe I should want for things, but I can see how that can go wrong as well. It can lead to a 'keeping up with the Joneses' type lifestyle. That's probably when it goes too far.

While I was there, I had this wild experience. I was out running in the middle of Nepal one day and bumped into a dude wearing a Galloway Bay 5K t-shirt. I asked where he got the t-shirt since it's from near where I'm from. He had kind of an Irish accent and said he worked with an Irish guy who has an orphanage and charity out there. When I asked the Irish guy's name, it turned out to be the exact person my mom's friend had suggested as my contact in Nepal. This random guy I met in this tiny village worked with him—there's Irish people everywhere!"