beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I dreamed I found a buddhist monastery in Norwich, while looking for a flat to live in. It was on a secret street. I thought there was a flat above a garage or possibly a shop, but through the doors was a whole extra street you could only reach through the building, and then there were cryptic signs and you had to choose a sequence of doors, and if you got them all right you arrived at the monastery. Which was basically a meeting hall surrounded by small rooms, not fancy building, just a place. Also it had smoke alarms that interacted poorly with cooking and possibly incense. I pointed out it wasn't singing along it was trying to help you avoid flamey death and they discussed repositioning the alarm. So I was being useful already.

All the monks wore different robes. I've been looking up buddhist monk robes and the variation is huge. Different orders, different countries, different ideas of what buddhism is. They all had different robes, so they all had different ideas, but one building so hopefully they could bring them together and have good discussions. Which doesn't always work out so very well but would be interesting.

So I went in there, through these doors that gave you lots of clues to end up outside with the rubbish, and a monk met me and asked me things and showed me things and checked my hair, which is currently grown mostly out but which I told him I really need to get cut again so it's short underneath. And they decided I totally belonged there. Here have a room move in now, sort of thing. Which was nice.

So then I brought my stuff and moved in. Only they started to get sniffy about it after the third batch of books, and they weren't even bringing boxes, just armfuls. They made noises about vows of poverty and stuff. And I said I'm fine not spending much money, but I'm not fine giving up on knowledge. And then one said something about the words of the Buddha being the worthwhile knowledge, and, okay, yeah, if he really did figure out the how to be happy thing, it's very worthwhile. I'll happily study that. But all these other books are at worst a way of studying the spread of ignorance. How do people get to believing wrong things? They don't just spin them up out of thin air. Cultural Studies is partly studying on how people get to believe. It's useful to know, because next we can figure how to get them to believe right things, which as it turns out is in fact harder. If you just correct people they tend to believe their wrong thing harder. I don't know why, there's just studies show it is so. So, corrections need to be as sneaky as building the wrong things in the first place. Plus while Buddha told his teachings in a way that reached all them people he was talking to, those teachings don't seem to work so pervasively now. I mean there's a very small buddhist population in Britain. So once one understands what needs to go in the teachings then it helps to study up on these stories that reach very many people. A lot more people watched Doctor Who be a bit mystic than deliberately do religion on a Saturday night. Learn how to tell stories, learn how to reach very many.

So, I bring all my book collection into the monastery.
It's not like much of it is porn, and I can totally figure how to teach with porn anyways.
You think I kid? The reason I got into buddhism in the first place is cause of Richie/Methos. I no kid.

Then in the dream the next thing I did to annoy everyone was find the other door, the one that leads onto a nice hillside and an easy path, and go invite everyone inside for a community day. Which is a day that isn't much about prayer or how to sit or big shiny buddhas, and is a lot about there being a lot of different people around and asking them in for a bit to eat and a chat. Also some dressing up. There was a rack of costumes. Who doesn't like dressing up? So it was a lot more like conventions than like shiny buddha shrine. But we got to meet lots of people and say hi, which seemed more use to me than sitting in a closed box. If you've got all this smart teaching, what's the point of not using it? No sitting in a little box breathing all day. Be excellent to each other.

I realise hermit monk retreat has value in building up personal understanding, I just think it's a beginning, not a goal. Get the good mind then use it to do good stuff.

So the dream ended with me getting hairsprayed without asking me, so I was running around trying to wash it off before I break out in bumps and redness and it felt like fire prickles, and people were being all 'it's okay, it's only mousse' which was all very well but ow. So that was unserene.

But I quite liked the between bit with the dress up monks.

Heh, I just realised it reminds me of the Merry Gentry stuff I was reading last night, not because of the endless porn, but because all the guys are different colors. In all them different robes there were like rainbow monks. Only more brown and navy. Very diverse monks.

I didn't have fancy robes in the dream. I think if I was going to be a monk and do the vow of poverty thing it would make not so much sense to spend the no-money on fancy robes. On things from primark or charity shops instead, yes. Probably mostly charity shops, unless could make sure of conditions of production. Many ways to be ethical.

There was also a bit with a sad monk who was crying in his room and didn't want to tell me why. Closed the door and kept on being sad. Now I want to hug the dream monk. *sends hugs for monks* *also everyone else* Have some happy.