"A Bhikkhu's Journey #2 : One Year as a Bhikkhu"

A continuation of my ongoing series regarding monastic life, this year marking one year as a Bhikkhu, and two years in robes. Sorry for the Sniffling, I had my flu shot a few days before and was having reactions. The added content is below:

As stated at the end of the video, some things I glossed over but wanted to add here. The first was what Bhante Analayo said in response to my question. Firstly was that "we all have our own kammic trajectory", which impacted me and I still remember, and secondly he said it was best for me to be honest, with myself and the people I share dhamma with, and teach to my own abilities, which is a policy i've followed back even when I started doing a little teaching as a lay person.

The other thing I missed was in speaking about the topic of teaching actually greatly enhancing your own practice. About 3-4 months ago I went through a period of about a week where I had multiple sources confirm how much teaching impacted their own practice, including Bhante G and also while listening to a talk by Ajahn Chah during my walks, he said the same thing.

And lasting regarding breaking the rules, yes in the past year I have had ample experience in confessing my faults to my fellow Bhikkhus. I've found that confessing allows the defilements to come out in the open, whereas its much easier for your mind to justify your actions and abide in them if you keep your faults to yourself. This is why I confessed to Bhante G my major coping mechanisms(food, video games etc) before ordination, so he would know and I would be less likely to fall back on them.

Growing up Catholic I saw confession as a chore, and something to avoid, I still have those tendencies in my sometimes, but as I said above, I've found confession to be a freeing experience, and a chance to get feedback from other people, something which I've come to find important, as you don't know when your mind is tricking you(actually I do, pretty much all the time!)