I recently marked the thirtieth anniversary of meeting my root teacher, Ani Dechen Zangmo (1955–1997). Anniversaries support self-reflection. What keeps coming to mind as I think back on my time with Ani Zangmo is gratitude for my journey and the recognition that my maturity and confidence have blossomed throughout my development as a practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism, especially in how I relate to dharma. The journey has not always been easy, and there have been things that were not initially apparent about what the work of integrating dharma into my life required.

When I first met Ani Zangmo, my understanding of practice was limited: meet a teacher, spend time with them, receive instruction, practice their instructions, return for more, receive empowerments, transmissions, etc. In short, steps to becoming someone else—a safe, definable progression from one point to another. Sometimes, we think that we are facilitating these things alone. At other times, we believe that this is done entirely by our teacher. It is hoped, over time, we recognize the impact and complexity of deep interconnected relationships between teacher and student, student and culture, culture and dharma, and dharma and practice. Being a practitioner of dharma is powerful, and recognizing what goes into this process isn’t always evident at first. 

I shudder and cringe when I imagine my early days in the dharma. I had a youthful, passionate, and focused drive to connect to dharma and practice, to increase experience, and to increase the complexity of the teachings received. What’s taken me time to recognize is the importance of individuation and of learning to make sense of the struggles and conflicts that arise within a tradition that is generally presented in the West as a spiritual path connected to renunciation. This path can appear confusing, especially for people who live in a complex world where monasticism doesn’t seem to align with our life and how we manifest it. 

Through my father, I discovered Buddhist art, which I found compelling, almost hypnotic, and hauntingly familiar despite not understanding it. I began developing something between an avid interest and a thirst for Buddhism—trying to absorb as much dharma as I could at a young age. This led to the idea that I should become a monk relatively early in my life. 

From then on, it had always felt like I would eventually become a monk. This made high school complicated. Negotiating crushes and relationships came with an inner conflict: Experiencing joy and pleasure within relationships was awkward because I assumed I would need to leave all that behind. I felt similarly conflicted in college. 

When I was 20, I traveled to India and had the opportunity to meet Ani Zangmo, and later developed close relationships with other monastic teachers, including the late Bokar Rinpoche, the late Pathing Rinpoche, and the Gyaltsab Rinpoche. This only reinforced my assumptions that all serious practitioners are monastics. I wasn’t the only one who suffered with this expectation; close dharma friends also periodically confided in me about their desires to become a monastic or their sense of inner conflict around a teacher putting pressure on them to ordain. 

Before the Chinese invasion of Tibet, a sizable percentage of the population was monastic, and the country’s monasteries were notable for helping to preserve texts, keeping ritual and transmission lineages alive, and patronizing the arts. And while monasteries continue to serve as receptacles of Vajrayana religious culture, it’s important to note that Vajrayana is not a solely monastic tradition. Tibetan Buddhism has a longstanding tradition of nonmonastic lay practitioners who sometimes have families, with many well-known teachers also being householders who maintained a dedicated practice and propagated their lineage.

Since writing Modern Tantric Buddhism, I’ve been reflecting on the assumed par excellence of monastic Buddhism in the West. This may be less so within the context of contemporary Zen practice; however, within the Tibetan traditions, it is often implied that monastic practice is preferable to nonmonastic practice. What is the impact of this? Has this been successful? What is the message to someone who cannot or does not wish to become a monastic, and how do they view themselves and the potential fruits of their practice in the face of this idea? Is this idea even necessary if both monastics and householders are major lineage holders? And why is it so hard to openly discuss this?

While in a remote retreat setting in Sikkim with the late Pathing Rinpoche, I was a few hours away from being ordained. I asked Rinpoche if he would ordain me. He said he would and sent me to Gangtok to get scissors for the first cutting of the hair. Along the way, I grabbed some momos (steamed dumplings) for my root teacher, Ani Zangmo, and decided to stop by and give her the news about becoming a monk. 

“That’s the worst possible thing you could do!” I was shocked and confused by her response. Ani Zangmo explained that ordaining would cause obstacles because there wasn’t any proper support for Western monastics when I returned to the States. She said, “If you want to hold all the vows of a monk or if you want to have that level of commitment to your practice, nothing is preventing you from doing that,” she told me. “You don’t really need to indicate that publicly for everyone else.” Later, she added that sometimes practicing as a hidden yogi is best. When I told Pathing Rinpoche what she said, he nodded in a nonplussed manner, and I went back into retreat, unordained, and everything was fine.

Sometimes, wearing robes or shaving one’s head is based on a type of attachment to assumptions that adherence to outer appearance is necessary for realization—that the seriousness of one’s spiritual drive has to be expressed in some specific form. Fixation on being a monastic, a ngakma or repa, is an attachment to identity and can quickly become a place of clinging to self. Regardless of the meritorious nature of joining and living as part of the noble ordained sangha, even a spiritual identity can become a deeply rooted obstacle, especially when such an attachment is unconscious. I am still grateful to Ani Zangmo for holding that mirror up to the motivations behind my well-intended energy to become a monk. 

Although none of my teachers pressured me to become an ordained monastic, over the years, I have met many people who were told by their teachers that it is better to be a monastic. I also know people who suffer in silence, feeling that their practice can never be fruitful without this commitment. I certainly am not implying that becoming a monastic is not important, not valid, or unnecessary—becoming a member of the ordained monastic sangha is a path. It is an important path for those who need that container or medicine. Everyone does not need the same path or the same medicine. Celibacy is a refuge for some, and for others, it can lead to problems. We see this in many spiritual traditions in which the denial of sex and sexuality can lead to unhealthy relationships toward sexuality and intimacy.

Even a spiritual identity can become a deeply rooted obstacle

When we read about the life of the Buddha or the biographies of great teachers, one key similarity we see is in how they overcome their struggles and come out on the other end more awake than before. Struggles are encountered in practice; one might even say they are essential to the practice. Whether they’re stories of great teachers or our own stories, distilling the essence of dharma through struggle is inherent in the path. The interplay of religion, culture, and individuation makes engaging the work of understanding who we are rich, complex, and, at times, messy. This interplay extends into our relationships with the communities that embody the dharma. All the different ways that we identify—at some point—need to be brought into the crucible of our practice so whatever individual interconnected integration that needs to happen can happen. Integration and individuation are valuable parts of practice. This interrogation of self-identity helps us examine how we relate to merit, which plays a role in how the seeds of karmic actions ripen. For example, some say that the meritorious karma associated with being a renunciant is especially powerful, yields benefits, and will help give birth to realization. But this is predicated on less merit in worldly life, even when bringing dharma to as much of that experience as possible. Is this true, and by what standards are such assumptions made?

How we relate to this interrogation depends on the view at the core of our practice. Suppose we can have an essentialist, open, vast, and spacious relationship with what it means to bring dharma to every moment by resting in the natural state. In that case, this affords us considerable room to explore. Most of my teachers have been practitioners of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, which suggest that being lay or monastic has no inherent impact on recognizing the nature of the mind. One is not better than the other. 

As practitioners, it is helpful to have exposure to various views to ascertain what fits best. Just as you can’t put a yogini in a monastic hole, you can’t put the square peg of monasticism into the round hole of lay practice. At some point, an informed decision needs to be made. Informed not by scripture but by understanding who we are. Am I a monastic type? Am I a nonmonastic type? What formal supportive relationship do I need with the tradition? 

This is part of the struggle. This is part of the work: not only understanding our mind in isolation from everything but understanding how we relate to the world. By addressing this, we address the relative. Over some thirty years, I’ve understood and developed confidence in how I have arisen in this world, my relationship to my typology, and what the most conducive mix is for me that facilitates a healthy and fertile relationship to practice. I appreciate this and simultaneously find peace, acceptance, and contentment within this manifestation of whoever I seem to be. This allows me to be who I am and to continue practicing the way I do. Feeling deeply rooted and embodied in practice and feeling content within myself helps me settle more effectively into my relationship with dharma. There is no longer a need for a performative relationship with the spiritual—I can live authentically and easily.

Sometimes, tightness and anxiety manifest for practitioners because of an anticipatory desire for growth or progress. When this happens, it is easier to try to look the part of someone on a “spiritual path” than it is to sit with ourselves and get to know who we really are. It’s always easier to try to be someone else. And yet, the path is more than just how we look. The path includes how we have learned to integrate the dharma into our lives. Even if this is an awkward and often adolescent-feeling process, there is great beauty and immense wisdom underneath the discomfort. Awakening is not predicated on any system of social or religious organization. To free ourselves, we need to be able to free our minds. To free our minds, we need to disentangle the natural liberated essence of our mind from the conditioned thoughts and philosophies that, while helpful, are not our natural state.

I find it worth remembering the view within the context of Dzogchen and Mahamudra. The self-perfected, clear, and luminous nature of our minds, this awakened liberated mind, arises beyond culture and the specificity of appearance, beyond the specificity of language, including the specificity of color and how everything appears. It is naturally liberated in and of itself—and displays and reveals an incredible array of expressions and appearance while not dependent on a specific form or way of appearance.

This is true about how you arise. This is true about how I arise. Whether one is monastic or not—this is true. This is true whether one appears in a Western- or Eastern-identified body. This is true regardless of identifying characteristics. The experience of liberated mind is not pegged to any of these forms specifically. Any of us can experience it.

When mindful of this, we are mindful of the essence of buddhadharma. The more we can have confidence in this—the more we can relax and identify, connect with, and familiarize ourselves with our own experience of awakened mind in a relaxed, self-assured way—the less anxiety, tension, and fear around difference becomes a problem. These problems evaporate like a cool morning mist. Ultimately, our work as practitioners is to realize and recognize this natural process. The myriad displays of phenomena and the multiplicity of forms that we can take as dharma practitioners are the natural expression of awakening in this world system. 

Much of my practice has been learning to trust this. May we trust that we are enough as we are.