Forest Path - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

hey man, don’t give up your music! 115
practice. I feel that I am fortunate in having such an object of devotion
as the Buddha, and there is a feeling that every ounce of effort I
give is returned one hundred fold. The goodness that can result from
the practice of Buddhism seems limitless to me, so it is worthy of
limitless devotion.
Sacrifice
With deep devotion, one is willing to sacrifice just about anything. In
my life, music always came first and I would sacrifice many things
without question. Sleep would be sacrificed by waking up early in
the morning or staying up into the late hours of the night practising
the piano or listening to jazz performances in clubs. After-school
activities, sports and dances didn’t seem nearly as important as
going home to practice music. My parents spent much money on
music lessons, instruments and recordings in order to support my
cultivation as well as putting in many hours behind the wheel of the
car in order to drive me to lessons and performances. At home, my
family sacrificed their outer silence in order to let me practise; and
my sister can testify to the hours and hours of piano playing on the
other side of her bedroom wall.
Now that I have ordained, I have given up my worldly possessions.
My identity as a musician started to fade away bit by bit as my
instruments, recordings and other tools of the trade made their exit
from my life by being sold or given away. Having left my position as
a teacher and bandleader in the field where I had experience, I have
now traded that status in order to be a beginner at the bottom of the
line. After ordaining, I found simple actions such as getting dressed
hard to do. I thought I was shown how to dress myself when I was a
little boy, but the familiar pants are gone and the robes are hanging
in their place. So many actions I thought I already knew such as
walking, eating and sleeping are now challenged by the monastic
training. Even the name I’ve used since birth has changed. There
have been possessions and experiences that I once believed were
necessary for survival, but as I experiment with living very simply, I
experience some joy from learning that my safety doesn’t hinge on
having those things after all. I would say that the main thing I
thought I knew was that I was a musician, but where has that gone
to?