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Beginning Hurdles
For our young muni, all the practices he followed as an itinerant monk were colored by his personal focal point — to lift the blanket of sorrow weighing on his heart and to remove his fears about death. Again and again his mind slipped into the past. He could not let go of those events which had made such a big impact on him.
Will I ever find my loved ones again? If evolution is the purpose of life, then why do we meet? What is the point of meeting if at the end of the road we have to part? Is there something invisible which makes my body alive or am I nothing but an empty shell?
Apart from his daily routine of walking, collecting alms, and eating, most of the time he had to himself. Now that he had renounced home, family, career, and possessions, one would imagine that he would have been feeling light as a feather, unburdened by responsibilities. But instead, time often hung heavily upon him. Psychological hurdles reared their heads. He was either lost in longing to meet his loved ones again, clinging with all his might to his memories of them, or he was beset by fear.
Nothing could save them from the grip of death. Then nothing can save me either. My turn could, come at any time. And when it does, where will I go?
He remembered how as a child he had proved to himself that he was fearless and brave, but now he saw that he had been fooling himself. One was not fearless until one had conquered the root of all fears, fear of death. At other times, his feeling of melancholy and impending doom would give way to anger, cynicism, and a sense of futility.
What am I doing here? Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Why don't I just grab something before it is too late? That's what most of the people in the world are doing; why didn't I decide to do the same?
That is when the mental claustrophobia would begin. Now that he was a monk, his outer freedom was curtailed. Before 96
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