Why I Entered into the Path of Monastic Training

In early 2020, around February or March I, Virabhadra, was listening to a talk on Youtube by Soryu Forall entitled Power of the Guru. A friend who I had met at a gathering of members and leaders from different communities, Brooks, had recommended the talk to me.

As I reorganized my room, I listened to the talk, and as the talk went on it was as though the talk caused me to stop what I was doing both in that moment and more broadly in my life.

The talk speaks to many subjects, among them, a comparison and contrasting of the not-for-profit organization structure with that of a Zen monastery.

One point in the talk which I remember having an impact on me was when Soryu mentioned he had talked with someone whose job it was to measure the ethical impact of their organization. He asked them if it can be done, can be measured, and the answer was that it can’t.

This had an impact on me because I was hearing this as someone who had been a growingly devout Effective Altruist community builder, event and project organizer, and amateur career advisor. (Effective Altruism is based on the premise that ethical impact can be measured.)
Overall, hearing this talk and struggling with its messages marked one of the clear turning points in my life through receiving these teachings; in particular these deep questions and liberating doubts about what makes an organization, a movement, or a person worthy of trust and ethical.