Interesting...

Living at the monastery continues to be an interesting experience. Observing the young monks is fascinating. I am very curious about their lives, and the lives of monks in general. They seem to live a very sheltered life, a life that entirely revolves around study, and around religion. Religion is life, and life is religion, and I find it difficult to imagine what this would be like for a child as young as 6 or 7. Since I have been working at the monastery we have received 3 new monks. It is quite interesting. One day, they will come up to the monastery with their parents, then after lunch, the parents are gone and never return! The boys don't cry, don't seem to even remember that they have just been dropped of to a monastery where they are required to live for at least 15 years! Well, quite interesting I must say.

Tidbit: In my advanced English class I like to do question and answer responses. I ask the monks English questions and they write down their answer in their notebooks. One time I asked them "What is your favorite thing about the monastery?" I was expecting them to say their friends, or the food, or the nice large lawn for them to play on. On the contrary, every single one of my students wrote down the simple answer of "God." I was sort of surprised that 15 boys between the ages of 10 and 15 gave this response.