But What Should I Wear?

Hello Friends,

As many of you know, Devon and I are in the midst of an experiment. Put simply, we're trying to see just exactly how much we can put meditation practice at the center of our lives.

Hence the cloistered retreats we did (separately) this fall. And now the semi-cloistered retreat we're doing (together) for the winter months.

In addition to all this retreating, we're experimenting with holding vows. In fact, you may remember that we took semi-monastic precepts with our teacher Mingyur Rinpoche last summer . . . and those included celibacy and teetotaling.

So while we're in retreat together up here above the temple in Ashland, Oregon, there is not, to mis-paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, a whole lot of shakin' going on.

That's a topic all in itself, and someday I'll get around to writing about the seismic (and mostly very positive) shift it's produced in us both.

But today I'd like to talk about wardrobe.

Right after we took these vows with Mingyur Rinpoche way back in June, we asked him what we should wear now. He said, in his characteristic openness, "Now you can wear white, or you can wear red monk's robes, or you could just wear regular clothes.”

Next we asked if we should shave our heads, and he said, "You can shave your heads, yes, if you want. No need. But sometimes it's helpful, at least for a little while."

So we went home wondering whether we'd shave our heads or not shave our heads, and wondering if we'd wear white, or wear red, or wear the clothes we always wear.

Slowly we started to explore our options. We decided to shave our heads, at least for a little while (you may have seen some of those pics on social media).

Devon decided she'd wear white partly because taking vows and wearing white resonates in our vipassana communities. Then, gradually, she decided to take it a step further and identify as an upasika, a category of identity the Buddha scripted for those who are not-quite-monastic and not-quite-householders . . . which corresponds quite nicely to how Devon views herself.

I've had a harder time. For some reason I cannot get into wearing white. I don't know why. Too feminine? Leftover trauma from a bad kirtan experience? Anyway, I just can't do it.

In my solitary retreat this fall I wore the red monk's robes that one of our Tibetan teachers had gifted me shortly after we took vows. That felt great in retreat. So great I considered wearing them all the time. I even started talking to Mingyur Rinpoche* about the possibility of taking ordination for a few years and wearing nothing but those red robes.

But out of retreat and in the world, I started to hit up against the norms of the tradition.

Mingyur Rinpoche is relaxed and experimental and very interested in helping Americans like me figure all this stuff out. But traditionally there is no temporary ordination in Tibetan Buddhism.

So, long story short, in talking with friends who are monastics now, or who have been in the past, it became clear I didn't want to stretch the boundaries of ordination quite this much. I'm married, after all. And I plan to stay married. That's not what red-robed monks do in the Tibetan tradition. (Black-robed monks in the Zen tradition do stay married, but that's another discussion.)

So I'm back to wearing "normal" clothes, at least for now. I've let my hair grow out half an inch. I've let my beard grow out, too.

Devon, meanwhile, is wearing full-on white with a white flowing semi-monastic shawl.

Could life get any stranger?

What are we all doing, anyway, those of us who are trying to put the dharma and meditation at the very center of our days? Is it enough to just sit down with our legs crossed a whole lot? Or are these ancient forms, these lived identities of monastic and yogi, still vivid and necessary?

Devon and I often find ourselves in this rich and perplexing territory. We're not really householders: we don't want to set up a house. We don't want to own things. We've decided not to have children (blog post on this coming soon).

But here we are, saving for retirement and voting and posting to Instagram and publishing a book and writing these blogs . . . not precisely anti-worldly, either.

At any rate, we're grateful for all of you, our community, our co-conspirators in the dharma, our friends and teachers and students, the ones we can count on for late night chats and early morning dialogues and lunchtime silliness . . .

May the conversation continue . . . may it serve . . . and may there be benefit!

All the best,
Craig

P.S. Now is a great time to preorder our book! Just click here.

*Through an intermediary ….