The question I got asked most before I left was “why?” or “what are you looking to achieve?”. I’m not sure I can accurately answer those overarching questions but I can try to give an explanation as to some of the key motivations.

I was perhaps a little early to the Work From Home (WFH)/self-quarantine game. Back in mid 2019 I suffered a fully ruptured Achilles playing football caused by none other than myself. Maybe I had not been looking after my health well, consecutive late nights at the pub had seen to that. I had also been rather overweight with the trend seemingly ever going in the wrong direction. One push off to receive the ball and the next moment there was a loud thud like a thick elastic band snapping and I was rolling on the ground. In no time I was in an Uber to A&E and I have to thank my friend Wayne for accompanying me and making sure I was taken care of.

Consequently, I spent the next few months WFH and with multiple complications in the skin not healing (if only surgery wounds would seal themselves up tidily) it was a period where I was overcome with frustration. Still I must thank the surgeon Professor Ali Ghoz who made sure the procedure went off without a hitch and was supportive throughout the recovery. Having a small flat was a huge boon given the lack of mobility. The downside was for a time, life consisted primarily of moving between the desk and bed which were spaced a metre apart. The monotony coupled with the inability to escape the situation (I needed multiple treatments to make sure the skin closed, while the tendon itself had already healed) made me question many things regarding how I got into that position, what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go next. I was very lucky to have friends come and visit to keep my spirits high and have nothing but gratitude towards them. Even so, I felt like it was a time for a change, a reset of sorts.

Luckily, my mum had been living with me at the time. My sister had given birth not long before and my mother had come to help look after the newborn. Instead of caring for her grand child she had to see to her crippled son. Things wouldn’t have been so bad except for that we lived on the top floor of an old London apartment without any lifts. Each day she would have to walk up and down the steep stair case to go anywhere at all. The sight of her resting at the top of the stairs massaging her knees after carrying up a large load of groceries made my heart sink daily.

As an Asian kid growing up in the west I seem to adopted a muddled pool of sentiments and values. The fact that I had to rely on my mother for a long time was bruising on the Western ego, the will of independence and the need to rely on myself and myself alone. The Asian in me could feel nothing but shame and guilt. The situation should be reversed and it is the thirty or so year old adult son that should be tending to the ageing now grandmother. I promised that once I had recovered I would do something as a means of showing gratitude towards my mother.

During the lengthy contemplations I had been questioning whether the person I had become was who I intended to be. Growing up in the west one naturally leans towards the ideals that focus on the empowerment of the individual. In search for measure, the majority of those with the tag of success had a strong sense of will and confidence, of ego regardless of whether it was misplaced or not. Maybe I had misunderstood the landscape and attempted too hard emulate those I took to be the ideals. Perhaps I spent too long working in the finance sector.

Whatever the case, I ended up never particularly liking the person I had become and I could never find peace with it. Then I did remember such a time when I did. It was during my teenage years when my parents had sent me on a meditation retreat with a well-known monk living in a hermitage in Thailand known as the Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro. I remembered learning about Theravada Buddhism, about Dhamma and practising meditation and thinking that it was good and right. However in the quest for success I had forgotten it all. I needed a refresh.

It didn’t take long to conclude that becoming a monk was the most obvious path. For Thai men it used to be a rite of passage and still is a common tradition to be temporarily ordained. This period used to be three months but is often much shorter in the current day. I felt that this was the perfect opportunity to potentially cultivate and develop the spiritual welfare that had been lacking. There is a deeply embedded belief in Thai culture that temporary ordination was the supreme expression of gratitude towards one’s parents and I felt the same way. Fortunately with the assistance of the Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro I was offered the opportunity to be spend a short time as a visiting monk at the International Forest Monastery. I had absolutely no idea what was in store for me and my family and I only thought that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I will be going into detail in subsequent posts about the monastery and the forest tradition itself.

After some deliberation I decided to ask my employer of eight years for a lengthy sabbatical which would begin with the ordination towards the end of January. I have nothing praise for my employer Icon Solutions who have supported me since my very first day as my first job out of university. The rest of 2020 was left unplanned with perhaps some exploratory work experience in Thailand, some travelling around Asia or anything I may want to pursue after a potentially life changing experience. Well, we all know now how that has transpired and only goes to show that the only certainty in this world is its ever changing nature.

I would be leaving work on the 10th January, landing in Thailand on 13th and entering the monastery on 16th. I still had absolutely no idea of what to expect.