I seriously considered ordaining at one point in the Theravada tradition. I didn’t do it because of some serious doubts about the appropriateness of this for me.
One big concern was how others would relate to me. I didn’t want people to think I was somehow a better practitioner because I was in robes. I didn’t want people to be uneasy in my presence.
This evening I was reading an interview by Michael Toms with Stephen Batchelor in a book entitled Buddhism in the West: Spiritual Wisdom for the 21st Century. (1998, New Dimensions Foundation, Hay House, Carlsbad, California, ISBN 1-56170-505-5) After many years as a monk in the Tibetan and Korean Zen traditions, Batchelor decided to disrobe and return to the West.
He decided to disrobe for several reasons. One reason was that he felt uneasy with the idea of being a monk in the West. “…I didn’t want to play the role of a Buddhist monk in a European context. I felt that the sheer presence of a monastic robe and a shaved head tended to create a barrier between me and others. People related to me as a representative of an institution rather than as another human being.” (p. 39) This is how I felt as well.
