That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I turned into a monk when my mother went to learn Buddhism in Burma. While she learnt at the monastery, I used to roam around with a begging bowl and ask for food.
I grew up in a mostly Buddhist environment.
I was very lucky when I was a kid - I travelled a lot and spent a lot of time in Africa, Asia and Europe. I also chant in Sanskrit.
While I was in India, my yoga teacher asked me to start teaching, and my life became about that for years. I taught 18 classes a week, therapeutics, and traveled to study with other teachers.
However, I began meditating at about that time and have continued on and off over the years.
At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn't exist except as a part of everything.
I'm not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I've always liked the Buddhist religion. When I've been to Japan, I've been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.
I was interested in psychic things and in spiritualism even as a boy. I'd started doing yoga by the early 1970s.
I am a simple Buddhist monk - no more, no less.
I was a typical teen growing up in the 1960s, when everybody was into gurus and meditation.