My Time in Robes

My Time in Robes

In some of the earliest Buddhist texts, it is said that just the mere act of seeing a monastic can be enough to spur one to shave their head and don the ochre robes. In fact, it was upon observing an ascetic—a wandering samana of ancient India—that Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha-to-be, was first inspired to seek out a path to the end of suffering. While these stories are meant to inspire us, reading as extraordinary, perhaps even improbable, I ha…