Killing your ego is the main objective of joining a monastery. While I have never joined one and probably never will, you might be curious to know what the life inside a monastery is all about. Before you are a father monk you need to do two things: One to kill your ego, two to have a death experience. Only they you realize your separate self is the root of all evil and that you can choose to help the world realize the same thing too.
In the book of Lost Teachings Of Atlantis, Jon Peniel tells us about his hard life inside the monastery. The greatest lesson of all is you need to have a power of will made of steel to cope with the obstacles that will insist in blocking your way and you will also need to have ultimate self discipline to be the best in your profession. He gives the example of doctors that sometimes work 24 hours straight, maybe even several days straight before they are allowed to sleep. He tells about the importance of having enough self discipline to never miss a lesson so to never have less knowledge than what you need to do your job perfectly. Imagine what if you knew your doctor or worse the surgeon missed some lessons specially those about the part of your body that needs repair. You would not want to have surgery with him.
Another lesson worth writing is the meditation. Monks meditate everyday. It do it too, it helps you to clarify your mind. There are so many paths you can walk and your amount of knowledge plus your emotions and also your limited point of view are not big enough to help you make the right decisions. So meditation will help your mind focus on what really needs to be done and do it right. You should do meditation twice a day. It should be the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night. How to meditate? That’s for another article.
My favorite chapter of the book is when Jon Peniel has to wash dishes for life. He wanted to do the best for the world by playing guitar, instead his elder monk orders his to wash dishes. He was very angry in the beginning and doing a poor job. However as soon as he accepted and understood why he had to do this job, he started to work much better and faster with less struggle and his elder monk that same evening told him that now he would have to stop washing the dishes and instead he would have to play guitar. This alone shows you the importance of doing jobs you do not like so much to do.
