Review: The Novice: Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit, and What I Learned
Stephen Schettini has written another Buddhist memoir, The Novice, to add to my list of Westerners writing in this sub-genre. This book carries some of the main themes I have already noted in my extensive reading of Western Buddhist memoirs (see post). His book reveals themes that are consistent with other Western monastic tales. He is disenchanted with Christianity and finds it does not answer his questions. Because of this, he travels to India and encounters Tibetan Buddhism. Back in Europe, he finds a Tibetan monastic community and ordains. In the end he realizes that he put the religion of Buddhism on a pedestal and that it could not live up to his ideal. As he is realizing this he writes So Buddhism wouldnt answer my every question. It couldnt even pose them all (240). Below I will detail these themes in more detail.
This is a more traditional memoir, which is structured chronologically, as the reader learns in detail about the authors early life and travels before becoming a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Switzerland. He first travels from England and eventually to Dharamsala where the Buddhist part of this memoir really begins. In India he also finds his way to Mt. Kopan and the retreat center of the famous Lama Yeshe.
After this initial contact, Schettini must return home due to lack of travel funds. But he soon finds a growing community of Western Tibetan monks in Switzerland under Geshe ! Rabten. Through a stroke of good luck or karma, he is able to find a sponsor so he can undertake this endeavor. This part reads like a whos who of early Western Buddhism as Schettinis colleagues in this early Western monk community are Steven Batchelor and Alan Wallace.
But like many of the memoirs I have investigated this one also expresses doubt in the tradition as well as concern about the cultural exchange between Eastern teachers with Western students. He writes Western Buddhism would sooner or later have to develop its own feet, and it was beginning to look like the sooner the better (305), in reaction to the lay and monastic community that he believes are too excited by the exoticism of the guru and tradition that they cannot use their own critical judgment. He finds that trying to think for oneself makes one a persona non grata. He also realizes that language and culture are a barrier to understanding Buddhism through his Tibetan teachers. Schettini writes Id already seen that we should dig into our own culture for a vernacular to express the purpose of Buddhism. Now I realized that wed have to explain our own truths . . . We were climbing the distant mountain of Tibetan language only to gaze back, fascinated, at our own valley (240).
Schettini tests his growing doubt further by next delving into Tibetan culture by staying at Sera monastery in the south of India. Here he finds the debate and rote memorization an affront to critical thinking, although his Tibetan does improve, as he had hoped. A highlight of this second trip to India is his meeting with the Dalai Lama and running into now well-known professor Robert Thurman. But back in Switzerland with Geshe Rabten it is inevitable that he will disrobe. He writes of himself throughout these monastic experiences as too questioning of the tradition and the hierarchical structure and this is even more apparent in contrast to the new Western monks he encounters who are uncritically devoted to their teacher.
The end of the book leaves one un! satisfie d with Schettinis journey. He was looking to find answers in Buddhism but found he could not find them in the religious structure he had ordained into. But he doesnt find the answer anywhere else eitherhe is left in a similar situation as he was before he found Buddhism and meditation. He is still confused about life and relationships, although of course, has gained helpful tools through meditation practice and study of Buddhism. Only in the epilogue does the reader get a sense that he has learned how to be happy, and he does this through becoming part of a family and writing this book, The Novice.
