From Deer Park Monastery, it's Meet the Monastics. As monastics, the most common question asked of us is, you guessed it, why did you become a monastic? I'm Brother Minh-An, a Buddhist monk in the Plum Village tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. And this podcast is for anyone who's ever wanted to ask that question. Each week, we'll bring you my conversations with other fully ordained monks and nuns about their journey to monastic life and what inspires them now. We hope they inspire you to live a happier, kinder, and more meaningful life. And who knows, maybe some of you will even consider monastic life yourself. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or on the Deer Park Monastery YouTube channel. Get rid of all of your ideas of what monastic path is.  Now you get to choose, and it's deliberate. That is a monk. What is more satisfying in life than helping people to transform their suffering? I mean, who cares about money and all this other stuff? I just remember this feeling of, wow, I knew all this stuff already that is in the book, but somehow in the busyness, in the pursuits, in all the stuff in daily life, I had lost touch with it somehow. And God, I just don't wanna lose touch with this again. I need to just like keep drilling this in. Because by the end of the day, it is your self-love that helped me, that saved me, that keeps me going. Because if I continue to criticize myself or have excessive negative thoughts, I cannot do much. And I noticed my relationship with my sibling is more honest. But I think the most important thing is that my relationship with myself is a lot more honest. So that made me very happy. -