I was only nineteen when I left my family behind and entered the monastery at Jetavana, a quiet grove near the ancient city of Sāvatthī in India. My teacher was Venerable Ānanda, one of the Buddha’s closest disciples, kind and patient beyond belief. But even his patience had limits.
I had grown up in a home filled with scholars. My father debated with priests, and my older brothers fought over sacred verses late into the night. So when I became a monk, I brought that hunger with me—the need to understand every phrase, every silence, every fingertip of the Buddha’s teachings.
I asked everything.
"Venerable Ānanda, why does craving lead to suffering?"
"Venerable, what exactly is Nirvana?”
“If existence is not-self, does the self exist at all?”
And one morning, I went too far.
We had just returned from alms round, our robes dusty, our bowls empty. The midday sun lingered like a golden mist on the edge of the rice fields when I cornered Venerable Ānanda again, this time with a list of twenty new questions I had drafted in my mind during the walk.
He looked at me, his brows gently drawn together.
“My brother,” he said, “you are like a man shot with a poisoned arrow who demands to know what wood the arrow is made from, who crafted the tip, and what bird gave the feathers—before allowing a healer to pull it out.”
“But how can I walk the path unless I understand where it leads?” I said.
"Because some things,” he replied, “must be seen, not said.”
That night I sat beneath a Bodhi tree—just like the one under which the Buddha had once attained enlightenment—troubled for the first time not by unknowing, but by my clinging to it.
The monk who questioned everything, I realized, was trying too hard to trap truth in words.
Days passed. I stopped speaking during meals. I began walking slowly, listening not with my questions, but with my breath, the sound of the wind through bamboo, the quiet washing of robes in the stream.
One evening, Venerable Ānanda brought me a faded scroll from the Sutta Nipāta, a collection of early teachings. He tapped a passage gently with his finger.
“‘Not by debating can truth be known. Not by clinging to views can liberation be found. The wise drop both belief and doubt, and walk the Middle Way.’”
The Middle Way. Not too tight. Not too loose. Not about knowing all things, but seeing clearly what is here.
In the weeks that followed, something shifted. I didn’t answer fewer questions. I asked fewer.
And in the space left behind, I began to truly see.
The falling of a single leaf.
The suffering of a hungry crow.
The soft rise of joy in my chest, uninvited and light.
I was no longer the monk who asked too many questions. I was simply a monk who learned to wait for the answers that came—not from words, but from stillness.
And in that change, everything turned. The path became clear, not because I understood it completely, but because I had stopped needing to.
I walked away from that Bodhi tree with nothing in hand—but a mind, for the first time, free.
I was only nineteen when I left my family behind and entered the monastery at Jetavana, a quiet grove near the ancient city of Sāvatthī in India. My teacher was Venerable Ānanda, one of the Buddha’s closest disciples, kind and patient beyond belief. But even his patience had limits.
I had grown up in a home filled with scholars. My father debated with priests, and my older brothers fought over sacred verses late into the night. So when I became a monk, I brought that hunger with me—the need to understand every phrase, every silence, every fingertip of the Buddha’s teachings.
I asked everything.
"Venerable Ānanda, why does craving lead to suffering?"
"Venerable, what exactly is Nirvana?”
“If existence is not-self, does the self exist at all?”
And one morning, I went too far.
We had just returned from alms round, our robes dusty, our bowls empty. The midday sun lingered like a golden mist on the edge of the rice fields when I cornered Venerable Ānanda again, this time with a list of twenty new questions I had drafted in my mind during the walk.
He looked at me, his brows gently drawn together.
“My brother,” he said, “you are like a man shot with a poisoned arrow who demands to know what wood the arrow is made from, who crafted the tip, and what bird gave the feathers—before allowing a healer to pull it out.”
“But how can I walk the path unless I understand where it leads?” I said.
"Because some things,” he replied, “must be seen, not said.”
That night I sat beneath a Bodhi tree—just like the one under which the Buddha had once attained enlightenment—troubled for the first time not by unknowing, but by my clinging to it.
The monk who questioned everything, I realized, was trying too hard to trap truth in words.
Days passed. I stopped speaking during meals. I began walking slowly, listening not with my questions, but with my breath, the sound of the wind through bamboo, the quiet washing of robes in the stream.
One evening, Venerable Ānanda brought me a faded scroll from the Sutta Nipāta, a collection of early teachings. He tapped a passage gently with his finger.
“‘Not by debating can truth be known. Not by clinging to views can liberation be found. The wise drop both belief and doubt, and walk the Middle Way.’”
The Middle Way. Not too tight. Not too loose. Not about knowing all things, but seeing clearly what is here.
In the weeks that followed, something shifted. I didn’t answer fewer questions. I asked fewer.
And in the space left behind, I began to truly see.
The falling of a single leaf.
The suffering of a hungry crow.
The soft rise of joy in my chest, uninvited and light.
I was no longer the monk who asked too many questions. I was simply a monk who learned to wait for the answers that came—not from words, but from stillness.
And in that change, everything turned. The path became clear, not because I understood it completely, but because I had stopped needing to.
I walked away from that Bodhi tree with nothing in hand—but a mind, for the first time, free.
