Hey y’all,
Today, I looked up the daily routine of a Buddhist monk. While I’m not a monk nor looking to become one, I think their life does seem rather peaceful, and I want to try it out, at least in some form. As I’m a married, currently pregnant, female living in the Southern US, I realize that there’s no way I can live 100% like a Buddhist monk, but I want to try what I can.
I’m hoping this will work out better than the previous schedule I tried a while back, which was the “block schedule” by Jordan Paige. Basically you divide your day into blocks of time and only focus on certain things during that time – like in school. While this schedule was extremely effective and made me so productive, it also totally wore me out physically and mentally, and I spent the next two days doing nothing. Since a monk’s routine involves multiple rest periods and meditation times, I have a feeling that things will be more relaxed.
The routine goes like this:
- 5:30 am – wake up
- 6 am – group prayer & meditation
- 7:30 am – chores/cleaning
- 8:30 am – personal time
- 11 am – one meal of the day
- noon – personal time (heavily focused on meditation/walking meditation)
- 8 pm – evening group prayer & meditation
- 8:30 pm – personal time
- 10:30ish – bed
Wow, writing that out made me realize how much personal time there is in a monk’s day. I do like that they only eat a single meal a day. I would assume it’s pretty big, but even so, eating 1 or a couple times a day is so much less work than eating 3 meals a day (plus snacks). What I did a while back was get some really big serving bowls. Instead of serving things, I eat my meals out of them. I cook 95% of my food, so it’s much easier to cook and clean up when there are fewer meals during the day. I’ve heard the whole “eat on smaller plates so you’ll eat less,” and while that is true, a small plate guarantees that you’ll have to eat many times throughout the day. Unless you wash dishes every single time you eat, this adds up to a lot of dirty dishes. I don’t already eat once a day, but I’ve definitely been limiting my meals for a while now, so I think this part will be easier. I don’t think I can eat all my food in 1 sitting, but I’m definitely going to be reducing my frequency of eating.
While I don’t think I’ll be living strictly by the times given in the routine (since I’m also working around my husband’s work schedule), I want to try and adhere to this routine as much as possible while still maintaining my own life’s routine. Wish me luck!
Frugal Treehugger 