‘Boredom, no doubt, accounts for the inordinate amount
of sleeping one sees in monasteries - monks are forever taking naps - as well as for the dullness and
apathy frequently encountered in them. I suspect too, that those...who practice alchemy, medicine,
exorcism and...politics, do so not only for the intrinsic interest of the subject, but as an escape from
the tedium of monastic living. Similarly, boredom probably accounts for the great interest monks
show in visitors.’ Others take a different escape route. In a survey of monks in Thailand
anthropologist J. C. Ingersoll found that boredom was the main reason why young men left the
Sangha. When Somerset Maugham was traveling through Burma he had an interpreter who had
spent time in a monastery during his youth. Maugham asked him what he thought of the monk’s
life. ‘He shrugged his shoulders. “There was nothing to do”, he said. “Two hours work in the
morning and there were prayers at night, but all the rest of the day nothing. I was glad when the
time came for me to go home again.”’ And of those who stay behind their natural youthful
exuberance is gradually crushed under the weight of tradition and of having lay people doing
everything for them, and before long they begin doing what he sees the older monks doing - they
sleep.
You could hardly believe it possible for human beings to sleep so much until you’ve spent time in a
Theravada monastery. The most enduring images I have of my years in monasteries is of Burmese
monks dozing in chairs while their devotees massage their feet, of Thai monks lying flat on their
backs snoring at ten in the morning and of somnolent old nayaka hamdarus in Sri Lanka getting out
of bed for lunch and going straight back again after it is over. The English monk Phra Peter relates
an amusing incident he witnessed when a junior monk was paying respects to his senior with the
traditional three bows. The first bow went okay, the second was somewhat slower and during the
third bow the monk drifted off and remained fast asleep on the floor. This pervasive slothfulness is
a logical consequence of the Vinaya notion that monks must have everything done for them To
quote Spiro again. ‘Almost all his needs are satisfied by others, without his doing - or being
permitted to do - anything on his own behalf. As we have seen, he does no work; he does not earn
his own bread; even if he wants to, he cannot so much as pour his tea or lift his serving bowl, let
alone tend his garden or repair his monastery. Everything he needs must be given to him by others;
everything that he desires must be provided him by others. Moreover, others not only must provide
for the monk, but in fact they do provide for him, and - as we have seen - with lavish hand’ (italics
in the original).
The almost complete absence of physical exercise coupled with the rich diet is probably the reason
for the abnormally high incidence of diabetes amongst older Sri Lankan monks. A study released in
2002 showed that the leading cause of death amongst Thai monks was smoking related illnesses.
Having little else to do they while away their time sleeping, chatting and puffing on Klongtips [cigarettes].