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Even Monks Have to Buy Underwear

David and I were at Nordstrom Rack the other day, deep in a familiar ritual: scan the racks for a discounted deal, strike out, wander over to shoes.

(A perk of being married to a man who wears the same shoe size as me is that I’ve doubled my shoe collection over the years.)

I’d found a cute pair of chocolate brown sandals and turned to show David when I noticed a Buddhist monk in saffron robes.

He was standing a few feet away, comparing two different boxes of Calvin Klein underwear.

Startled, I tried not to stare but couldn’t help it. It felt like a collision of two worlds that had no business being together, like a flamingo driving an Uber.

To me, shopping for clothing is something I do to take a break from spirituality. And yet, aside from the saffron robes, there was nothing remarkable about what he was doing.

No chanting, no meditating. Just a guy shopping for boxer briefs.

David caught my gaze and turned around just in time to see a second monk wander by us. I’m assuming they were together, though I suppose it’s possible two identically dressed monks ended up at the same discount store by coincidence.

David looked at me, eyebrows raised and communicating without speaking: this isn’t something you see everyday!

We bought our sandals and left. I couldn’t shake the image of them the whole ride home. As a color intuitive, saffron robes have always given me a sense of peace, but somehow that feeling and “good deal at Nordstrom Rack” had never occupied the same thought before.

Early in my spiritual journey, I thought connection was supposed to look a specific way.

I imagined meditating on a mountaintop, finding nirvana in a sweat lodge, or receiving divine insights from the sky on a starry night.

What I keep relearning, is that a spiritual experience can often look like nothing at all. We can have a profound moment while paying taxes, taking out the trash, or even while shopping.

Our brains love a good fairy tale. We want the epiphany, the sign, the moment that feels like the universe reached down and tapped us on the shoulder.

So when life hands us a to-do list, laundry, or standing in line at the store, we assume that there’s no room for higher consciousness in these moments.

But maybe the path of spirituality was never supposed to sparkle the whole way?

Maybe the sparkle is the highlight reel of life, not the whole story. If the mundane is where we actually live most of our lives, the real practice is finding that same sense of peace wherever we are.

Even monks, it turns out, have to shop for underwear.

I’d love to know: what small moments bring you a sense of spirituality? Let me know in the comments below!

Much Love,

32 Responses

  1. People who do not know me suddenly giving me a big smile on the street or in a store…

  4. Even doing a mundane chore as vacuuming the floor can have it’s moment, being totally present in the task as hand, noticing the color and the patterns of the carpet but also the feeling of accomplishment when the job is done. Especially when you have fur babies that leave fur everywhere 💖

  5. Sitting in front of a window watching and listening to a Thunderstorm rumble through as the rain is pouring down, creating puddles ,and the trees are shaking off the rain only to nourish the grass below. What a beautiful contrast of nature.

  6. When my small calico cat arrives in my lap, circles a few times and settles into her nest for a nap.

  7. Watching my cats response to just a touch of a hand, witnessing the thrill of being noticed and the ensuring enthusiasm with rollovers, tummy rubs and purrs is so heartwarming.

  8. When I work in my back yard I have one or two hummingbirds watching me, they always come from behind and I don’t see them, but I hear them. And sometimes they come very close from the side. We recently moved to that house and the garden was very abandoned, so it seems that they like me to take care of the plants.

  9. Napping with my dog on the couch! Just feeling his warm body and rhythmic breathing brings me peace (and knocks me out) like nothing else. It’s the one thing that always brings me contentment and a sense of home. 🙂

  10. Thank you, Dougall. Just think, we would never have known that monks shop for underwear. Now you have me wondering what colour they chose!

  11. One of my favorites is sitting next to my fish pond, interacting with my fancy goldfish while at the same time having other creatures (hummingbirds, dragonflies, bees, etc.) coming around as if to say, “I want to join the conversation too!!”

  12. When the last bright rays of the setting sun come through the crystals hanging in the west window and fill the room with rainbows. And all the purrs and attention from my feline family.

  14. I love the synchronistic events; spirituality has many ways of showing us divine intervention, a clue from the universe,
    I had a reading from a trance medium in the UK, and I wrote everything down. After serving a church last Thursday, I was talking to a friend, and I re-read what the trance medium had said. It said you will serve a church in Doncaster. I laughed at the time and said never well 6 years later it came true

  15. Hi Dougall, love your thoughts and updates lately, especially on the garden and art tour you and David did. I’m going to visit my local botanical here in Atlanta, so you’ve inspired us! That is what gives me a sense of spirituality, serendipitous moments of reading a text or email at just the right time, on just the right day and it all makes sense.
    Have a beautiful day out there!

  16. I am in Florida and, sitting on a dock outside a cottage I used to rent, I saw a manatee come up right in front of me! I used to see them when I lived there but, seeing this one and, on the same night, seeing a dolphin jump also right in front of me, made me feel like I had made the right decision moving back here. It felt like the universe was saying, “Yes!”.
    In fact, one time I looked up what it meant if a manatee were your ‘totem’ and it signifies peace. I guess this is not an every day thing but to the manatee it is everyday! I just happened to see him on his everyday journey and he made me feel MY journey is right!

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