I recently found this DVD and extracted the MP4 from it. Then I extracted the "story" of how I became a monk. This is actually old information if you have been following my posts. However, this is from 20 years ago. It gives a glimpse of what the kuti was like and how I was at the time. At the very end, I was so grateful to the fact that I made it as a monk that I began to cry. However, the interview was cut at that point for privacy reasons.

This is actually a book called Going For Broke: Travelogs on Becoming A Buddhist Monk

"I once had a visitor from America. He brought a video camera with him and asked me the David Byrne Question, "Well, how did I get here?" So I proceeded to tell him the story about how I first got turned on to meditation, how I decided to leave my job, the watch story, the Sai Babba slipper story, WPN and of course The Ordination Story.

I completed the 30 minute saga with the phrase "So…Here I am Bhikkhu Subhūti!" while stroking the robes that I was wearing. I then thought about how I would explain the different adventures that I've had and all the exciting things I've done and then say that this experience has surely been the best.

So I followed that thought and started to say, "You know…I've done a lot of …" but something happened at that moment. A big lump formed in my throat and I felt my eyes start to well up. I couldn't go on much longer. I cut everything short and finished abruptly with, "… But this has made me the most happy!" with a quivering voice. At this time, tears were falling down my face and I couldn't speak any more. I couldn't even tell the person who was filming me to stop. I could only wave my hand and do some "cut" director sign language to tell him to stop."