Monks in Jersey

Simon Wu never precisely names the ritual that brings him and his brothers (and parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmother) to the temple that weekend. But whether it’s a “coming-of-age ceremony,” a “Burmese bar mitzvah,” or a “meditation retreat,” his temporary monkhood provides the scaffold for a lovely essay. Wu is finely attuned to familial dynamics—see his 2024 Paris Review piece “Costco in Cancún”—and here he extends that lens to the figurative brotherhood of the red and marigold cloth. Faith, feeling, and family, all rendered keenly.

I had experienced this only once. In a Best Western conference room connected to a Hooters off the New Jersey Turnpike two years ago. A meditation retreat organized by my mother. Theinngu meditation is distinct from Vipassana meditation in its engagement with rhythmic breathwork, which can have extreme physical effects. There are only two rules: do not move, and breathe to the track. Three hours at a time. Somewhere around hour two of not moving, my hamstrings began to vibrate like the low end of a baby grand. My hands gnarled, the pain in them flat and insistent. Full-grown adults around me were crying, sweating. For the first two days, at the peak of the pain, I’d move an inch, and it would allay a little. And then it would be back. The monitors wandered around, repeating the rules. Do not move. Breathe. Only on the last day, when I managed to follow the rules in what felt like a Herculean amount of restraint, did I have a breakthrough. My legs felt like they might burst if I didn’t move. My pelvis was sore from sitting for so long; my body was wracked with sharp pains, and it hurt so much that I made an involuntary yelp. I started to cry, but I did not move. And I did break into something like a euphoria: a clear and free and blue release of pain; a hidden attic I hadn’t known existed in my brain, where it was now—at least a little—more comfortable to be still than to move.