Act Normal: the English Buddhist monk who moved to Iceland, married and returned to the monastery

When he is asked whether he is happy, the monk assumes the question is about the microphone. Then he corrects himself: sometimes, and expecting more than that would be asking too much. The scene sums up Act Normal, an Icelandic documentary about a man who tried to live outside the monastery and found he did not know how.

The film is by Icelandic director Olaf de Fleur, released in 2006. Over ten years he followed Englishman Robert T. Edison, born in Leeds, drawn to Buddhism since the age of 14 after reading a book, and a monk since 18. The film also hears from his former wife, a Russian woman he met in Kazakhstan.

From the Thai forest to Reykjavík

Edison spent two years as a novice in England and, at 20, went to Thailand, where he lived in forest monasteries in the northeast and north of the country. In 1994, invited by Thais living in Iceland, he moved to Reykjavík. The early days were close to hunger; later he became an informal interpreter between Thai immigrant women and their Icelandic husbands, explaining, for instance, why pointing a foot at someone gives offense.

Leaving the robes

After 16 years of monastic life, he concluded he had been ordained too young and left without consulting anyone. On a trip to Kazakhstan in December 1999 he met his future wife and married her so he could bring her to Iceland; the marriage lasted about five months. The film hears both sides with rare candor: he calls himself too self-centered for a relationship; she describes him as kind, too patient and closed in on himself. Nights in bars followed, which bored him, along with a growing sense that he did not fit into ordinary life.

The return

In December 2004 Edison went back to Thailand to visit former abbots. Monk friends kept bringing a bowl, robes and the rest, and within a few days he was ordained again. He says he misses nothing about lay life and plans to devote himself to translating texts in Pali.

What is at stake

Behind the dry humor lies the central doctrine of Theravada Buddhism that he sets out at the end: everything that arises passes away, and there is no permanent self, a teaching known as anatta. In his view, "if you want to be free of suffering, you hold on to nothing." It is a practitioner's view, not a conclusion of the film. It is worth watching for the honest portrait of someone who tried both lives and chose one.