| | This is quoted from a recent email from a friend of mine. She's done many months of vipassana retreat, and has a pretty good practice in daily life. She has, she states, zero interest in ordaining as a nun, but I think, like me, feels that in Western Dharma circles the aspect of community has room for development.
"I have been interested for a while in the possibility of residential, lay, Theravadan living-and-practice communities. I don’t know of any. A Zen layperson can live at Green Gulch. But a Theravadan practitioner who wants to live with others in a Dharma-focused life only has the option of ordaining (or visiting temporarily at a monastery/vihara). Why not create intentional lay communities around Theravadan practice?"
It's a little bit- perhaps- oxymoronic to speak about "lay monasticism," because I think the definition of the word "lay" is tricky in that it implies non-monastic. I prefer a non-dual approach. Monks are people too. Luckily, we have traditional support for this concept, because the true sangha is considered to transcend one's societal place (monk or otherwise) and rely totally on one's spiritual nobility, based on the degree to which one is free from greed, hatred and delusion.
Why did the Buddha create a conventional "sangha" (that collection of people he lived with who were meditating, teaching, and living together)?
I know from retreats, and from visiting monasteries, that a beautiful field of safety and peace is created when a group of people lives engaged in cultivating the 8-fold path. The result is a living example of the Buddha's teachings- a place for people to live happily, to learn happiness, and an example to those outside the community to be inspired (or not).
I feel that I know quite a few people, young and old, who would be all over an opportunity to live in a dharma community that wasn't just silent, deep, retreat. I feel I also know many people who, although for some reason (having nothing to do, necessarily, with the quality or depth of their practice) wouldn't choose to live in such a group, would be inspired and supportive of it.
In many ways, I suspect that a sangha would run into all kinds of similar problems as the Buddha's ran into. But, I think that's still worth it, because you're focused on those problems in terms of the 8-fold path. I think that certain people are drawn to Buddhist practice, when they become somehow mature spiritually. They see the four heavenly messengers, as it were, and their life becomes irreversably about acting in harmony with the world as it is. I find, living as a layperson, that something feels almost a little off living for the most part with people whose lives aren't "irreversably about acting in harmony with the world as it is." I can practice with that, of course, and it's even supportive of them to become more interested in spiritual life. However, I've noticed such a great synergy when people come together for practice, interested in deepening their dharma practice. It just feels good to me, because it's deeper, and then a more appropriate relationship can be established with people whose interests in spiritual life are a little more distant.
However, I have no interest, like my friend, in becoming a monk. How would one go about creating a modern, dharma community? What would it look like? How would it start? What purpose would it serve?
Whatever it looked like, I certainly imagine that it would be a great way to have a chance at getting the core teachings of the buddha more in-dialogue with mainstream academia and politics (in some appropriate way), which I feel could be a way to benefit the community at large.
Perhaps these questions are too speculative, too abstract. But, perhaps they trigger some response that could help deepen my thought process around this issue. Either stuff about the historical buddha and sangha, or ideas I haven't thought of for what it might look like. Or, feelings that come up around this issue. This seems like an awesome forum for the discussion of a topic like this, so I'm happy to be able to post.
Again, most of all, around this issue I think I just sense that in the community of practitioners who are quite sincere, and are in a tradition like this, or of going on retreats, there's a clear sense that monasticism isn't for them. And yet there may be aspects of it that are valuable, and underdeveloped, in life outside the monastery. One of those, I think, may be some benefits- both in oneself and in one's community- to actually living and practicing in daily life, together. I feel that this is the ultimate possibility for all beings, but until then, perhaps a micro-version is the next best thing. Perhaps not.
Thanks for reading. |