Why We Need Monasticism
Many classical Buddhist texts, of both Northern and Southern traditions, emphasize that monasticism plays an essential role in the health and longevity of the religion and its dispensation. However, in the West, the vast majority of influential dharma teachers over the last forty years have been lay practitioners, or at least householder lamas and Zen priests, such as Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Suzuki Roshi, Sharon Salzberg, and S.N. Goenka.
Notable exceptions to this trend include Bhante Gunaratana and Ajahn Sumedho, and the late Lama Thubten Yeshe, Master Hsuan Hua, and Roshi Jiyu Kennett. These teachers and their monastic communities have all had a profound influence in their own way, yet the numbers of those making a monastic commitment remains small.
As far as the Asian immigrant communities in the West are concerned, there is no doubt that the forms their faith took in the old country are to be preserved at all cost. However, for those who were born and raised in the West, the encounter with Buddhism—and Buddhist monasticism in particular—raises questions such as: How important is it for the monastic path to be an element in Western Buddhism? Will women ever have an equal place in the monastic order? Since Buddhist monasticism was shaped by the various cultures it was exported to in Asia, what will it look like in the West?
In Buddhist mythology, the monastic plays the role of the fourth of the Heavenly Messengers, the one that caused Gotama to leave the palace, take up the life of a monk, and seek enlightenment. In order for messengers to do their job successfully they must be faithful both to the intent and meaning of the sender, as well as to the language and mores of the ones who are to receive the message; otherwise the communication won’t get through.
Today, the challenge for Western Buddhist monastics is how to be a faithful messenger. That is, one who embodies and respects the values of the source, yet who is also faithful to the values of this time and place.
If the messenger favors the origin and doesn’t pay heed to the language of the recipients, the message can become unreadable, with no more spiritual relevance than some of the antiquated religious forms already found in the West. If they lean too far in the other direction, over-adapting to fit the dharma du jour, the message can become so twisted in relation to its original meaning that its roots become severed and the receivers are orphaned from the ground of their tradition.
The Buddhist monastic order is the oldest human institution still functioning under its original bylaws. It’s an entity ripe in years, but whether it sits in the endangered species category or that of the hardy perennial remains to be seen. Where survival and flourishing are concerned, a lot depends on the skill and faith of the individual messenger, but, in addition, much also depends on whether the society wishes to hear the message, even if it’s being conveyed in an appropriate mode.
The following discussion will explore many of these issues and, in particular, how and why the monastic messenger might still be useful in the world.
AJAHN AMARO is co-abbot of Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California. He was ordained as a bhikkhu by Ajahn Chah in 1979.
Excerpted from the Spring 2010 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, available on newsstands February 23rd.
ROBERT THURMAN is the Jey Tsong Khapa professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, and cofounder and president of Tibet House U.S. He was ordained in 1964, becoming the first American monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He renounced his vows of celibacy three years later. His latest book is Why the Dalai Lama Matters.
JAN CHOZEN BAYS is co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon. She received priest’s ordination and dharma transmission from the late Taizan Maezumi Roshi. She is also a pediatrician, wife, mother, and the author of Mindful Eating.
BHIKKHU BODHI is a senior American Buddhist monk and scholar who was ordained in 1973 in Sri Lanka. In 2002, he returned to the United States and now resides at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York. He is the president of the Buddhist Publication Society and chair of the Buddhist Global Relief organization.
AYYA TATHAALOKA is an American bhikkhuni and cofounder of the North American Bhikkhuni Association. In 2005, she founded the first women’s monastic residence in the Theravada tradition in the western United States, located in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently the resident teacher at Bodhi House in San Francisco, and is establishing a women’s monastic hermitage on California’s Sonoma Coast. Last October, she served as preceptor in the first Theravada bhikkhuni ordinations in Australia.
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