On Lay Monasticism Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B. and Ram Dass

I think that is what vows start to finally mean. They’re living statements of “This is going to see my vehicle through. I agree that if it turns out to be horrible, I’ll work with that horror rather than walk away from it.”

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Abbot Armand:   Who would like to react to what has been said, talking from their own experience?

Ram Dass:   It seems to me somewhat naïve, David, to say that the Buddhists are primarily concerned with silence, the Hindus are concerned with the Spirit, and the Jews and Christians are concerned with form. Because what I keep finding is that every tradition is all of it. Certainly in Hinduism when you have explored thoroughly Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and so on, you find it all. I was with Joseph [Goldstein, of the Insight Meditation Center] at Acha Cha’s monastery in northern Thailand, and I said to Joseph: “How long do you think we can hold on to you being a Buddhist and me being a Hindu? How long do you think it can last, because it is obviously disappearing right before our very eyes.” Just as David, Swamiji and Tai-san shared that space, we all are sharing the space of the formless and the form, and understanding a variety of ways. It seems to me now that this discussion of East vs. West seems very trivial. It doesn’t seem very significant any more.

Br. David:   I completely agree. In the Christian tradition itself you have the prayer of silence which is Buddhism and which Buddhists recognize. “John of the Cross is a Buddhist.” I’ve heard that many times. Then there are the gospel stories where Jesus sends the man to do something, and only when he goes and carries out the Word, and not just listens to the Word, but meditates on it and carries it out, in this doing the man sees and has the insight or revelation. Like being sent to wash in the pool -- when the Word sends you, and you allow the Word to send you, and it really sends you and you do it, then you’re obedient. So I completely agree.

I don’t know why we keep talking about East and West. There are still remnants of course. There are still people who think this is East and this is West, and they will never come together. I know that Jung is one who said that East and West will never come together. And, although I am deeply impressed with Jung and often think, “Who am I to correct Jung on this point,” I must be faithful to my own insight.

Ram Dass:   I think he was wrong too.

Br. David:   But you see we are addressing ourselves now to Jung and there is still reason to talk in those terms.

Participant: I think you are addressing yourselves to the masses. The vast majority of the people still see East and West as separate.

Ram Dass:   But if in fact as you go deeper in, they are not separate, and the differences disappear before your very eyes, the question is, is it productive once you know this to then talk about East and West any longer? Or is it better to find within the Christian tradition all the aspects and breathe life into those aspects that may have gotten lost in the shuffle rather than going and buying some other tradition and bringing it in? That’s all I’m asking at this moment.

Participant: What about, Brother David, your sense of where monasticism is going today?

Br. David:   Well I’ve heard this term “lay monasticism” tossed around and I’m not quite sure if I understand it. But let me just bracket that word for a moment and give you my own impression very briefly. I look at it from two sides. I look at it on the one hand from the monastery and from my own personal experience, and the other side from the lay side and what is happening with lay people whom I know. There are pressures with regard to monastic life coming from both sides, from the inside and from the outside. These pressures are going in the same direction. The lay people say: “Give us a share in monastic life. And give us a greater and greater share in monastic life.” There’s a real pressure. Of course nothing in the thousands, but there are very many significant people who want to have a real share and do not just want to be guests. This puts a tremendous burden, for instance, on our monastery of Mount Saviour. We have not one day in the year when there are not quite a number of guests, and many days when there are far more guests than monks. So one way of getting out of this is by dropping the arbitrary distinction between guests and monks. Instead say that we have here a community, and it consists of some people who stay here all the time, and we have other people who come only for a short time. Some come for many years, and sometimes even make profession and then leave again, and others come just for a weekend or some short period of time. Make no distinction. Of course the ones who stay there for a long time may wear a different habit, if necessary, but all are one community. It’s not one that just caters to outsiders, which puts a tremendous burden on the monks and which never fully satisfies the outsiders. Why don’t we just have one community? That is one direction in which I see things developing.

And then the moment you allow some people to come in for a while, there’s no reason you can’t allow some people to go out for a while. Now I can fully understand the role of permanent stability of monks in the monastery, but there is also the problem with lowering the standards in the monastery, constantly to come to the lowest common denominator. We know what happens to a faculty in which there is tenure. It constantly lowers the standard. Now imagine a school of the Lord’s service (which the Benedictine monastery is by definition), in which the students have tenure! Imagine that! And that is what has happened to us. And therefore something has to be done about it.

Participant: Isn’t the notion of permanent vows in the West as opposed to temporary vows in the East quite pertinent there? Whenever you think of monasticism in the West you have to think of permanent vows. There is no such thing as a temporary vow in the West. They won’t even accept the fact that something like this exists; whereas in the East, you can take a vow for an hour.

Br. David:   That whole question of vows is such a problem. I’m for permanent commitment. I don’t want to get into this discussion of permanent or perpetual vows, because I do think that anyone who gets into this thing ought to do it perpetually. It would be ridiculous to commit yourself temporarily. But this is a very different thing from committing yourself to a particular form. You see, we have gotten this mixed up. Commitment to the monastic path is not necessarily tied up with one particular form of life forever. Yet, commitment to a form has gotten more and more rigid; it has become for some people a commitment to every little detail, every little rubric as part of their vow. I think somewhere you have to draw the line. But whether you can draw the line from the outside or whether the person has to draw this line from the inside, from his heart -- that might come together with Ram Dass’ idea of living more in the moment.

Ram Dass:   Again, coming back to the business of stages of evolution or readiness. I think what we’ve faced is a lot of people taking vows at the wrong level and taking vows out of “ought” and “should,” not out of the inner readiness. It’s like surrender that is real surrender is no surrender. It’s that kind of thing. It’s no vow, it’s merely a form for it to happen in. In the West we’ve seen it in marriages. We went from where marriage was ‘til death do us part and a statement under God, to the point where it became a social contract for convenience. And now we can see among the young people who are seeking, an attempt to hear what it means to make a long-term commitment. They are saying, “We will share karma and it is my dharma to work with you to awaken.” I think that is what vows start to finally mean. They’re living statements of “This is going to see my vehicle through. I agree that if it turns out to be horrible, I’ll work with that horror rather than walk away from it.” That’s the value of the vow. But that’s got to be done by a conscious being and we haven’t been conscious enough to make vows. So they have been made by unconscious people and then they are just what they are. They’re just stuff on paper that’s not worth anything. So it’s again a statement of our evolution as to what we’re ready for.

Participant: I think that the true nature of the vow of stability is implicit in our being here, that ultimately the vow means simply a permanent, profound commitment to following the Lord’s will.

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