Rev. Danny Fisher

I was honored when Shambhala Sun‘s Molly De Shong sent me an article from the latest, hot-off-the-presses issue of Buddhadharma:  The Practitioner’s Quarterly (www.thebuddhadharma.com), and gave me permission to post it in its entirety here as a PDF file.  I was even more honored to host the piece here after I read it:  it’s an extraordinary, important, rich roundtable piece about “Why We Need Monasticism” with our friend Bhikkhu Bodhi, Jan Chozen Bays, Robert Thurman, and Ayya Tathaaloka.  There’s also a lovely, insightful introduction by the great Ajahn Amaro, who offers a striking description of the monastic’s role according to Buddhist cosmology.

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 unread- able, with no more spiritual relevance than some of the anti- quated 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 receiv- ers are orphaned from the ground of their tradition.

The Buddhist monastic order is the oldest human institu- tion still functioning under its original bylaws. It’s an entity ripe in years, but whether it sits in the endangered species cat- egory 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.

Read all the rest right here at this blog.  And for more, visit the source at http://www.thebuddhadharma.com.