Monks, Nuns, and Yogis: The Need for Full-Time Practitioners
ROBERT THURMAN
JUDY LIEF
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
What role have long-term, full-time practitioners—whether monastics, priests, mountain yogis, or forest yogis—played in the development of Buddhism? Are their activities essential to the continuation of an authentic Buddhist tradition?
ROBERT THURMAN: Monasticism has been an essential element in Buddhism since the beginning. However, I don’t like to define a full-time practitioner only as someone who is a monastic or on retreat. I would say that the fate of Buddhism has depended historically on people who turn their lives toward enlightenment as their constant preoccupation. But that has not always been monastics or retreatants. There have been laypeople who have practiced the Dharma by not responding in anger to violence when people shouted at them or hit them or did something wrong to them. That is also full-time practice. Applying antidotes to the kleśas is a forceful practice.
Therefore, I don’t think we should define full-time practitioners only as those in retreat. But having said that, it is true that historically people have needed to go on retreat to develop the ability to counter the kleśas. You need to withdraw, to be alone with the emotions and the mental functions and factors to gain a handle on them. Having done so, you are able to deal with the world in a full-time way.
JUDY LIEF: Part of the question hinges on the definition of practice. If we understand practice as bending the mind toward awakening and the present moment, then practice can take place in many guises. A certain number of people do need to disrupt their lives and dedicate themselves to realization as their full-time priority. But people can also dedicate themselves to Buddhist principles of compassion no matter what lifestyle they may have. Like Bob, I would not link practice solely with monasticism. There are many ways of going about it.
When I met my teacher, I dropped out and moved to where he needed me to be. Many people have done similar things when they were inspired, whether they went to live in a practice community or went to receive in-depth teachings from a particular teacher. A powerful component of any sangha are the people who transform their priorities dramatically, the people who turn their minds from the usual career path or materialistic values toward awakening.
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: There is another key reason why it is important for a certain number of people to dedicate their lives in a full-time way to practice, for at least some period of time: the wisdom that leads to awakening rests on the foundation of concentration. Most people need a secluded environment to develop concentration. That is one of the crucial things missing in the West now, given that our society and culture is so distracted. It may be wishful thinking to imagine that we can actually realize the depth of the teachings in the midst of such a lifestyle.
Historically, what role have intensive practitioners played in the practice of lay Buddhists?
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: Historically, the laypeople have relied on the intensive practitioners both for general life guidance and more specifically for meditation guidance.
ROBERT THURMAN: There is no question that without the bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, and ordained lay men and women who followed the Vinaya, Buddhism would not have had the impact it did in Asia. They were developing a much deeper mental focus, and they were creating a higher lifestyle in those societies: greater self-restraint, greater focus, and greater wisdom. Aside from the effect of their formal teaching, they created a vibe that emanated from their institutions that completely changed the quality of the society.
Laypeople depended on the foundation provided by the ascetics. However, the laypeople’s way of practicing the religion was through developing generosity, morality, and patience, more than developing concentration and wisdom. In fact, there became too great a duality between the monks and nuns developing the concentration and wisdom part and the laypeople working more on the moral interaction level, relying on the vibes emanating from the monks and nuns.
JUDY LIEF: Over time, the monastic establishment separated itself from lay society in a very elitist way. Different teachings were given to laypeople than were given to monastic people. The special teachings were held out for the special people, and the other people were left with a more superficial, moralistic side of Dharma.
Also, in terms of the monastic Sangha, the women are at the bottom of the heap. So much religious exclusivity and sexism has been linked with the monastic approach that it has been quite harmful to at least 50 percent of Buddhists, who are looked down upon as taking care of the mundane world, in contrast to males, who are devoted to higher matters.
What opportunities exist today for Westerners to devote themselves full-time to practice and study of the Dharma?
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: Overall the opportunities for intensive practice do seem to be limited. There are few places where people can devote themselves full-time to practice. We are just now at a stage of development of Buddhism in the West where the need for more long-term practice places is becoming apparent.
JUDY LIEF: We are not without opportunities, though. Zen communities offer programs where one can spend a year or two in residence. Some of the Tibetan sanghas offer community residency options, and there are three-year retreat programs in Europe and the US. IMS offers longer-term practice facilities and the Shambhala community has a regular schedule of dathüns, which are month-long meditation sessions. Opportunities for intensive practice seem to exist in all the traditions—maybe not lifelong situations, but definitely lengthy, intensive practice and study opportunities.
But is it sufficient to have places where people can practice for a month or a year or several years, or do we need opportunities for people to practice for a decade or more?
ROBERT THURMAN: It is hard to get people to realize that long-term practice is extremely important, not only because it benefits the practitioner but also because it benefits the entire society. It counteracts consumerism and violence. Institutions that foster long-term practice are crucial if we are to make headway in dealing with society.
On the other hand, Joseph’s point about the gradual seeding that has taken place is very well taken. You can’t just drop out with an untutored mind and expect to get a result in solitude. You need to be aiming in the right direction, so that you can use the solitude in a creative way.
Do we need institutions that can create a cadre of Western Buddhists who are deeply knowledgeable about Buddhism, as well as deeply practiced?
JUDY LIEF: In fact, we have some strong features in our society that were not present in some of the traditional societies. For example, we have many more literate people. We also have many publications and books from all traditions, and we also have many university programs.
ROBERT THURMAN: And we have more women.
JUDY LIEF: Yes, we have more women, best of all. [laughs] We also have many schools of Buddhist studies that offer in-depth training on the academic and intellectual side. We have institutions like Naropa University and various retreat centers that create alternative value systems. It is now becoming more widely known that there are other ways to obtain education and training besides the “get your credential and get a bunch of money” approach. Buddhist communities are creating the critical mass for supporting practice in all its styles, from retreat to full engagement in the world and everything in between.
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: A key moment will be when there are a number of quite realized Westerners. At that point, the transmission of the teachings will really begin to take root deeply in our culture. For most of us, our teachers have been Asian, and even though we have many Western teachers, we don’t put them in the same category as our original teachers. The deepening of realization among Westerners is going to have a tremendously significant impact.
My motivation for developing the forest retreat center at IMS has been to create a place where people can come to practice for however long it is fruitful for them to practice. My inner vision is that it would be great if we started to see some Western arhats—or the Mahāyāna or Vajrayāna equivalents—coming out of such a retreat center.
I don’t see that happening unless there are places for long-term practice. There will be the occasional remarkable individual, but for most of us, realization is going to be the fruit of a lot of work over a long, long time. We need a place to do it and a place that will support that.
ROBERT THURMAN: It might be a good idea for people who want to do the long retreats to have degree programs associated with their intensive practice. Perhaps it could be an MA program or a psychology program like they have at Naropa or the California Institute of Integral Studies. They would take a couple of years of preliminary Buddhist education and language studies and then go into the retreat. The retreat would become the equivalent of fieldwork within the Western social setting. Then they come out with a psychology degree, for example, which they could use to become counselors.
Usually when someone is ready for a retreat, they just go into it and then they worry about how they will integrate into society when they come out. To overcome that obstacle, I would love to see a Buddhist university—or even a conventional university—create educational programs that would fit around long retreats. It would help retreatants before the retreat to make it more fruitful, and it would help them integrate into society after the retreat. They would be teachers, or PhDs or MAs, and they would have a livelihood that would fit with their attainment.
If long-term practice is important in achieving deep realization, what does that say about the lay practice that dominates in the West?
ROBERT THURMAN: We should be cautious about anyone considering themselves great practitioners, whether they are practicing on retreat or in lay life. The bodhisattva does not dwell upon the thought of being a bodhisattva.
Laypeople can practice and they should do retreats. And the ones who get really good will probably give up that stupid job making that stupid money, which someone else is going to inherit when they die anyway. In the meantime, though, giving gifts and supporting those who do long retreats, and acting in a restrained way—that is practice and should be understood to be so.
JUDY LIEF: I would go further than that. I don’t think the lay path is second best. It is a valid path in and of itself. I call it back-and-forth practice: retreat time and engaging in the world time. In my own experience, this is the most powerful form of practice. Retreat time is a time to concentrate, to focus your mind, to study intensively. But until that is brought back into your world, it is not really tested.
It is easy to get caught up in your own sense of your own realization—until you go back home and you visit your parents and the whole thing crumbles. By holding the view of twenty-four-hour practice, we can utilize whatever we encounter as fuel for realization. If your mind flips over so that you actually are open to receiving teachings in the many forms that they exist throughout the world, it enriches the retreat experiences. In the same way, the retreat experiences enrich the interactions in daily life.
ROBERT THURMAN: I regret that I haven’t spent more of my life on retreat. If I had developed the kind of concentration Joseph was talking about, I’m sure I would have been better at encountering the challenges outside of retreat. So I think it is good for laypeople to see that they could be doing something more and better in the way of intensive practice.
JUDY LIEF: But I think it is also important to get beyond the idea that there is a special time for practice, and that what’s outside of that is nonpractice. It would be helpful to try to soften that boundary. Retreat is unquestionably a valuable thing, and all of us would like to figure out ways in our lives to do more of it. Nonetheless, the attitude that there are these special times and the rest is wasted time doesn’t seem very helpful.
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: Two key questions arise from what we have been talking about. First, how much retreat time is necessary for laypeople to be able to carry its value over into their lives? We don’t want to fool ourselves into thinking, “If I do one weekend a year, or one ten-day course a year, someday I am going to end up a buddha in this lifetime.” It is possible, but unlikely. I have seen people who have come to several retreats a year over many years and deepened their practice a lot, but how much intensive practice is enough remains an important question.
The second question concerns what is needed during nonretreat time to support a level of awareness that will actually bring insight. We don’t get a lot of support from our society. What could we do so that in our ordinary life we are actually using our practice to that end? One obvious answer is Dharma community. And what about people who are not living in community? How could they really bring community into their lives and practice in a meaningful way? I think it is a tremendous challenge.
To develop well-trained teachers, should we concentrate on developing monasteries, or are a variety of different forms appropriate?
ROBERT THURMAN: We should be developing monasteries.
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: We need both monasteries and other forms as well. The monastic form offers tremendous benefit and value, and brings with it a whole support structure. There are also many practitioners who for one reason or another are not drawn to the monastic form. We need to provide opportunities for them to deepen their practice as well. I see the whole range as being needed and valuable, from lay centers to monasteries.
JUDY LIEF: We also need academic centers, translation centers, research centers, and libraries. There are so many different—and vitally important—forms of community. Monasticism is certainly one of them, although it is certainly not an easy form to develop. It is also not a tremendously popular form at this point.
ROBERT THURMAN: We have to realize that in American culture a big obstacle to monasticism is the Protestant ethic—the idea that there is something wrong with people who are not doing something “productive.” There’s no free lunch and all that. There is a genuine block in people’s minds about the virtue and the potency of monasticism; it is thought of as something wrong and backward.
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: The kind of cultural resistance seemed to be more of a factor when I was first starting practice. I remember hearing when I was in India, “You’re just wasting your time there, why don’t you come back and get a job?”
My sense is that this kind of resistance has now lessened. The difficulty today has more to do with a lack of appreciation for, and a lack of understanding of, renunciation. This is a huge obstacle for people, because in our society renunciation obviously doesn’t have a great reputation. People are afraid of the renunciate lifestyle.
Traditionally, lay practitioners saw it as their role to support full-time practitioners. Is there an impulse today among lay practitioners to support the long-term practice of others?
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN: In our organization people are quite generous when they are solicited for funds for scholarship programs. There are great resources available to support people in practice. It is just a question of both educating and asking; the money is there. I think there is a large enough pool of practitioners with resources to support long-term practitioners.
ROBERT THURMAN: Another key issue in this regard is the distance that can open up between the monastic and the lay community. In the Vinaya, the Buddha said that a monastic vihāra should not be more than seven stone-throws away from the marketplace. He was purposely distinguishing these abodes from distant forest retreat places.
JUDY LIEF: Exactly. That monastic model is different from the current Western model, which is more of a permanent retreat model, with little interaction with the lay community.
ROBERT THURMAN: Traditionally, the monks had to go to a lay family’s house every day to get food. They would often give a talk or hang out at the house. Then the people would ask questions of the venerable monk or nun who had come to visit and have lunch. That free lunch was something that enabled there to be much more interaction between lay families and monks and nuns.
There were many elements of social wisdom in the Vinaya that allowed for there to be a lot of interaction between monastics and laypeople, without the monks or nuns losing their renunciation, and without the laypeople being deprived. Modern versions of all of these methods will slowly develop, but nevertheless at the heart of it is the need for more realized people. We have to have more arhats and more advanced retreat courses that give degrees to people who have put in the time. Then we will have a lot of enlightened people instead of a bunch of amateurs like me. Then the institutions will naturally be founded as a result of their activity.