ON LAY MONASTICISM

Brother David Steindl-RastMount Saviour MonasteryElmira, New York

Ram DassHanuman FoundationBoulder, Colorado

This is an edited transcript of a discussion that took place June10, 1977 in Petersham, Massachusetts. The occasion was aweek-long meeting of forty monks. nuns, and lay people of dif­ering religious traditions to discuss their mutual goals. Thesymposium was organized by the Aide a L'lmplantation Monas­tique, an international Benedictine group concerned with monas­tic reform. It is a direct extension of a similar 1973 meeting inBangalore,India, and of the first meeting in 1968 in Bangkok,Thailand, attended by Thomas Merton.

In addition to the main presentation by Br. David and RamDass,Abbot Armand Veilleux, Cistercian, served as moderator,and comments were made by Swami Satchidananda, of theIntegral Yoga Institute, and Father Mayeul de Dreuille, Bene­dictine. Others also contributed and are indicated in the text asparticipants. The tape of the evening session was transcribed andedited by a participant, David G. Hackett, a graduate student atthe Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, California.

Abbot Armand Veilleux: You remember the scope of ourmeeting. It is to find the best way to foster the encounterbetween East and West first in each one of us and then betweenus. In the context of this general purpose, one of the proposalsthat has been made in the last few days is how to help the birthand growth of new forms of monasticism. We have spoken of"lay monasticism." This is a new form of community wherepeople can share in the monastic experience either permanent-

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ly or for a time in their lives. It would also be a place wherethere is an encounter between Eastern and Western religioustraditions.

In order to help us find an orientation in that line of thought,we have with us tonight Ram Dass and Brother David. Theyare only with us for one day, so we need to make good use ofthem this evening. The best way that they could help us mightbe through first sharing their own spiritual journeys and thenwe may discuss with them the issues of this meeting.

Ram Dass: I am honored and appreciative of the opportunityto be here. It touches and awakens me in a certain way becauseof the nature of the quest we're sharing. I've told my life storyso many times that it is hard not to run it off as a tape. Butbecause there are unique needs in this room that will make it aliving statement I will gear it accordingly. I will be brief inplaces where otherwise I would be lengthy. Perhaps the reasonI am relevant to you in your considerations, is because in acertain way I represent a very large number of spiritual seekerswho are looking for some kind of form that can reveal livingTruth for them.

So briefly, my resume: I was born into a Jewish family. Iwas circumcised, bar-mitzvahed, and confirmed. Judaism inAmerica, conservative or reformed Judaism, is primarily asocial, political, moral structure-a set of laws for living amoral life. My father was on the board of trustees of the templeand a leading member of the Jewish community. He was headof the United Jewish Appeal, the Joint Distribution Com­mittee during the war, and helped Jewish refugees. He startedBrandeis University. He has always played a significant role. Igrew up in that context.

I looked at the moment of my bar-mitzvah, which was the mostsacred moment of my life in the Jewish tradition, for a livingconnection, for something to touch me. It didn't. During mycollege years I looked to the Quaker religion, because Icouldn't adopt anything more than the quiet space within as apossibility. But I did it more as an intellectual exercise. So Ifinally did what most people did in the late fifties and earlysixties. I went toward the religion of the West which wasscience, in this case social science, and I became a psychologist.I got my Ph.D. and became a professor at Harvard University.

I went through psychoanalysis because I assumed that themalaise or discomfort that I was experiencing inside of myself,even though I was at the top of the heap in terms of what the

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culture had to offer, was my pathology, because that's what theculture taught me to do. I was part of a philosophical, mate­rialistic, liberal, cynical space. The courses I was teaching atHarvard were things like Existential-Transactional- BehaviorChange Analysis, Human Motivation, Clinical Pathology,Freud, Jung, things like that. And I was a psychotherapist formaybe eight years along the way.

In 1961, through the good services of a colleague of mine atHarvard, I had the opportunity to ingest something called Teo­nanacatl, a Mexican mushroom, which is a psychedelic chem­ical or mind-altering chemical. That started a period in mylife which went from 1961until 1967.This was my psychedelicperiod. During that time I became an active researcher andexplorer in the field of LSD and the other psychedelic chemi­cals. In the course of that I ingested LSD, mescaline, peyote,psilocybin, and the rest, many hundreds of times. The reason)did this was because the first experience I had was a veryprofound moment forme. I experienced that thing which I hadbeen missing in myself. I experienced a part of my being thathad nothing to do with my social-psychological identity. It hadnothing to do with who I knew myself to be. I touched a part ofmy being that was full and complete as it was. But I "camedown" from that experience, as the terminology is used, andfor six more years I tried every device I knew not to "comedown," but I continued to "go up" and "come down."

In the course of that I began to study the literature. We hadalready done a translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead,seeing the relation between the experience of physical death,spiritual death, and rebirth, and the experiences we were hav­ing with these psychedelic chemicals. In the course of this Iunderwent tremendous social-political changes in my life. Inbecoming a leading researcher in this field I got thrown out ofHarvard for my research and so became a free-lancer. In 1967I realized fully the limitations of this method of trying toachieve a state of unity with the universe through psychedelics.That is, I just didn't know how to do it. I didn't know whetheror not it could be done, but I knew we couldn't do it becausenobody I knew could do it, and r was working with people likeAldous Huxley, Huston Smith, and many other very sophisti­cated people-priests, rabbis, ministers, philosophers, musi­cians, and so 011.

However, in the course of those years, as I said, I had becomeaware that there was a body of Eastern literature concerningthe nature of the experiences that we were having. So in 1967Iwent to India, on to the East, hoping that I would make some

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connection. In fact I was very fortunate and I did. I met a manwho became my guru.

The relation between myself and my guru has stretched nowover ten years. I met him in 1967.The initial relationship wasaugmented by the fact that he had obviously miraculouspowers. He could read my mind and so on. He was an awe­some being. But he also touched me with a kind of love that Ihad never experienced before. He was a simple jungle saddhu.He had a blanket, sat on a wooden table, had no possessions.He was not interested in having me around. He threw me out.He threw everybody else out that was around him all the time.He would disappear into the jungle. He allowed me to stay forfive months at a temple that had been built by some of hisdevotees (he had no institution). I was primarily alone for fivemonths. I saw him three times for maybe thirty minutes eachtime.

I came back after a year. I had been trained by another yogi inIndia in what's called Ashtanga yoga, at least the beginnings ofit. I started to practice yoga in the West. 1 tried to recreate mylife in India in the West. And I found out that I couldn't do it.When I started to go out into the world at all, when I left mylittle cell, I was totally vulnerable to the incentives that theWest provided to live the "good life." And I found myselfgoing under slowly, slowly, slowly.

In 1970I went back to India. I had better quickly tell you tworelevant things. In 1967 when I was in India at the temple,there were only two books in the room that I was in. Theyhappened to be in the room. There was nothing else but a tableand a mat to sleep on. The two books were the Bhagavad Gilaand the New Testament. As a Jew I had never taken the NewTestament terribly seriously. I was trained not to do that, asyou understand. Since I had no reading material and I wasbasically an intellectual, I read these books from cover to covera number of times. And I realized that what I was seeing in myguru, that love that he had touched me with, was the love that Ifelt in relation to Jesus. When I came to India the second timeI had already written a book called Be Here Now and manyWesterners found their way also to my guru. During this pe­riod of time, the two years I was in India in '70 to '72, my guruspoke repeatedly about Christ. Now here is the peculiar pre­dicament. I had gone to India, a Jew had gone to a Hindutemple, to be introduced to the New Testament, and when Icame to India the second time my guru talked about Christ.

This was a man who did not live very much in form. Youcouldn't find out whether there was any human being at home

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in him at all. He would go in and out of planes of consciousnessall the time. He would forget you even existed. He wouldn'teven know you a moment later. He read my mind at all tunes.There was nowhere to hide from him and there was no judg­ment. Once he said the following thing: "Christ died for Truth.He gave his life for the Dharma." "Maharaji, how can you turnfear into love?" "If you trust in Christ, you'll have no fear."Maharaii said to a number of the Westerners: "Christ is yourguru." They said, "But Christ isn't here." He said, "Christnever died. He lives in everyone's heart." Many, many times hesaid to me again and again: "Be like Christ." He said in regardto Truth: "You must tell the Truth, Ram Dass. Christ told theTruth. They killed him for it, but he told the Truth. Be likeChrist, Christ died for love. Be like Christ. They slandered himbut it didn't matter." And he said to us one day: "Meditate likeChrist meditated." "Maharaji, how did Christ meditate?" Heclosed his eyes and tears ran down his cheeks, and he openedhis eyes and he said: "He lost himself into the ocean of love."Once he looked off and he got into a kind of revery and he said:"Christ died for humanity, but who will die for him?" Andsomebody said: "Maharaji, what can I do to gain a pure lovefor Sri Rama?" (Ram being a Hindu form of God). Maharajisaid: "You can get it by the blessing of Christ." Maharaji said:"Serve the sick and poor, that's what Christ did." One time wewere talking about politics. Maharaji said: "Lincoln was agood president." I said, "Yes, Maharaji, why is that?" He said,"Because he knew Christ was president. He was only actingpresident."

N ow this is the peculiar predicament when we are talkingabout an East-West dialogue: I have gone to the East to :findajungle saddhu who is teaching me all about Christ. Maharajigave me no forms. When I'd say to him: "Maharaji, how can Iknow God?" He would say, "Feed everyone." "Maharaji, howdo I awaken kundalini?" "Serve everyone." "Maharaji, howcan I know God?" "Love everyone." He would just constantlyremind me of these things. He gave no forms. He didn't giveany yoga. I learned Ashtanga yoga from somebody else, but hehimself just sat on the table and was just there. He'd throw meout. I'd come and touch his feet and he'd throw me out. Andall I knew was that I loved this being and yet I couldn't findhim anywhere.

So in the course of my own yearning to purify myself, I soughtout and practiced in a variety of traditions. I have sat Zen,zazen, in both Kyoto and America, numerous times with Sa­saki Roshi. I've studied Theravada Buddhism in Bodh Gaya, inBombay, and in America many times. I've sat through many,many retreats. I've visited monasteries, Catholic monasteries,

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the Sufi tradition. In each case I have profited. I've quieted mymind, I've deepened my insight.

For a long time I was seeking: "Is this my way? Is this my way?It was only later that I realized that my way was the way ofwhat might be called Bhakti yoga, or yoga of devotion, andthat my guru was my way. That meant that I saw my guru asmany of you see Christ. That is, I saw him not as somebody,not as Jesus but as Christ. I saw him as a vehicle to see through,the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

At one point I was sitting across from Maharaji in the court­yard while everybody else was over at his feet, and I thought:"That isn't what it is about. I can't worship this body of him.That's not what it's about, it's more than that. I really don'tcare if I never see him again. I love him so much I don't wantanything else but to be with him and it doesn't matter if! don'tsee him again." You can understand that paradox. At thatpoint Maharaji sent an old man running over to me whotouched my feet. I pranamed and said, "Why did you do that?"He said, "Maharaji said, 'Go and touch Ram Dass' feet be­cause he and I understand each other perfectly! " And what hewas telling me was "Right on, don't get caught in my form."Then he threw me out again.

I represent a phenomenon that has happened in the West. If youwant to look at it from the view of reincarnation, I would saythat there are a lot of us who have been incarnated in the Westand who are ready to touch the living Spirit, or who aretouching it. The only rule I live by is to be true to my own heart,to my own inner voice. My guru is within my heart. I don'thave a set of rules to live by. The Ten Commandments are notsomething that are imposed on me from without. They aresomething that have become obvious to me through my medi­tations. What I demand of the spiritual paths I practice isthat they be real for me and feel right in my heart and that theybe living Spirit.

There is an interesting paradox. The people that come to me,and they come to me by the thousands-when I run an ashramthe waiting list is two hundred for every place and if! were tobuy a monastery it would be full in a week-these are the samepeople that do not come to the Catholic monasteries now whichhave so many empty spaces. They aren't coming to me becauseI'm offering anything other than what the monasteries areoffering. Partly they are coming because they are still busyreacting against the same thing that happened to me in Juda­ism. I was given the forms but not the Spirit. And partly theyare coming to me because they are sharing with me the factthat we must move at the rate we can trust our own hearts.

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N ow my heart tells me that I want a certain amount of monas­ticism in my life. I want a certain amount of seclusion. I havea van, I go off into the desert parks and live by myself. I justspent months by myself on a beach in Thailand. I spend muchtime each year all by myself, in the true monastic tradition Ithink. And yet I'm not ready to go and take a vow of monasti­cism and live in a monastery for the rest of my life, because itisn't my dharma ("dharma" meaning "way"). I'm also in­volved in social action in prisons, with dying, in a number ofplaces. And yet that isn't my only way. I'm merely representingthe voice of many people now.

What I need are places like the Barre [Massachusetts] medita­tion center. The chance to come to some place first for ten days,then a place to come for three months, then a place to come fora year. And maybe I will grow towards, or some of us will growtowards, becoming true monastics. Or maybe I will take thatmonastic experience and feed it back into my social action in away where I will truly be a retreatant, a recluse, at the sametime I am in the world but not of the world. These are stages ofthe journey and I'm just listening to hear what the stages are.Things that I'm ready for now, I wasn't ready for two years ago.I wouldn't have gone and sat alone for three months two yearsago. I would do it now. There is a living process going on.

When I went to Mount Saviour [a monastery near Elmira, NewYork], I was welcomed and allowed to live with the brothersand partake of food with them and be quiet. The most power­ful moment I had was standing in line washing my cup andplate. It was a silent gathering, the seven offices and silenceotherwise. I was standing in line behind a brother, and he hadthe plate in his hand and in the other hand he had the brushwith the soap on it, and he was brushing his dish. I whisperedto him (we could whisper in the line), "Brother, how long haveyou been here?" And he said, "Sixteen years." And the image Ihave is the brush going around in the dish and "Sixteen years."And the way in which he said it. There was lIO pride, there wasno pity, there was no sense of accomplishment. It was merely astatement: "Sixteen years." And that was a statement of aman's dharma, his way to God. It was no better than any otherway. It was a way to God and it taught me a tremendousamount. I thank Father Demasus and the whole Benedictinetradition for allowing me that moment. It fed me, in the sameway that Zen and all the other traditions have fed me. I've neveryet gotten back to Judaism, because it was too bitter for me.But I hope I will in this lifetime to make the circle complete.

I'll end with just one little image. There was a "yagya," a fireceremony, at the temple in India. It was a nine-day ceremony.There were four Brahmin priests who were running the cere-

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mony and there were two laymen involved. It was requiredthat everybody be involved for the full nine days. I was aparticipant-observer. On the seventh day, in the middle of avery sacred part, Maharaji called from the courtyard: "Shar­ma, come here." Sharma was one of the laymen who had beenin the ceremony for seven days. He got up and walked out ofthe ceremony. Maharaji said to Sharma: "Here take theseboxes of food and give them to feed the people." I was hor­rified. I said, "How could Maharaji disrupt the ceremony likethat?" And I was told: "The living Spirit transcends the ritual."Maharaji said: "The true fire ceremony is the serving of otherbeings."

In a way the teaching I got was to honor the ritual and also notto be afraid to leave it. When I rejected the rituals of Judaism,I seemed to be rejecting all ritual. Now I find I'm coming backto honoring ritual again. But I am coming back through theSpirit. I am not using rituals to get to the Spirit. I am usingthe Spirit to find the rituals as the vehicles for living Life inthe Spirit. That's a different function for rituals than the onethat the Church has used them for, for a long time.

Br. David: After these things Ram Dass has said, I'd muchrather listen to more of his journey than tell you about mine.But I'm also very grateful that it was possible for me to comehere. My heart has been with you ever since this meetingstarted. It is an extremely important thing that is happeninghere. So I'm glad to be with you and to be able to share some ofmyself. This is the most personal gift a person can give, to shareof himself. I don't normally do it. But I would like to sharewith you personally, for this is an important juncture in my Life.and I see that there are so many of my friends here.

There are two important developments in my life that I wouldlike to talk about. Both of them belong to the topic for whichwe are gathered this evening-monastic life, East and West. Iwould like to share with you some things I remember about mydeepening insights into monastic life, and secondly, about mydiscovery of the relationship between East and West-betweenan those who search for the Truth. These two areas of experi­ence are closely connected in my life.

I was born and raised in Austria. In Austria and in Germanvabout forty years ago, Zen Buddhism was often talked aboutamong students and there were many books about it. And too,there was talk of yoga and other things, almost as it is now inAmerica. Everybody was interested, but I myself never reallygot interested. I remember clearly saying that life is too short todo so many different things. If I had gone into Buddhism, I

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would have wanted to learn at least Chinese. And if I had goneinto yoga, I would have at least wanted to learn Sanskrit. Iwanted to do it radically. So I said I can't even do one thingthoroughly, so I'll stick with that one thing.

Another thing in my background that I have to bring in is thatI have never had a crisis of faith, a typical adolescent crisis offaith. Maybe I have had it spread out through my whole lifeand I have it every day. But I've never had it at one time. Thereason is that just exactly at the time when one would have thiscrisis of faith and would revolt against the establishment­which in my case happened to be a religious establishment,Austria being 99% Catholic-Hitler took over. Hitler was, ofcourse, against the Church, so my adolescent revolt against theestablishment turned out to be a going much deeper into myCatholic faith. My friends and I were deeply into that, and weconverted our parents in the process.

Out of spite we would go to monasteries. There was a certainsuspicion attached if you went to a monastery. In groups youweren't allowed to go there. But you weren't allowed to doanything, so it really didn't matter what you did. Furthermorethis made going to the monasteries that much more exciting. Inthe course of this I came to know The Rule of Saint Benedict[a text of73 chapters giving instructions for the formation, gov­ernment, and administration of a monastery for the spiritualand daily life of its monks, completed by St. Benedict of Nur­sia, 540 A.D.-ed.].

I was enormously impressed by the Rule, but I never saw itlived. The monasteries I saw were generally in the Benedictinetradition, but for someone who was looking at them objec­tively, they had very little in common with the Rule. So whatreally turned me on was not the monasteries and not themonks, although I liked them, but it was that book! I liked thebook so much. I liked it like a music lover likes a score that hasnever been performed. The monasteries I saw were not like thebook and probably they never were, but just to read the Ruleas a possibility-that really turned me on.

Then I studied psychology and years later ended up here in theUnited States. My family had come over here and I was the lastone left over there. One of the first things I experienced herewas talking with a friend about vocations. I told him that Iliked the Rule of Saint Benedict and that if I had lived at thetime of Saint Benedict I suppose I would have become aBenedictine. Then he told me that some Benedictines had justfounded something in upstate New York, and it sounded likethey were really going to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. But

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he couldn't remember the name. Still, just on the hearsay thatthey were really following the Rule, I asked where Elmira wasand found out that they had a bus going there from New Yorkand I took the bus.

I arrived at Elmira in the morning but it took me half a day tofind the monastery. I arrived at noon after hitchhiking forsome time in the wrong direction and being totally lost. Eventhe neighbors did not yet know where the monastery wasbecause the monks had just come there. That afternoon I waspromptly put to work planting squash with Father Placid. Thatgave me the opportunity to ask a few questions, becauseFather Placid is not one who observes the silence too strictly. Ijust had two basic questions: "Do you really want to follow theRule of Saint Benedict here?" That was the first one. And: "Doyou have lay brothers or do all have the same status asmonks?" "Yes, we really want to follow the Rule of SaintBenedict. Yes, everyone shares the same status." I asked one ortwo other questions, never met the abbot, he wasn't there at thetime, went home, wrote a letter, and went there. That is onedecision I've never regretted.

Then my great sorrow, my great disappointment was that theydid not really live the Rule of Saint Benedict! They livedsomething which I greatly admired. They lived in a lovingcommunity-Mount Saviour is a loving community. Whatmore do you want? But it wasn't anything like the Rule of SaintBenedict, at least for me. It was only "in the Benedictinetradition." This conflict went on in me for years and years.Finally every time I opened my mouth they knew [ was goingto say something about the Rule. This eventually led to atraumatic situation where I finalIy decided, "You do yourthing, and I will try to do mine." It wasn't a matter of leavingthe community or anything like that. I belong to that com­munity. Whatever you want to make ofthe vow of stability, it isvery stretchable. It was very generous of the community, theycould have thrown me out. But we agreed that if it can't bestrictly the Rule of Saint Benedict, I can come up with some­thing else that is "in the Benedictine tradition."

At that time I had occasionally substituted for the abbot whenhe was asked to talk about monasticism. My name got aroundand I was invited to speak to some club at Fordham that wasinterested in monasticism, but they were also interested inEastern spirituality. I became afraid that I would have to facesome Buddhist monks there and I didn't know if they wereeven monks. You call them monks but are we the monks or arethey? So out of an intellectual honesty I had to raise the

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question and so decided to read something about Easternspirituality. I read Dr. Suzuki's The training of the Zen Bud­dhist monk and I couldn't believe it! Details, little details out ofthe Rule of Saint Benedict! They didn't borrow it, it just hap­pened to be the same thing.

Some of my friends found out about my discovery and saidthat if I really thought the two were so similar, I should meetthis Buddhist monk who had just arrived in New York. Thiswas Eido Roshi, Tai-san, at that time. So I wrote to him and wemade an appointment to meet in front of the MetropolitanMuseum. He later said that he suggested that we meet therebecause that was the only place in New York he was sure hecould find. But at the time I thought we were meeting there sowe could go in and talk about Buddhist art, if worse carne toworse. Well we met at the museum and never went inside. Wesat on a bench and it took one moment and we were totally onthe same wavelength. We shared much more in that first hourthat we were together than I would be able to share with, let'ssay, an Irish pastor. I could share my deepest faith. There was amonk and I could really share.

Very soon after that Swami Satchidananda came to New York.That was in '66 I believe, and again it was the same thing. Wehad something in common that was central to both of us: wewere monks. That was a tremendous discovery. Eido Roshi,Swamiji, and I got together now and then and that went onfor quite a while. Then Thomas Merton said that this was some­thing important, and asked us to put our meetings on amore permanent basis. That is how the Center for SpiritualStudies carne about.

At this point my contact with Eastern monks led me to a deeperunderstanding of the monastic calling we have in common,and at the same time I began to appreciate the important rolemonks are called to play in the encounter between East andWest.

The moment I carne to know Buddhist and Hindu monks itbecame obvious to me that what we had in common was amethodical effort to deepen our awareness of that reality whichgives meaning to life. We shared a radical dedication to searchfor the Source of Meaning and to drink from that source. Thissearch and this drinking may be expressed and interpreted in agreat variety of ways by the different religions. Yet, the experi­ence as such lies deeper than all those interpretations. It liesat the basis of all religions and is their common root.Thus, Icarne to see monasticism as a basic human reality, and monas-

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tic vocation as a response more fundamental than one's alle­giance to this or that religious group or creed. A monk is nota super-Buddhist or a super-Christian, but a person drawn tothe monastic venture who happens to find himself in a Bud­dhist or Christian environment. Of course, that environmentshapes and interprets the monastic experience, giving it a spe­cific form of fulfillment.

Obviously, the search for meaning in life is not the exclusivedomain of monks. They devote themselves to that quest pro­fessionally, as it were, making it their primary occupation. Butevery human being longs for meaning as the only foundationof happiness. Monks, like artists and scientists, are merelyspearheading our common human quest for meaning. But thisis a venture in which East and West has always been united.When I came to realize that monks and lay people, East andWest, are all engaged in one common spiritual venture, thequestion arose, how can the claims of Christ and of the Churchbe squared with these facts? Does not Jesus say: "I am theWay"? Paradoxically, this most exclusive sounding claim isreally a proclamation of the all-embracing unity of all thespiritual paths. Should a Christian who believes that Christ isthe Way see him as merely one among countless other ways,the only one that is right among countless wrong ones? May wenot rather rejoice that anyone who is spiritually on the way ison the Way, whether he has ever heard the name of Jesus ornot? But what does it mean to be on the way? It means goingforward. One who stops by the wayside and sits down is notreally on the way. We must go. In doing so, we leave the waybehind with every step: yet, this is how we stay on the way.It takes daring to live this paradox. The goal must be moreimportant to us than the way. If we get so preoccupied withsquibbles about the way that we forget to go forward, the wayitself will get in our way, so to say. In this sense, even Jesus canget in our way, unless we let him lead us in the Spirit to theFather.

As Christians we are the ones who are going through Christ,through Jesus, the Christ. We have the Word that comes out ofthe silence to lead us. The Buddhists are not leaving the Wordbehind, for as long as they're on the way, they're on the way.And there is only one way. But they're concerned with thesilence out of which the Word comes, into which the Spiritleads. And the Hindus are concerned with the Spirit withinwhich we understand the Word, in which we understand thesilence, the Spirit that brings the silence and the Word to­gether. When you give your heart to the Word and let theWord take you into that silence out of which it comes, then you

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understand. But it doesn't stop there, because when you un­derstand you express that again in another Word.

This led me to see that following the path is really a dancing.The dance is for me the image for everything: life, the universe,God, being holy, the monastic life-whatever, it's "the dance."If you watch from outside of a circle, the dancers holdinghands and circling about would appear to be going in oppositedirections. The people closest to you would appear to be goingin one direction and those on the opposite side would be goingin another direction. Totally opposite directions. And youcannot disprove it, because you see it. The moment you jointhe circle and hold hands, however, you know that everybodyis going in the same direction. But you have to join the circle inorder to see it. So when we give ourselves to that round dancegoing around in our hearts, then we dance with everyone. Thisinterrelatedness of Silence, Word and Understanding is around dance, the Round Dance of the Trinity.

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

Ram Dass: It seems to me somewhat naive, David, to say thatthe Buddhists are primarily concerned with silence, the Hindusare concerned with the Spirit, and the Jews and Christians areconcerned with form. Because what I keep finding is that everytradition is all of it. Certainly in Hinduism when you haveexplored thoroughly Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and so on, youfind 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 onto you being a Buddhist and me being a Hindu? How long doyou think it can last, because it is obviously disappearing rightbefore our very eyes." Just as David, Swamiji and Tai-sanshared that space, we all are sharing the space of the formlessand the form, and understanding a variety of ways. It seems tome 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 itselfyou have the prayer of silence which is Buddhism and whichBuddhists recognize. "John of the Cross is a Buddhist." I'veheard that many times. Then there are the gospel stories whereJesus sends the man to do something, and only when he goesand carries out the Word, and not just listens to the Word, butmeditates on it and carries it out, in this doing the man seesandhas the insight or revelation. Like being sent to wash in thepool-when the Word sends you, and you allow the Word to

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send you, and it really sends you and you do it, then you'reobedient. So I completely agree.

I don't know why we keep talking about East and West. Thereare still remnants of course. There are still people who thinkthis is East and this is West, and they will never come together.I know that lung is one who said that East and West will nevercome together. And, although I am deeply impressed withlung and often think, "Who am I to correct Jung on thispoint," 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 toJung and there is still reason to talk in those terms.

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

Ram Dass: But if in fact as you go deeper in, they are notseparate, and the differences disappear before your very eyes,the question is, is it productive once you know this to then talkabout East and West any longer? Or is it better to find withinthe Christian tradition all the aspects and breathe life intothose aspects that may have gotten lost in the shuffle ratherthan 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 wheremonasticism is going today?

Br. David: Well I've heard this term "lay monasticism" tossedaround and I'm not quite sure if I understand it. But let me justbracket that word for a moment and give you my own im­pression very briefly. I look at it from two sides. I look at it onthe one hand from the monastery and from my own personalexperience, and the other side from the lay side and what ishappening with lay people whom I know. There are pressureswith regard to monastic life coming from both sides, from theinside and from the outside. These pressures are going in thesame direction. The lay people say: "Give us a share in monas­tic life. And give us a greater and greater share in monasticlife." There's a real pressure. Of course nothing in the thou­sands, but there are very many significant people who want tohave a real share and do not just want to be guests. This putsa tremendous burden, for instance, on our monastery of MountSaviour. We have not one day in the year when there are not

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quite a number of guests, and many days when there are farmore guests than monks. So one way of getting out of this is bydropping the arbitrary distinction between guests and monks.Instead say that we have here a community, and it consists ofsome people who stay here all the time, and we have otherpeople who come only for a short time. Some come for manyyears, and sometimes even make profession and then leaveagain, and others come just for a weekend or some short periodof time. Make no distinction. Of course the ones who staythere for a long time may wear a different habit, if necessary,but all are one community. It's not one that just caters tooutsiders, which puts a tremendous burden on the monks andwhich never fully satisfies the outsiders. Why don't we justhave one community? That is one direction in which I seethings developing.

And then the moment you allow some people to come in for awhile, there's no reason you can't allow some people to go outfor a while. Now I can fully understand the role of permanentstability of monks in the monastery, but there is also theproblem with lowering the standards in the monastery, con­stantly to come to the lowest common denominator. We knowwhat happens to a faculty in which there is tenure. It constantlylowers the standard. Now imagine a school of the Lord'sservice (which the Benedictine monastery is by definition), inwhich the students have tenure! Imagine thatl And that is whathas happened to us. And therefore something has to be doneabout it.

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

Br. David: That whole question of vows is such a problem. I'mfor permanent commitment. I don't want to get into this dis­cussion of permanent or perpetual vows, because I do thinkthat anyone who gets into this thing ought to do it perpetually.It would be ridiculous to commit yourself temporarily. But thisis a very different thing from committing yourself to a partie­ular form. You see, we have gotten this mixed up. Commit­ment to the monastic path is not necessarily tied up with oneparticular form of life forever. Yet, commitment to a form hasgotten more and more rigid; it has become for some people acommitment to every little detail, every little rubric as part of

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their vow. I think somewhere you have to draw the line. Butwhether you can draw the line from the outside or whether theperson has to draw this line from the inside, from his heart-vthat might come together with Ram Dass' idea of living morein the moment.

Ram Dass: Again, coming back to the business of stages ofevolution or readiness. I think what we've faced is a lot ofpeople taking vows at the wrong level and taking vows out of"ought" and "should," not out of the inner readiness. It's likesurrender that is real surrender is no surrender. It's that kind ofthing. It's no vow, it's merely a form for it to happen in. In theWest we've seen it in marriages. We went from where marriagewas 'til death do us part and a statement under God, to thepoint where it became a social contract for convenience. Andnow we can see among the young people who are seeking, anattempt to hear what it means to make a long-term commit­ment. They are saying, "We will share karma and it is mydharma to work with you to awaken." I think that is what vowsstart to finally mean. They're living statements of "This is goingto be my vehicle through. I agree that if it turns out to behorrible, I'll work with that horror rather than walk awayfrom it." That's the value of the vow. But that's got to be doneby a conscious being and we haven't been conscious enough tomake vows. So they have been made by unconscious peopleand then they are just what they are. They're just stuff on paperthat's not worth anything. So it's again a statement of ourevolution as to what we're ready for.

Participant: I think that the true nature of the vow of stabilityis implicit in our being here, that ultimately the vow meanssimply a permanent, profonnd commitment to following theLord's will.

Br. David: I think it may even mean much more. It may reallymean local stability for many people. And it may mean localstability for a person in different ways. Sitting always behindthese walls, this is a valid form of stability. Even standing on apillar-Simeon became a saint that way. That was valid. Butthere is also local stability that is interpreted in a different way.It is a local belonging, having local roots, whether that meansalways staying in that place or not. Don Juan in Castaneda'sbooks has this place for Carlos, and he says, "This is your place.You willdie in this place. In the hour of death you will come tothis place and you will dance your last dance in this place." Butthat is not only a place in the desert that you can put on a map.It is also that, but you don't have to stay in that place all ofthetime. There is something to local stability, but finally you haveto interpret it in your own heart. All the vows have to be

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interpreted that way, otherwise there would not be a freedomof conscience. There comes a point where you may not goalong with everybody else's interpretation of a vow, and youhave a right and a duty to stick by your conscience.

Ram Dass: Brother David raised the issue before of the lowestcommon denominator, something dropping down and down, aproblem which I appreciate. But it may well be that we havesome categories that exist in which no human beings are readyto fit at the moment, which is the same thing you found withBenedict's Rule. Maybe there will be certain higher levels ofthe discipline that will be held in waiting for people to evolveinto naturally. Maybe we just have to have the courage togo back to the lowest common denominator. For example,when the Insight Meditation Center at Barre was started~

that's where people come for ten days or three weeks--whenthe people who were there on the staff for a year weren't work­ing, they would go and look at television or something likethat. And r said to them, "What kind of thing is this? Aren'tyou monastics? Why aren't you doing it?" Then I saw that noone was ready to be a monastic at that time. That was a fewyears ago. Now we were sitting, Jack and Joseph and a groupof us, and saying that that thing at Barre is wonderful as amass thing, but it isn't enough. Couldn't we start a place wherepeople could come for a year? Now that's growing out of thatlowest common denominator. It's starting all over again andit may get up there. But maybe we're going to get up andfall, and maybe that is the process.

Participant: I think that the real key to the future of humanityis whether we can articulate a system that will bring togetherhumanity's wisdom which will point absolutely to that essen­tial insight in its eternalness and which we can plug into andsay "This is the Truth." I think you hit it, Br. David, when yousaid "Trinity," and Ram Dass hit upon it when he spoke of hisguru reflecting the wisdom of Christ. I think the reason why hisguru did that was because his guru was awakened to the realityof the whole Christian mystery present in Hinduism. And thecontemplative aspects of Hinduism are present in Christianity.So I think that it is a question of coming to that mysticalawareness of the Trinity, not just in its theological ossification,but in the flowing mystery of that act of being God in his veryact of being God-being the eternal Truth, the infinite range ofTruth in the very moment of being infinite Truth in one act.We have to come to that.

Br. David: I'm sure most people will agree with that, but thegreat difficulty is, do you get to that outside an alreadyestablished tradition? This is a real problem today, and I think

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Ram Dass is a spokesman for many people who are gropingwith that. I know as a rule of thumb for myself that I stick tomy own tradition first, and if it works I save myself a lot ofheartache. Swamiji has said this many times. "Keep digging,"he says. "When you're digging for water, keep digging whereyou are. If you dig long enough you will hit water." You maybe just one foot from water but you get frustrated and startanother welL But it doesn't yield anything, you think, so youdig another well, and another, and another. I like this image ofdigging wells. If you dig long enough, you will eventually hitwater. Wherever you are planted, bloom where you're planted.Whatever tradition you are in, follow that tradition. If you area Christian, follow the Christian tradition. I'm not suggestingbrowse a little in Zen and maybe in Hinduism if you like, no.Become a better Christian, and the more you become a betterChristian you will find Zen and you will find Hinduism.Nowadays you can hardly bypass them, even practically theywill somehow come up.

Ram Dass: I disagree with what Swamiji said to you, David,about digging in the same place. I agree that ultimately youwill end up digging in a place, deeper.

Swami Satchidananda: When you get tired of digging all over.

Ram Dass: But that tiredness must be gone through, that musthappen, that must evolve. You don't bypass it because some­body says to dig in the same place. "You're only good if youdig in the same place," or something like that. It's not an order,it's an evolution. Now the reason, if you were a Westerner, youwould come into a Christian tradition is because it provides itall and provides it in the cultural context in which you grew up.That's why I came back to find Christianity and Judaism and Idid it through Hinduism.

Br. David: I see. So you are saying that nowadays there aremany floating around and digging here and there, but theyhave to go through this process until they themselves want tokeep digging in one place-not because they are told to do so.

Ram Dass: It has to come through the inner feeling of right­ness of the individual. I'm not an institutional man. I don'trepresent any institution as far as I know. And what I keepexperiencing is that it's got to feel right-on for me at themoment I'm demanding that, and if it doesn't I scream.

Swami Satchidananda: We are talking about different tradi­tions, different institutions. They are nothing but mere labels.

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What do you mean by different institutions, different tradi­tions, different religions? They are nothing but labels. Youmust, Ram Dass, dig the same well with different labels, that'saLLYou see, Ram Dass changed the labels but he kept ondigging the same well. He had one thing to know. He had onegoal to realize and he kept on working towards that. He usedthe Jewish tradition Labelfor a while, another label for a while,now he's using the Hindu Label for a while. Nevertheless, theSpirit is the same.

This tradition, that tradition, I really don't understand whatyou mean by tradition. In digging, as long as you satisfy yourhunger it doesn't matter what you eat. That is what I call "keepdigging." It's not the labels.

What is the purpose of digging? What do you look for? Youshould know that the one who digs the well has the goal ofgetting water. What is it that we are trying to get, behind aUthese monastic traditions and this and that? What do we meanby monasticism? What is the main requirement for a monastic?What would you call a monastic? Can I get an answer?

Father Mayeul de Dreuille: I'm very interested in comparingmonasticism in the different religions. When I search for adefinition of what is a monastic, it is just that given by SaintBenedict. That is, people who dedicate their lives to the serviceof God.

Swami Satchidananda: The Hindus call it sacrifice, dedica­tion, or renunciation.

Father Mayeul: Yes, that is one aspect.

Swami Satchidananda: It is the only aspect. Without the re­nunciation, without the dedication, without the sacrifice, no oneis a monastic. Monasticism can be found even in a householderif he is dedicated.

Father Mayeul: Yes, but the monastic dedicates fully hiswhole life and observes a certain withdrawal to lead this life.This generally implies celibacy.

Swami Satchidananda: So married people cannot be dedica­ted?

Father Mayeul: Yes, dedicated in their own way, and they canbe holy people.

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themonastictradition

Swami Satchidananda: I don't think there are two ways ofdedication, there is only one.

Abbot Armand: I think we are trying to find an essentialdefinition to something that is an historic phenomena. There isa way of living our human life which is called in all traditions amonastic life. It's a type of human life before being somethingwhich is Hindu or Christian or Buddhist. For the last two thou­sand years since Christ, there are a certain number of peoplewho have lived their life in a Christian tradition in a type of lifethat we have calledmonastic. The line of demarcation betweenwhat is and what is not called monastic is very flexible. It haschanged very often during the centuries. So there are a certainnumber of phenomena to which we have put the label mo­nastic. First, each one of us has to be completely dedicated toChrist. A monk is not more fully dedicated than anyone else,but he is dedicated in a different way. And it is that way that wecall monastic. For me, to be a monk, or to be a Trappist, meansthat I have received my call through a tradition. The traditionshows me a way of understanding God, a way of understand­ing the Bible.

But now to find out what is my way of being a monk to­day-there is not finally a tradition that can answer this one forme. I have to look at the Gospel through the tradition. I havealso to listen to my whole being, m.yown being, to hear whatGod is saying to me in my heart today. This I have to discoverby reading the signs of the times and by being among thesociety of today. So I have all of those signs through which Godis speaking to me.

People have called "monastic" a certain way of living. It is thehuman search in any of those religious traditions. Now we can,by studying historically the type of life that we're callingmonastic, find certain common features in different religions.And then we can elaborate a certain kind of definition. But wedon't think just empirically. There is not something essentialthat says this is monastic and this is not monastic. At thebeginning we were saying that the distinction between theEast and the West has become obsolete. In the same way, Ithink that the distinction between the monk and non-monk isalso becoming obsolete.

Br. David: May I pick up a thread that is still hanging loosefrom what we were trying to say about labels and tradition? Iwould like to clarify my use of "tradition." I'm not too con­cerned with this label or that label, but in each tradition thereare certain things that come every year. As a monk, for

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instance, Christmas comes and you sing the "0 Antiphons,"which are a certain antiphon sung before the Magnificat in theevening in the last days before Christmas. This last year I wassitting alone in my island hermitage at Christmas time, andone day after another all I could do was recite the "0 Anti­phons" to myself or do with them whatever I could do. Butthere was no choir there, there was nobody to sing them with.This is terrible. If you sing them every year, every year they areenriched. It is like a snail that builds its house and every year itadds more and more and lives in a more and more beautifulhouse. Now if you have grown up in a Catholic environment,for example, the prayers that you learn and the songs that yousing do so much more to your whole being than, sometime inlater life, to have discovered, in a brainy way, something aboutChristianity. This is what matters about tradition for me, andthis is again where monasticism for a time comes in.

As I look toward the future, the only places that I can see, inour type of civilization, in which some form of tradition canbe cultivated, where every December 17th you know what isgoing to happen, are the monasteries. It is like what theBenedictine monasteries did during the time of the migrationof nations. They held Europe together. They provided centersof spiritual tradition and continuity. Similarly today, for ex­ample, I know that on full-moon days there is somethingimportant going on at Swamiji's place. This is what I mean bytradition.

Swami Satchidananda: You should protect those ways, nodoubt. But if you have an absolute goal, you can use these aids,just as we use these robes. These robes will not make me amonastic. But wearing these robes will at least help to remindme of my goal as a monastic. They help me to find the way.They are an aid, as are certain disciplines, certain spiritualsayings, certain places and so on. These are all aids to themonastic lifestyle, but by having them you are not necessarily amonastic. However, people who really want to achieve thespiritual goal, should take some helps.

Participant: When you walk into a church on the 17th ofDecember and they're singing the traditional hymn, or youlook at the Swami and he is wearing the robes, or you look atthe Trappist and he's wearing the robes, or you look at some­body and they say the right word at the right time, they instillin you that feeling of the sacred place, that sacredness that youknow is there. All of these things remind you of your searchand that it is happening, that it does exist. And so you go to thatChurch or you go to the Swami or you go to that monk to instill

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again and again in you that feeling. You go to church onSunday, maybe you receive the Eucharist every day, and itagain reminds you that that place does exist. It doesn't meanthat you can do it continuously, but it is just a reminder. Andthat's what we're talking about when we're speaking of mo­nasticism for lay people. These people want to participate, andthey want to have a continuous experience for a temporaryperiod of time.

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