A growing Monastic ABC’s.  See “The Elements,” a series of posts on specific elements.

• Architecture – A building called a “monastery” (or abbey, friary, priory, charterhouse, hermitage, skete, lavra, matha, mandir, koil, gompa, lamasery, wat, vihara, or mahavihara) is designed with eco-efficiency and mindfulness in mind.
• Contemplation- e.g.
  • Meditation – shamatha, vipassana, centering prayer, lectio divina, chant, etc.
  • Prayer - Prayer (a type of contemplation) takes many forms, and frequently generates love, compassion and gratitude in the person doing it.
• Conversatio Morum – (Benedictine) Continuous renewal and conversion of life. ‘As the sun makes it new / Day by day make it new /Yet again make it new,’ wrote Ezra Pound, translating Confucius. See also the Conversatio Morum post in the “Elements” series.
• Economies of Merit
• Fasting
• Governance – “the rules of the political system to solve conflicts between actors and adopt decision” [1. According to the United Nations Development Programme (pdf)]
  • Monastic Rules – Think of it as your vision/mission statement + agreements for how to live and practice together
  • Monastic Vows – Temporary or permanent declarations of commitment by individuals.
  • Hierarchy – e.g. an abbess, prior, superior, or a council elected elders.
• Humility – The longest chapter in Benedict’s rule… “Humility is not to love having our own way nor to delight in our own desires.” In Tibetan Buddhism, monks “drive all blames into one,” that is, oneself.
• Mirror for Society- Similar to prisons (perhaps not a helpful simile) the values of a society are reflected in its monasteries.
  • Celibacy & Sexuality- That is to say, there are a wide range of possibilities of how you want to relate to sex and the same/opposite sex. From full celibacy to the full-on embrace of sexuality, and all points in between.
  • How is Gender treated?
• Monks (a word we will occasionally use interchangeably for both male and female monastics (monks and nuns); see a possible rationale here).
  • Cenobites – Monks who live in monasteries
  • Anchorites – Hermitic monks
  • Mendicants – Monks who wander
  • Oblates / householder yogins / yoginis – Regular folks who practice intensively
  • Artmonks – Specific to art monasticism
• Mysticism/esoterica -
• Obedientia – (Benedictine) Obedience, to the rule, to the abbot, to your vow
• Opus Dei – Praying the Divine Office; a set schedule of contemplative activity, framing your day from sunrise to sunset (and sometimes, late into the night).
• Renunciation & Poverty -
• Right Livelihood - Working hard, every day.
• Self-Sufficiency
• Separateness & Activism- Fuga Munda – “flight from the world.” Removing yourself from (society, civilization, human contact, the constructed world), and conversely, engaging it. See the Separateness & Engagement posts in the “Elements” series for more depth.
• Hospitality - Inviting the world in, with an open heart.
• Silence – Vows of silence, daily periods of silence, silent retreats.
• Spirituality & Religion
• Stabilitas Loci- (Benedictine) Commitment to Place
  • Community – How do people live together and govern themselves? How does the difficulty of living with others increase our self-knowledge?
  • Ecology – How the people relate to the physical environment
• Study
  • Lectio Divina – “Divine reading.” Also see the Daily Lectio Divina series.
  • Debate & Philosophy -
• Monastic Technology - All the quirky little things that make monasticism what it is
• Tradition and lineage –  Delineated here.