Vigils: Intimacy with the Void
The title of poet Paul Celan’s 1967 collection, Atemwende (in English: Breathturn), suggests that mysterious moment at the end of the out-breath and the beginning of the in-breath. What happens in that gap is… a gap. It permits no concepts (not even “emptiness”) and yet, ineffably, is a part of the fullness of human experience. The breathturn has its ...
Thomas Merton: “Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself” cannot construct a new world by itself”
Thomas Merton, in the introduction to the Spanish language edition to his complete works: Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself. Contemplation does not feed the hungry; it does not clothe the naked… and it does not return the sinner to peace, truth, and union with God. But without contemplation we cannot see what ...
“the simple way” » 12 Marks of New Monasticism
Through a google alert pointing me to this article, I just stumbled on The Simple Way, “a community in inner-city Philadelphia that has helped birth and connect radical faith communities around the world.” I am looking forward to exploring more. But first, I love this clear exposition of their values (how many elements of monasticism can you ...
Alan Wallace on DharmaCafe.com: Renunciation as Emergence Out of X and Towards Y
In this excellent interview from dharmacafe.com (via @c4chaos), Alan Wallace says that what often gets translated from Buddhist texts as “renunciation” is something closer to “emergence,” as in when we emerge from childish strategies that don’t work toward something more authentic and fulfilling. It’s more than a radical disillusionment, like Sartre or Camus… They’re renouncing something, ...
5/5/11 in Berkeley: “Artmonk Sangha: the Bay Area’s Ritual Laboratory for Artmonks”
Based on practices that we have been developing at the January 2010 & 2011 Artmonk Retreats in the Mojave Desert, these weekly (or semi-weekly) meetups will provide an opportunity for anyone in the Bay Area who is interested to explore the path of the artmonk. DEFINITIONS: “Artmonk”: someone who dwells (alone or in community) at ...
Contemplating Second Life
It’s been years since I stopped into Second Life, but here are a few spots for contemplatively inclined avatars: Saint Francis Church and Monastery “Saint Francis Church and Monastery offers a serene and quiet location perfect for personal reflection, meditation, prayer, or a religious service. Enjoy the stunning beauty of this tranquil island and take ...
Immanence
I’m heading off the grid for a week, but I really look forward to giving this more attention when I get back: ”artmonks: children of Thoreau & Whitehead,” a post by Adrian Ivakhiv. If Thoreau’s quest to “live deliberately ... and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” were cross-bred with ...
Economies of Merit
In many monastic and religious traditions, ethical and spiritual “merit” gets traded like a commodity.1 Nuns and monks agree to live a certain way, abiding by a certain kind of behavior (which their society has deemed the most virtuous or ethical), and in exchange they don’t have to earn their own money to stay alive, ...
The Monastic University
Is there room for monasteries on university campuses these days? More and more, I envision joining the work we’ve been doing at the Art Monastery Project to existing academic institutions. Imagine artmonks & postgrads, exploring the wide world of (secular/interfaith) monastic living together. Especially if you convinced them that being a monk didn’t have to ...
Monasticism: “putting one’s central energy into a life that revolves around awakening.”
From Benedict’s Dharma: What are sometimes called “lay monasticism” and “householder practice” are certainly not new, but as vehicles of awakening they are “really a big experiment,” as Joseph Goldstein said. “At a conference some months ago I met a psychiatrist, a very busy guy, who told me that in the last twenty years not ...
