Caustic Ramblings

A reply of mine to a friend who was asking me my take on a hypothetical "monastic order" for those who study/practice (non-Christian) Western mysticism and philosophy:

I think that here in the current western world, any notion of any full-time monastic life outside of an established institutional religion that includes a monastic path, like Christianity or Buddhism, is pretty much a fantasy. It took those religions centuries of institutional growth and geographic expansion to garner the resources necessary to allow for organized and well-funded monastic life to be a possibility. AND those religions existed in a cultural environment that was supportive of monastic life in the first place. Prior to that it was ascetics living out in the desert or jungles or whatnot, subsisting on handouts from the local rural people they came in contact with on their daily rounds (Southeast Asian Buddhist monks still live like this); those local people held a belief that supporting those wandering mendicants was the right thing to do and something that conferred personal benefit to themselves. I can say that here in the US, most Americans aren't going to give people money to sit around all day and pray, meditate, and philosophize.

What can be done though, is if someone has the means to life a mostly-solitary life then they can go that route, given they are able to support themselves or get support from family or friends. Even living with family though isn't really an ideal monastic life, since one will have to deal with the everyday stress of dealing with people who don't necessarily have any understanding or respect for what you are doing. One of the things that differentiates monastic from ordinary life is living in a place that is isolated from the everyday hustle-bustle of ordinary society. Having a nagging mother bugging you about your daily chores, sure ain't that. On the other hand, the abbot bugging you about your daily chores is at least going to be spiritually on the same page as you.

A little addendum on Americans and monasticism; I'd say in an American context, the only way this would work is if the monks/monastery provided some tangible service to the surrounding community. America works on the customer model. Also, ordinary people in the community would need to see your order as being legitimate. New Religious Movements are notoriously looked down as being fake and non-serious by the average person. So what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Secondly, yes Americans will send people money to people or organizations for non-commercial purposes, but it's almost always to either those deemed as downtrodden according to their preferred set of political beliefs, or to charitable organizations or political activists who advance the political-social agenda the donor-in-question finds to be congenial.