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Meditation is the purpose of Buddhist monasteries and monastic life. All the rules are there to help the meditator to focus and protect their minds. The rules are not statements of right or wrong but of that which is not conducive to higher meditation. For example, sex is not considered wrong or sinful in any way. It also becomes obvious when a meditator is ready to give up sex for their meditation – they simply enjoy their meditation more. Sex thus becomes a distraction from something that is more pleasurable and more worthwhile. So a good meditator can choose the monastic life or to spend time in monasteries depending on how their practise is going in a quite simple, straightforward manner.  Also, in terms of learning meditation, it is important to be able to get advice when you need it and actually equally important to avoid advice when you are doing well. This is the reason why a good monastery is more of a spiritual drop-in centre rather than somewhere that provides courses. The Buddha taught people mostly in an individual way rather than in groups for the same reason. It seems that in terms of beginners the Buddha taught almost exclusively in an individual way in order to get someone started. From then on the more a teaching is tailored to an individual the better. We all have our different abilities or obstacles in meditation and there are very many different techniques or approaches to choose from. Some approaches will work for us, others may even be harmful. Also our needs will change as time goes on, we will need to do different techniques in order to balance our minds.
All this means that a relationship with an experienced teacher can be very valuable. Unfortunately, in contrast to this, so many teachers just give out simple, universal instruction these days and will try to convince people that theirs is the only way. This is what makes you a popular teacher and suits the propagation of the teaching by computer. It creates mass movements behind teachers that only lead to division and difference of opinion in the religion as a whole. This mass approach is also, I believe, an obstacle to spiritual community life. People hide in the group and do not really get to know each other or develop their independence as spiritual practitioners. Neither do people develop the broad approach to meditation that bears greatest fruit in the long-term. I find this all rather immature but forgivable in the relatively new tradition of Buddhism in the West. These then are all the reasons I believe in traditional monasteries as the best place to learn meditation and the reasons I have chosen to live in one. I offer this for your reflection Ajahn Kalyāno http://www.openthesky.co.uk Comments are closed.
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Open The Sky - Reflective and creative work by Ajahn Kalyano
