How Would a Monastry of No Tradition Work?

What would a monastery of practitioners without a shared faith look like?

Interfaith explorers of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism practice have found the same group of effective spiritual practices in all these. One purpose of practice is growing detachment from binding & blinding emotions (anger, pride, depression, bodily obsession, obsession with things, etc.). These practices include silence or restraint of speech, group prayer &/or meditation, group chanting, simplicity (minimizing the amount of stuff & activities, and the time/energy spent making choices), enclosure (minimizing social interactions), selflessness (some kind of giving up of personal agendas/needs/will), service. So surely a group of people can support each other in these practice by group living without belonging to a specific tradition.

Yet some dangers of start-up, nontraditional, spiritual group living are immediately apparent. As Carol Lee Flinders points out in At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst, these same practices are favorite tools of oppression commonly used by power hierarchies. Silence, enclosure, putting aside personal needs and serving others are all used to kill women’s living spirit. Similarly, ANY leadership group or individual, no matter how good their intentions, can quickly fall into the trap of using these practices to manipulate and oppress followers.

Of course the problem is rife in traditional religious organizations. This was exactly my experience of the leadership in the little monastery I tried to join. And those women sincerely believed their own PR that they were only doing what was needed to lead others in spiritual development.

Yet traditional monastic lineages grow from founders or guidebooks that worked. They worked because they include some kind of balancing wisdom. For example, in Benedict's Rule the Prioress is given dictatorial authority to make decisions and the population is not allowed to grumble about it afterwards. BUT there are several very anti-hierarchical injunctions in the Rule that balance this power. Everyone is to be involved in decision making in all but the most minor decisions. (Benedict doesn’t care in the least for getting the world’s business done efficiently - even care for the poor.) Also the leadership is enjoined to pay particular attention to the opinions of the "youngest" (in the Rule, "youngest"="newest") as, "the Spirit often reveals what is best to the youngest." OFTEN, not sometimes, not occasionally, but often the newest members have the right of it even when their views counter those of an old, entrenched leadership. How radical for a hierarchical organization!

Also, leaders are chosen because they are living examples of humility. This includes: seeing only your own faults, preferring silence, always speaking gently, modestly and kindly, and expressing humility with your whole being, all the time, whatever you are doing. Again, administrative ability is not a criterion for leadership. The business of the monastery is to bring all the members to God through love of each other. Getting other work done is never the point.

Without checks on power, any such group could easily devolve into a cult of personality - even
if the personalities involved had no such intention.

In a monastery without a Rule where are the checks and balances on power?

How can we ensure respect for each voice, especially the least powerful or most critical?

copyright R. Elena Tabachnick, May 2006