Monachism

The word monachism comes from the Greek monachos . It means “solitary” and more particularly “unmarried”.

Origins

The first known institution of the monachism is that of the Bouddhisme Theravada, twenty-five centuries ago. In Buddhism, the monachism is one of the Three refuges (Bouddha, Dharma and sangha), particularly favourable with the meditation which constitutes the heart of the practice. This encouragement with to take refuge in the monastic community (without to devote all its existence to the monastic life) led in the countries theravada much of men to take the dress of monk for one period of their existence, in general before the marriage.

In the Christianity, according to the Tradition, the monachism appears around saint Pacôme, towards 329 in Egypt, with two steps of Nag Hammadi. With the persecution of Dioclétien in 306, many had been the Alexandrins to be taken refuge in the desert.

Even if it differs clearly from the Christian vision of the monachism, the old Egypt knew a tradition of recluse (Katochoi) around the temple of Sérapis. The birth of the Christian monachism in Egypt would be thus in the continuity of a local tradition of Ascèse.

Indeed, the myth of Egypt like “cradle of the monachism”, from where this one would have been then spread in the other countries of Orient initially, of Occident then, could not be held any more. It became obvious that the monachism had been born about everywhere at the same time, in very varied forms, and vitality even of each local Church, in the East as in Occident. The traditional diagram of Holy Antoine and some other hermits fleeing with the desert, before Pacôme does not invent the Cénobitisme to mitigate the disadvantages of the eremitism, did not correspond at all to the reality which the documents published revealed. It was discovered that as of its first demonstrations the monachism had appeared simultaneously in all its most varied forms: cenobitism and eremitism, monachism of the desert and monachism of the cities, etc |Armand Veilleux, abbot of the Trap door, “Origin of the Monachism”, in Leuwen , nº 97, April 1999.

Christian monachism

Perhaps the Christian monachism appears in Egypt at the end of IIIe century, and undoubtedly possible in first half of the 4th century. Irenee-Henri Dalmais thinks that this form of spirituality exists since the origins among the Christians. in the Church of the first times, it does not involve rupture with the company. In Egypt of the late Antiquity, on the contrary, the monachism implies a total rupture with the world and the withdrawal in the desert. The bishop of Alexandria holy Athanase popularizes the figure of Antoine, regarded as the founder of the monachism as of the shortly after his death into 357 by writing the " récit" of its life. This account circulates through everyone Christian, whether it is of Greek expression, Latin or araméenne . The figure of Antoine continues there like representative of the monk. Monks and moniales seek their spiritual food in loneliness, silence, the Méditation and the Prière.

According to Pacôme († 346), a contemporary of saint Antoine, " loneliness is dangereuse" , because it can lead to despair or, with the suicide. Better is worth to group to survive. It is the beginning of the Cénobitisme. The monks are alone in their cell and find themselves for the meals. And finally, it is the common life which carries it: “if you tombs and that you are alone, there will be nobody to raise you. ”

Benoît de Nursie (480 - 547) founds a monastery with the Mont Cassin. Its rule of life was the base of all the monastic orders of Europe. The currency of Benoît saint was: Ora and will labora , “Requests and works”. It remained the currency of the order Benedictine. At the beginning, there were tensions on the Semi-pélagianisme.

The monastery gathers the monks according to a rule of life. This one indicates the spirit which must reign within the community (reception of poor, fraternal charity, time of prayers) but also governs the practical organization (schedules of the days, which does what, training of the beginners).

Monastic family

The population of the monasteries is made up of:

Moines who pronounced their wishes (poverty, chastity, obedience) and is attached definitively to the monastery. Their number varies from one monastery to another. Example: 300 monks with Cluny at the end of the 11th century, 4 monks in a priory dependant on Cluny at the same period;
Novices who is in formation to become monks;
Familiers which is not of the monks. They are laic servants who place either with the monastery or downtown with their family.

Well-read men (or litterati )

The monks well-read men can not only read and to write but they received the traditional formation (grammar, rhetoric, dialectique= trivium ) and are able to read and speak Latin. It is them which ensure the good performance of the community, fill the various loads of the house and ensure the celebration of the office divin.
The majority of them were raised and informed in the Cloître where they entered children. Many wire the noble ones, especially the juniors, received a literary formation within their family, before becoming moines.
These children, whom one will designate under the name of Oblat , were offered by their parents to the monastery during a solemn rite called " the oblation". They will pronounce their final wishes only towards age the 15 years.

The illiterate ones

The illiterate monks are in general " convers ". They entered to the monastery at the adulthood and do not receive the clerical orders. They are in charge of the material tasks.

Loads monacales

the principal officers of the monastery who ensure of it the organization and the good performance of the community are: the Abbot, the Prior, the Cantor, the Cellerier, the Sexton, the Hotel , the Chamberlain, the Réfectorier, the infirmier.
They enjoy because of their loads of certain exemptions or privileges which distinguish them from the other monks described as claustral who must follow the common life completely. the abbot is with the head of the monastic family , it is the father ( abba in Araméen). He is elected by the brothers and he is responsible for the monastery to temporal (he is feudal lord) as to the spiritual one. He names all the principal officers of the community and gives his agreement to create or modify the " coutumes" who in detail regulate all the life of the monks and the monastery. He must also ensure public hospitality and help the poor, the peasant and the lords.

Monastic buildings and the radiation of the monachism

The whole of the buildings which compose the monastery are organized so that the prayer and the common life are in the center. The first building of the monastery to being built is the vault to which cloister and déambulatoire are attached, common rooms (room of chapter, dining room, etc) and cells or the dormitory of the monks.

The golden age of the monachism, in Occident, is the Middle Ages which see the foundation of many religious orders as well as the construction of very many monasteries (or abbeys). Equipped with vast territories, these communities contributed in a way important to work the rural landscape by the Défrichement of the forests (in particular by the monks Cisterciens), the setting in culture…
The monachism was also one of the most important vectors of the culture, the majority of the handwritten books, before the invention of printing works, were indeed recopied with the hand by monks.

Orthodoxe monachism

Cf the rule of saint Basile and his author, Basile de Césarée.

See the article detailed on the orthodoxe Church.

Buddhist monachism

See the articles detailed on the Buddhism and its monastic community.
The term Bhikkhu (literally " that which collects the aumônes"), female Bhikkhuni, designates a member of the Buddhist Communauté monastic, fully ordered, only living what is offered and observing the Precepts defining a life of renouncement and simplicity. This term does not have really an equivalent in French. The word " prêtre" must never be used for a bhikkhu, the least erroneous translation remains " moine" , the " term; Bonze " , resulting from Japanese " bozu" , although often employed, is inadequate.
In the continuity of the original monastic Community, the Community Theravâda remains an order of charity. The bhikkhu are completely dependant on continuous generosity on laic for their subsistence, the laic ones offering what one names the " four nécessités" (nissaya or paccaya sannissita), objects essential with the life of the monk, including/understanding: (monastic clothing (will ciivara or ticiivara), the bowl with alms (patta) allowing to receive food, housing (senasaana), the remedies (bhesajja).
They are not authorized to use money and can eat only what is offered. The Buddhist monks and nuns are not beggars in the classical sense of the term. A strict code of conduct governs the round of the monk to join together his food (pi.n.dapaata). For example it is not authorized to make noise, to shout or sing to draw the attention of people. It goes silently, and, in the case of the meditating monks, keeping in mind the subject of meditation, and accepts all that is offered to him, the important one not being what is offered but the attitude of spirit at the time of the gift. The monk must be satisfied with all that is given to him, regarding food as drug allowing continuity spirit/body to be maintained.
These rules, among others quite as fundamental, were founded by the Buddha for, inter alia reasons, to create a bond of interdependence preventing the Community from isolating itself from the company, as that was the case in many monastic traditions, in the East as in Occident.
The Lesson of the Buddha is addressed to all. Nobody forever prevented from becoming Buddhist because of its sex, its race or its color. The decision to remain laic or to become monk, or nun, depends in fact only on the personal choice on the Buddhist practitioner, and the circumstances in which it is. The benefit which each category withdraws from the other is mutual: the laic offer clothing, food, housing and remedies for the monk, and that enables him to remain. In Thailand, for example, one can attend the offering of food towards six or seven hours every morning, but clothing, housing and the remedies are offered to other occasions. On their side the monks and the nuns, give something more invaluable to the laic one: teaching (Dhamma) such as they studied it, practiced and included/understood. Thus the laic Buddhists can easily find council and assistance in a monastery near one of the Masters present or perhaps of a son, an uncle or any other relative who practices either in a permanent way, or temporarily, as a beginner, monk or nun. And thus a balance it is maintained, each group offering to the other what is necessary for him to live.

Rules of the monk

The monks and the beginners have whole of rules to guide them in their life, rules summarized in a work, Paatimokkha, including/understanding the 227 fundamental rules. This text is recited the days of full and the new moon (Uposatha) in the presence of all the monks residing at this time at the monastery.

These rules, being voluntarily observed like methods of personal discipline, can be also voluntarily abandoned, when for example a monk becomes again beginner or turns over to the laic life. It is a current practice among the laic ones which to spend a certain time like beginner or monk (this last ordination being conferred only on those which have more than twenty years). Generally that occurs when the studies are finished, before engaging in a trade, and for one period of three or four months, roughly from July to October or November. This period, during which the monks must reside in a monastery, is called the " reprocess season of the pluies" (Vassa). It is devoted to the study or the practice of the meditation in a more intensive way. When this retirement is finished, the monks can go in other monasteries or the forest, according to their desire, unless they are not yet " nouveaux" monks under the responsibility of their Master.

In the Buddhist Order the monks money nor to have a control on this one, and thus observes should neither have the " pauvreté" in the direction of the Christian monachism. As monks they any kind of sexual relation, thus observes must, of course, abstain from the " chasteté". But they are not subject to the rule of the " obéissance" blind man, although they have obligations as disciples of a Master, and very good monk follows them strictly. When after at least five years they have knowledge and experiment and a good knowledge of their rules, they are free to travel where good seems to them, in the search of Masters of value or to practice in loneliness.

Among the many precepts of the Code of the monk there are four for the infringement of which he is expelled of the Order without never having the possibility of becoming again monk in this life. These four rules are: 1. never to have sexual relationship 2. never not to kill an human being deliberately, or to order with others to kill 3. never not to take what belongs to him with the intention to have it 4. never to prevail itself unduly of any spiritual achievement (the monk is excused if he is mentally ill, proud or not serious).

The true possessions of the monk are very reduced, and it must regard any other object as a loan which the Order makes him. It has only eight essential goods:

1. clothing (kind of toga) of the top to double thickness, for the season cold or carried at the time of formal occasions (its “nghaa.t I), 2. clothing of the top to simple thickness (uttaraasa “nga), 3. monastic clothing used as undergarment, rolled up around the size (antaravaasaka), 4. a belt for the underwear (kaayabandhana), 5. a bowl to collect its food (patta), 6. a razor (vaasi), 7. a needle (sewing box) to repair its clothing (suuci), 8. a water filter, to remove the living beings of its water so that neither him nor they are wounded (parissaavana). The monk can also use a fabric covering the thorax and discovering the left shoulder (añsa), a rectangular fabric part to sit down (nisiidana), and some other various fabric parts with use.

As for its duties they are simple but difficult to fill. He must endeavor to acquire a vast knowledge and a deep comprehension of all that its Master, Waked up (the Bouddha), taught. He must practice the Enseignement, to observe the Vertu, to reinforce Vigilance, and to develop the Sagesse. He will then include/understand the Lesson of the Buddha according to what he will have practiced. And finally, according to its capacities and its inclinations, it will be able to teach, either for its own example, or while preaching or by writing books.

The perpetual wishes do not exist in Buddhism, in respect of the principle of not-permanence and the individual freedom of choice. If the process of ordination is complex, under its conditions required and its unfolding, the return at the laic state is a relatively simple formality. It is possible to leave the monastic Community and to return, certain constantly there carrying out this return ticket several times, which does not translate in particular a positive frame of mind. In the countries of Theravaada obedience the monastic population is very high because of many temporary ordinations or " of circonstance" ; nevertheless the Masters of value do not confer major ordination on light, engagement in the way of the bhikkhu requiring rigorous conditions.

The nuns

Although largely less developed than the Community of the monks (primarily for company names and histories), the Community of the nuns exists. At the time of the Buddha, many Jones had arrived in high states of realization (to read on this subject the Therîgâthâ - Stances of Old in the Community - in the Canon Paali). The tradition makes Mahaprajapati Gautami, aunt and adoptive mother of the Buddha, the founder about the bhikhunis. Always according to the tradition, the Buddha would have been made somewhat draw the ear, but would have ended up recognizing, in a hurry by its second Ananda, the equality of the sexes on the spiritual level. Eight rules subjecting them to the authority of their male counterparts nevertheless were imposed to them, and Ananda would have been made reproach at the time of the first council its intervention in favor of the women, which did not achieve apparently the unanimity. Progressively of the structuring of the Vinaya and the Patimokkha (monastic rules), the female communities transfer themselves to impose a hundred rules moreover than the male communities.

In India, after a promising departure, the Buddhist nuns had practically disappeared at the beginning of the Christian era; the tradition of the women ascetics was on the other hand maintained until our days in certain currents jaïn. Although the first moniales were ordered directly by the Buddha, as soon as their number was sufficient, it was decided that the new bonzesses were first of all to be ordered by women having several years of experiment of monastic life before making confirm their ordination by monks. This rule, observed strictly, prevented the appearance of authentic moniales in many areas where only monks (and not of the moniales) went: Tibet, Japan, Southeast Asia (except Sri Lanka and zones of Chinese influence).

Because of more flexible attitude of its clergy which generally admits ordination by men alone if necessary, the Chinese world is the Buddhist surface where the order of the nuns experienced and experiences still the greatest development; it is at least true with Taiwan, where the policy anti-nun of PCC did not have an effect. The Chinese lines were also established in Korea and with the Vietnam. In Japan and in the Himalayan Buddhism, the female communities exist for a long time, but are made up women having pronounced wishes of beginner, total ordination being regarded as impossible in the absence of an uninterrupted line of moniales since Gautama. Some moniales vajrayana ordered by the Chinese ones appeared recently, but they all are of the Western ones.

In the countries Theravada, the order of the bhikhunis had been established only in Sri Lanka from where it disappeared in the neighborhoods from the 11th century following one period of war. Its rebirth or its creation, desired by many contemporary Buddhists, meets a certain resistance. In addition to the conservatism of most of the clergy, it is necessary to take into account the control which the States exert on the monachic institution; the ordination of the women must thus be approved by the government which often refuses there. Many “nuns” theravada are in fact of the laymen who decided to live an ascetic life while following some precepts, but do not have a true monastic rule. Nevertheless, the order of the bhikhunis, still very modest, was recreated recently with the Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

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