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What is a monk?
A monk is someone who every day asks:
“What is a monk?”
—Cistercian monk Dom Andre Louf

Do you have to eternally silent, celibate, separate and sober to be a monk? Is monastic life all about giving up marriage, sex, and property, and hiding from the real world? Or are these incidental? Is monasticism something else?

Through this site, we have been contemplating the essence of monasticism, and finding that it has more to do with how a group of people builds a self-sustaining community, structures a life together (e.g. through shared routines of contemplation, work and meals), opens up to silence, gratitude, integrity and presence, pursues an enlightened collectivity, and wakes up together.

Any community or movement—whether secular, interfaith, or religious—can choose to benefit from the wide array of monastic technologies that humanity has produced in the past few thousand years. This site explores the possibilities.

Featured Post

Otherhood, the Podcast: Episode 1, Christine Valters Paintner and “The Artist’s Rule”

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Nathan Rosquist

Otherhood, the Podcast: Episode 1, Christine Valters Paintner & "The Artist's Rule" [ 27:05 | 17.43 MB ]

Meet Otherhood, the Podcast. In this, the first episode, I interview Christine Valters Paintner about her new book (the Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul With Monastic Wisdom), the oblate life, and what it means to be both an artist … Continue reading →

Brands, beliefs, practices, objects, rituals and community

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Nathan Rosquist

In developing ideas for an open-source monastic tradition in my last post, I’ve been thinking of religions and lineages as more or less illusory aggregates of individuals and their communities, unified by a common brand more than anything else. Individuals have … Continue reading →

Creating an Art Monastery

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Nathan Rosquist

Living in intentional community is not for everyone—the idea triggers an autoimmune response in some people, for whom it might signify the sacrifice of personal autonomy and individuality—but once you develop a taste for the stuff, it doesn’t fade. I unabashedly love it.

Since I began this blog-inquiry into monasticism just six months ago, dissecting Taoism, Vedanta, Eastern and Western Christianity, as well as the various vehicles of Buddhism into what I have called the elements of monasticism, community is an element I haven’t written about directly much at all. Yet it figures in my mind as an important piece of what all monasticisms are aiming at. For those individuals who dwell in abbeys, ashrams, friaries, priories, sketes, lavras, mathas, mandirs, koils, gompas, lamaseries, wats, viharas, community is a powerful spiritual practice.

So we’re making a monastery. Continue reading →

Economies of Merit

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Nathan Rosquist

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 … Continue reading →

Monasticism: “putting one’s central energy into a life that revolves around awakening.”

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

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 … Continue reading →

Monastic Separateness & Engagement (part 4): a Challenge

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

[This series of posts, "The Elements of Monasticism" asks the question, what exactly is monasticism? "Separateness & Engagement" will unfold in a series of 4 posts (links: 1, 2, 3, 4).] Looking back at some of the questions I asked in part 1, the assumptions I unpacked … Continue reading →

Monastic Separateness & Engagement (part 3): Monasticism in Society

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

[This series of posts, "The Elements of Monasticism" asks the question, what exactly is monasticism? "Separateness & Engagement" will unfold in a series of 4 posts (links: 1, 2, 3, 4).] A gem from Father Louis (aka Thomas Merton), in case you missed it a few … Continue reading →

Monastic Separateness & Engagement (part 2): Assumptions

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

[This series of posts, "The Elements of Monasticism" asks the question, what exactly is monasticism? "Separateness & Engagement" will unfold in a series of 4 posts (links: 1, 2, 3, 4).] The conflation I mentioned in part 1 represents one of a number of assumptions of … Continue reading →

Monastic Separateness & Engagement (part 1): Problematizing Separateness

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

[This series of posts, "The Elements of Monasticism" asks the question, what exactly is monasticism? "Separateness & Engagement" will unfold in a series of 4 posts (links: 1, 2, 3, 4).] Why put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in lonely … Continue reading →

Benedict’s “Conversatio Morum”, Ezra Pound’s “Make it new” & Confucius’s “日日新”

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

I discussed the panoply of translations of Benedict’s vow Conversatio Morum. I wonder if the intent of Coversatio Morum, is similar to the Confucian 茍日新，日日新，又日新. “If you renew yourself for one day, you can renew yourself daily, and continue to … Continue reading →

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

Speaking of the inner life of nuns… Most of the scholars I’ve met who study Western monasticism are also hardcore medievalists, and some of them would fit well into All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner … Continue reading →

“a ‘holy’ actor in a poor theatre”

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

Some good bits of artmonkish wisdom from a “visioning retreat” we recently held at the Art Monastery. “Theatre cannot be imprisoned inside theatrical buildings, just as religion cannot be imprisoned inside churches; the language of theatre and its forms of … Continue reading →

Monk Manifesto » Abbey for the Arts

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Nathan Rosquist

[Part of the Daily Lectio series, named after the Benedictine tradition of lectio divina, "divine reading." For instructions and background on the series, click here. Subscribe to Daily Lectio. Send comments or suggested readings to nathan@artmonastery.org] With the previous post in mind, I invite you … Continue reading →

Shit Monks Say

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Nathan Rosquist

A parody of the “Shit _____ Say” meme.

Otherhood

Secular, Interfaith and Art Monasticisms. An initiative of the Art Monastery Project.