Working on Themselves Impacts the Society

I think the concept of the monastery is always up to date whether it is in medieval times or the 20th century. The point being that there is some kind of discipline and some kind of natural dignity that the monastic tradition displays.

— Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

A family can aspire to be an enlightened society, very much so, and the Sakyong has a big emphasis on this, and I’ve always thought that the monastery was the ideal place to aspire to create mini-enlightened societies. At the monastery we’ve worked with this already as a model. A group comes together with their ordinary difficulties and delights of getting along and the benefits of deep study and deep practice as well as challenges in doing their work, their everyday chores and their relationships with people, etc., and governance, all the challenges and delights, and they make this their path of awakening. I’ve always thought that to take this ordinary stuff, but have as the vision to create a really sane society at Gampo Abbey, at Lion House, wherever we might be, was the main point. That’s how I see it; I see the monastery as so ideal because people don’t come and go in a weekend—the shortest program we have is six weeks. Mostly people are there for at least a year, and there’s the opportunity to really work, not just on themselves, but to realize how working on themselves impacts the society. We have a lot of work to do in that area, but I feel quite optimistic that we can do it.

— Ani Pema Chödrön, interview