Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of Saint Benedict

Benedict's Dharma
by Patrick Henry

Saint Benedict's Rule - a set of guidelines that has governed Christian monastic life since the sixth century-continues to fascinate laypeople and monastics alike. Buddhist monks and nuns have been intrigued by Benedict's insights into human nature and by the similarities between Christian and Buddhist traditions. Now, through personal anecdotes and thoughtful comparison, four prominent Buddhist scholars reveal how the wisdom of each tradition can revitalize the other. Theirs is a lively and compelling dialogue which will appeal not only to Buddhists and Christians, but to anyone interested in rediscovering the value of an ancient discipline in the modern world.

Chapter 1

The Trellis

The root meaning of the Latin and Greek words translated as "rule" is trellis. Saint Benedict was not promulgating rules for living; he was establishing a framework on which a life can grow. While a branch of a plant climbing a trellis cannot go in any direction it wants, you cannot know in advance just which way it will go. The plant is finding its own path, within a structure. The space in which it moves is open, though not without boundaries.

General Guidelines for an Inner Journey

Why is it that Buddhists find the Rule of Saint Benedict, even if they have never read it before, strikingly familiar? It has something to do with this trellis image. Dharma is usually translated as "teaching," but one root meaning of the word in Pali and Sanskrit, the classical Buddhist languages, is "to support." In some ways, then, the Dharma is a kind of trellis that supports the awakened life. Both the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Dharma of the Buddha are, as Norman Fischer says, "general guidelines for an inner journey."

One of the Buddhist authors, Judith Simmer-Brown, had read the Rule before and had not been impressed. "It was when I was an undergraduate. I was turned off and had no interest."

But that was then and this is now. "When I started to read again," she says, "I recognized a familiar objection arising-Oh no, this is monasticism, I am a laywoman, a wife, a mother-and I felt anew that this was not something I could relate to. But then as I got into the Rule I recognized Saint Benedict's sophistication, his intuitive understanding of the importance of structure and boundary. He was trying to communicate something that can't be communicated at all through theology or doctrine, something more like meditation instruction. I suddenly understood that this text resonates with our Buddhist community, even though we use the language of householders, of people living lives in the everyday secular world, not the monastic model of a vowed, celibate life. When I began to see this level of the Rule, I realized I was stepping over a lot of history and prejudice on my part about monasticism into something that felt completely familiar. The Rule speaks of disciplines and practices, and can be instructive to anyone who wonders how to establish a domestic environment that nurtures the contemplative development of everyone in the family. The Rule mirrors my community back to me."

Contemplation Can Be Practiced Anyplace

The monastic life is structured to implement renunciation. As Joseph Goldstein put it, "I think that's why the Buddha said, 'The monastic's way is easy.' The layperson's way is hard. In American culture, renunciation isn't reinforced at all. It's not considered a virtue." Judith Simmer-Brown gave a circumstantial account of the layperson's plight: "It's hard to avoid leakage from a commitment when it's so easy to fall into all kinds of habitual patterns and self-indulgence and there's not a natural feedback from the world. How is it possible to sit down to a meal, eat it, appreciate the aesthetics of sitting down and eating a meal together, and show respect toward everything on the table and everyone at the table? How do you interact around issues of conflict, how do you begin and end the day, how do you work within the schedule of the year and month and week so that you can balance your life? The claustrophobia of domestic life and a job and parenthood and being married and being in a religious community-in short, the demands of every part of my life-are really a kind of monastic discipline. Contemplation can be practiced anyplace you find yourself."

Still, while there are fewer distractions in the monastery, renunciation is not easy there either. When Norman Fischer was at Gethsemani in 1996 he spent time with some of the abbey's monks. "I was astonished," he said, "to find them talking about the same problems, joys, sorrows, confusions that we know in our Buddhist monastic setting, which is more fluid than theirs. The basic issues are the same: How wonderful it is to live in the midst of a bunch of spiritual practitioners and how terrible it is; how these people are your best friends and your worst enemies."

The point of our conversation was not, however, comparative miseries or delights. Rather, we wanted to see whether Buddhists reflecting on the Rule of Saint Benedict might illuminate the text as a source of spiritual renewal for all sorts of people. We believe that time spent thinking seriously about spiritual discipline, maybe even about constructing a "trellis" for oneself or one's community, is time well spent.

© 2001, Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Patrick Henry was a professor of religion, specializing in early Christianity, at Swarthmore College for seventeen years. He is now executive director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at Saint John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He is the author of The Ironic Christian's Companion: Finding the Marks of God's Grace in the World and co-author with Donald Swearer, of For the Sake of the World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism.