Most days at a monastery are not ceremonial. The year has its great occasions, and they matter — but between them are several hundred ordinary days in which someone checks the kitchen stores, a class runs late, a health worker sets up in the courtyard, and a delivery of schoolbooks is received with enthusiasm that varies sharply by subject.
These pages are about those hours. They are the part of monastic life that rarely gets photographed, and the part that actually fills most of it.
Nothing here is unusual enough to be an event. That is the point of it. For the ceremonial year, see Ceremonies; for news and announcements, Events.
A new set of schoolbooks arrives for the younger monks — greeted, as in schools everywhere, with varying degrees of enthusiasm depending on the subject.
more
Long before most of the monastery has begun its day, the kitchen is already at work. By the time the monks arrive, everything appears almost effortless.
more
After classes, a ball appears and a serious conversation dissolves into laughter. A monastery is also a community in which people grow up.
more
Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Nalanda, Sarnath — the young monks travel to the places they have been reading about, and find them to be real fields, real hills, real brick.
more
Height and weight recorded, small concerns asked about, and some comparing of who had grown the tallest. Much of caring for a community consists of these quiet, ordinary moments.
more
These pages are drafts, awaiting review by the monastery.