We Americans have always considered Hollywood, at best, a sinkhole of depraved venality. And, of course, it is. It is not a Protective Monastery of Aesthetic Truth. It is a place where everything is incredibly expensive.
Silence is difficult and arduous, it is not to be played with. It isn't something that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence.
You utter a vow or forge a signature and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman or prison.
In our own case, we don't consider the loss of a monastery or a monument the end of our entire way of life. If one monastery is destroyed, sometimes it happens.
I first had a version of this at a Japanese monastery during a silent retreat-don't ask, it's a long story.
Personally I would like to have pupils, a studio, pass on my love to them, work with them, without teaching them anything. . . . A convent, a monastery, a phalanstery of painting where one could train together. . . . but no programme, no instruction in painting. . . . drawing is still alright, it doesn't count, but painting - the way to learn is to look at the masters, above all at nature, and to watch other people painting.
Satan stations more devils on monastery walls than in the dens of iniquity, for the latter offer no resistance.
When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.
You have to put yourself in a situation, a lifestyle, that makes you do the work. Even if it's a monastery.
Turn your car into a monastery.
Most of the utopian community ideas actually are religious. They're based more on the idea of the monastery than the commune.
We need to make our own the ancient pastoral wisdom which. . . encouraged Pastors to listen more widely to the entire People of God. Significant is Saint Benedict's reminder to the Abbot of a monastery, inviting him to consult even the youngest members of the community: "By the Lord's inspiration, it is often a younger person who knows what is best".
I had a real yearning to make use of the opportunities I had at school. When I heard about the gap year of teaching English at a Tibetan monastery, I knew I had to do something about it really quickly, otherwise it was going to get allocated.
The person who's in the Zen monastery, who's doing a kind of poor job at meditating and a half-ass job cleaning the gardens is not doing very good yoga.
Even in a remote monastery, you may still be remote from the truth! To find the truth, all you need is a sound way of thinking.
I like the monastic life. . . in the prayer and the praising. . . this has charged me with new energy, spiritual energy. This is very important for my ministry outside the monastery.
My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.
I think one can advance faster outside a monastery if you use the experiences of daily life to advance yourself.
Running is just such a monastery- a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.
The early masters also introduced walking meditation and hard work to the monastery, for too much sitting could reach the point of diminishing returns.