SANGHA (BUDDHIST MONK COMMUNITIES) AND MONASTERIES

SANGHA: THE BUDDHIST MONK COMMUNITY

Ganden monastery in Tibet On the Sangha,the Theravada Buddhist scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote: “The Buddha’s dispensation is founded upon three guiding ideals or objects of veneration: the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. The Buddha is the teacher, the Dhamma is the teaching and the Sangha is the community of those who have realized the teaching and embody it in their lives. These three are together called the Three Jewels or Triple Gem. They are called the Three Jewels because for one who is seeking the way to liberation, they are the most precious things in the World. The Buddha established the Sangha in order to provide ideal conditions for reaching the ariyan state, for attaining Nibbana. [Source: Virtual Library Sri Lanka lankalibrary.com ]

“The holy life requires purified conduct but household life stimulates many desires that run contrary to pure conduct. The homeless life is a life of meditation calling for constant mindfulness, clear awareness and contemplation. All this needs time, a calm environment, freedom from external pressures and responsibility. The Buddha founded in Sangha in order to provide such objective conditions.

“The bhikkhu, the Buddhist monk, is not a priest; he does not function as an intermediary between the laity and any divine power, not even between the lay person and the Buddha. He does not administer sacraments, pronounce absolution or perform any ritual needed for salvation. The main task of a bhikkhu is to cultivate himself along the path laid down by the Buddha, the path of moral discipline, concentration, and wisdom.”

The Three Jewels — The Buddha, “Dharma” (The Buddha's teachings), and the “Sangha” (the community of monks) who preserve and transmit Buddha’s teachings — are central to the understanding and teaching of Buddhism and are the Buddhist equivalent of the Christian Holy Trinity. One definition of a Buddhist is “one who takes refuge in the Three Jewels.” The vow taken by Theravada monks — "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the law, I take refuge in the Sangha — is asserts their embrace of the Three Jewels.

Websites and Resources on Buddhism: Buddha Net buddhanet.net/e-learning/basic-guide ; Internet Sacred Texts Archive sacred-texts.com/bud/index ; Introduction to Buddhism webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/buddhaintro ; Early Buddhist texts, translations, and parallels, SuttaCentral suttacentral.net ; East Asian Buddhist Studies: A Reference Guide, UCLA web.archive.org ; View on Buddhism viewonbuddhism.org ; Tricycle: The Buddhist Review tricycle.org ; BBC - Religion: Buddhism bbc.co.uk/religion

Early History of the Sangha

Peter A. Pardue wrote in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: The solidarity of the earliest mendicant community was centered on the charisma and teaching of the Buddha himself, but the growing number of converts, the addition of lay devotees, and the settlement of a number of cenobitic communities around major cities in the Ganges valley forced the routinization of discipline and teaching. By the end of the Buddha’s long ministry the Sangha was differentiated along several characteristic lines; most important was the class distinction between the monastic elite and the lay devotees. [Source: Peter A. Pardue, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2000s, Encyclopedia.com]

The tradition relates that after the Buddha’s death a council was convened at Rajagrha to regularize the teachings and monastic rule. The actual accomplishments of the council are uncertain, but it is apparent that a substantial body of the scriptures found in the present Theravadin canon and the residuals of other early schools already existed in oral form — including the nuclear disciplinary code (Pratimoksa) of the later full monastic rule (Vinaya) and much of the soteriological teaching embodied in the Buddha’s discourses (Sutra). The major ceremonials of communal life were in practice, most importantly the bimonthly uposatha — a congregational assembly and confessional recital of the Pratimoksa. As a result of the increasing generosity of the laity, the various monastic centers soon possessed extensive properties and dwelling places, with a highly differentiated system of specialized roles for administration and teaching.

By the third century B.C. the Sangha was in the process of sectarian proliferation, ultimately forming a number of schools, each of which emphasized different philosophical and doctrinal features of the received tradition. Their distinctive doctrinal positions were embodied in commentaries on the early teachings, finally forming — to take the Theravadin case — the Abhidhamma — the third part of the threefold Pali canon (Tipitaka). According to uncertain tradition, a second council was convened at Vaiśalī one hundred years after the Buddha’s death. There a series of sharp disagreements about the inner meaning of the teaching, the status of the laity, and the rigors of the monastic rule brought on the “great schism,” a split chiefly between the conservative forerunners of the Theravada and the more liberal Mahasanghika, whose doctrines were significantly related to the rise of Mahayana Buddhism in the following centuries.

The apparent failure of the first councils to unite the Sangha has to be gauged against the basic values of the teaching itself, the nature of monastic constitution, and the conception of internal authority. The early Sangha was never a “church” under one centralized control or subscriptionist orthodoxy. At Rajagrha after the Buddha’s death (and supposedly at his own request), the idea of routine patriarchal succession was deliberately rejected. In keeping with autosoteriology, the primary function of the monastic rule was to protect the spiritual independence of each monk. It contains typically stringent rules and penalties dealing with sexual offenses, abuse of material possessions, and interpersonal disturbances and outlines legal–rational procedures for dealing with internal disagreements. But the over-riding aim was to provide optimum conditions for pursuit of the ultimate religious goal, not to enforce ecclesiastical unity. Issues were discussed openly and decided by majority vote, with all ordained monks having equal franchise. The constitution of a monastery allowed free dissent in “good faith,” and if controversies could not be resolved, the rules governing schism allowed the dissenters to depart and form their own monastic center. Formal routinization finally included a status system based upon degree of spiritual perfection, knowledge and capacity to instruct, and seniority reckoned in a sequence of three decades from the date of ordination. There was a preceptor system for the guidance of novice monks, but the authority of the senior monks was in principle strictly advisory. The novice joined the Sangha by confessing his inward spiritual intention, but not within the framework of a system of bureaucratic office-charisma, as in the Roman and Byzantine churches, or of monastic obedience, such as we find in the Benedictine rule.

Sangha Structure and Hierarchy

The word ‘Sangha’ means those who are joined together, thus a Community. However, "Sangha" does not refer to the entire Buddhist Community, but to the two kinds of Communities within the larger Buddhist Society. They are: 1) The Noble Sangha (Ariya Sangha), the community of the Buddha’s true disciples; and 2) the conventional Sangha, fully ordained monks and nuns. In principle, the word Sangha includes bhikkhunis — that is, fully ordained nuns — but in Theravada countries the full ordination lineage for women has become defunct, though there continue to exist independent orders of nuns.

Theravada Buddhism traditionally has not had an overarching theocratic structure like the Vatican nor are No1 leader like the Pope or Dalai Lama. Each country where Theravada Buddhism where is found has its own organization that does not extend beyond the national level. Thailand's chief Buddhist monk is known as the Supreme Patriarch.

Jacob Kinnard wrote in the Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices: As soon as Buddhist monks began to form into groups, there was a need for rules (contained in the Vinaya Pitaka) and also for a degree of hierarchy that was needed to keep order, to enforce the rules, and to maintain religious purity within the community. This hierarchy was, and continues to be, based on seniority — the longer one has been a monk, the more seniority he or she has. [Source: Jacob Kinnard, Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices, 2018, Encyclopedia.com]

Peter A. Pardue wrote in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: For the laity and for all secular spheres of social reality, the leadership of the Sangha developed a highly differentiated secondary soteriology (doctrine of salvation), based on a merit-making ethic rationally oriented to the economic and political needs of the urban mercantile and artisan classes. In joining the Sangha, the lay devotees promised to conform to the “five precepts” (no killing, stealing, lying, adultery, or drinking of alcoholic beverages). By support of the monastic order and by their personal morality they could accumulate karmic merit and so be assured of better rebirth opportunities. While the Buddhist laity were expected to make donations to the Sangha, the soteriology stressed the autonomy of the self as the sacrificial agent. [Source: Peter A. Pardue, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2000s, Encyclopedia.com]

Buddhist Monasteries

Buddhist monasteries are not communal places for ordinary people to worship; they are places set aside for people who have decided to devote themselves entirely to Buddhism. Even so they are generally open to the public. Lay people are generally welcome at the monasteries any time and sometimes even encouraged to reside there for a while.

Monasteries are often found in conjunction with temples. They have traditionally been centers of learning and quiet reflection. Up until recently, monasteries were where young children went to learn how to read and write, and many monks served as teachers.

In medieval times Buddhist monasteries played a role that was similar to their counterparts in Europe. They helped to educate people and provided medical care and places to stay for travelers and orphans. Through gifts and patronage they were able to amass great wealth and large land holdings and even open up pawnshops and banks. Sometimes monasteries were like fortresses and had their own armies.

Monasteries usually consist of main prayer hall, dormitories, a library, schoolrooms, a rooms for Buddha statues and religious objects and a crematorium. Some famous ones are as opulent as palaces. Others are simple village facilities. The monks sleep in small austere rooms or dormitories and meditate inside rooms, sometimes filled with smoke from candles and incense burners, and chant in low moaning voices to the rhythm of stick striking an instrument that looks like a wooden cowbell.

Monks spend a lot of time meditating. Meditation requires deep concentration and a lack of distraction. As a result, many Buddhists need to meditate somewhere quiet and private. Thus monasteries are often quiet and seem almost empty. They can also be quite noisy of teh monks are chanting while they are meditating or are debating.

Buddhist Monastery Structure and Hierarchy

Monasteries are set up as places for monks to live, pray and work. Unlike Christian churches, which are often hierarchical institutions that emphasize community worship and social service, monasteries are generally democratic and anti-authoritarian institutions run for monks by monks, who keep the monastery going with donations and money earned from presiding over important ceremonies.

Local monasteries are essentially self sufficient and rely on their own lands and support from the local lay community. Property belongs to the community. The religious practices are passed down from generation to generation from student to teacher.

Even the Dalai Lama is not really a leader of Tibetan Buddhism rather he is the highest-ranking monk at Tibetan Buddhism’s main monastery in Tibet. The hierarchies tend to exist mostly on the monastery level with abbots or senior monks serving as leaders of the monastery. Their rank in turn is based on the history and prestige of the monastery and the number of monks that are there.

Buddhist Lay People and Monks

There are two types of Buddhists: 1) monks in the Sangha (community of monks) and 2) lay people. Lay people are supposed to follow the basic tenets of Buddhism and provide alms to monks and temples. They are considered a lower incarnation than monks and are not required to spend as much time praying and meditating as monks. There is strong supportive relationship between the monk community and lay people, with lay men and women providing monks with food, lodging and medicine for monks and monks giving them Dharma in return.

There has always been a symbiosis between the Sangha and lay people. The former depend on the latter for material support, while the latter depend on the former for religious instruction. In these roles, they keep each other in check. The laity ensures the purity of the sangha in that the gifts of the laity will not bear fruit (positive karma) unless the monastic community remains well regulated and pure; likewise, the sangha serves as a constant reminder and model to the laity of the proper, salvific religious life. [Source: Jacob Kinnard, Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices, 2018, Encyclopedia.com]

Ariyan Sangha

On the Ariyan Sangha, Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote: “The Ariyan Sangha is the Community of noble persons, all those who have reached the supramundane paths and fruits. This Sangha consists of eight types of individuals joined together into four pairs. The four pairs are: 1) The person on the path of stream entry and the stream enterer; 2) The person on the path of once returner and the once returner; 3) The person on the path of non-returner and the non-returner’ and 4) the person on the path of arahantship and the arahant. [Source: Virtual Library Sri Lanka lankalibrary.com ]

20120501-tibetan monks debating joho.gif

monks debating in Tibet

“What unites all these persons and makes them a community is that they all share a penetration through direct experience of the innermost essence of the Dhamma. All these persons have followed the Buddha’s path to the height of wisdom and seen for themselves the ultimate truth, the truth of the unconditioned. The experience that makes a person an ariyan disciple is called the arising of the eye of the Dhamma. We all have physical eyes by which we can see. We also have mental eyes through which we can understand ideas intellectually, but what the Ariyan person has that an ordinary person lacks is the dhammachakkhu, the eye of truth, the penetrating vision that sees into the real nature of things, the vision that sees the unconditioned element, Nibbana.

“Once a person becomes an ariyan disciple he gains absolute confidence in the Triple Gem, in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. He can never go for refuge to any other teacher other than the Buddha, or take as his guiding principle any teaching other than the Dhamma. He has been spiritually reborn, born with a noble birth. The status of an Ariyan is not established by any formal act of ordination. Any person - monk or nun, layman or laywoman - who penetrates the Dhamma, who arouses the eye of the Dhamma, immediately becomes an Ariyan disciple of the Buddha. Lay persons living at home can also reach all four levels of liberation. But the lay people who have become Arhants are very few and when they do so, according to natural law they immediately renounce the household life and enter the monastic order.

“Those who become ariyans have entered the definite path to final liberation. They have stepped beyond the ranks of the multitude caught up in craving and ignorance revolving in birth and death. They can never fall back to the level of a worldling because they have realized the truth by direct experience. They are now bound to reach full enlightenment and final liberation. The highest of the noble disciples is the arhant. He is the one who never comes back to any form of existence high or low. He has reached enlightenment right in his body, he has cut off all craving and extinguished all defilements. He lives out his day in the bliss of liberation until the break up of the body. With the break up of the body, he attains the final goal, the Nibbana element without residue.

early 20th century Buddhist monks and their attendants

“When Buddhists recite "Sangham saranam gachchâmi" (I go for refuge to the Sangha), they are referring to the Ariyan Sangha. The Ariyan Sangha is absolutely essential to the Buddha’s dispensation, for the ariyan disciples stand as living proof of the truth of the Buddha’s teaching. The Ariyans are the ones who have put the teaching to the test, who have practised the path and verified the Dhamma in their own experience. They are the ones who have accomplished the aim of the Dhamma. The Buddha’s teaching aims at transforming ordinary people from worldlings into noble people, at bringing them to the stages of liberation. They are the guides and models. They encourage us to follow the path, since they began as ordinary people like ourselves, but by practising the path they have risen up above the ordinary plane and reached the state of spiritual nobility. Through their own attainments they can give effective instructions to others instruction that is not based on mere guesswork or book learning but on personal experience.”

Conventional Sangha

Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote: “The monastic order is called the conventional Sangha because admission to the order depends entirely on the convention of ordination, which can be given to any properly qualified candidate. It does not require any special spiritual attainment, but simply a person who wishes to enter the order and is free from any of the conditions that obstruct ordination. [Source: Virtual Library Sri Lanka lankalibrary.com ]

“The monastic Sangha is regarded as extremely precious, and worthy of deep reverence and respect for two basic reasons. Firstly because the monks continue to follow the holy life laid down by the Buddha in its fullness, and secondly because they transmit the teaching from generation to generation, out of concern for the welfare of others.”

senior Tibetan monks

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, Purdue University, Julie Chao, Joho.com

Text Sources: East Asia History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu , “Topics in Japanese Cultural History” by Gregory Smits, Penn State University figal-sensei.org, Asia for Educators, Columbia University; Asia Society Museum “The Essence of Buddhism” Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius, 1922, Project Gutenberg, Virtual Library Sri Lanka; “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “Encyclopedia of the World's Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Encyclopedia of the World Cultures: Volume 5 East and Southeast Asia” edited by Paul Hockings (G.K. Hall & Company, New York, 1993); BBC, Wikipedia, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024