Monastic Practice in the Minnesota Lake Country

The monastic community of monks and nuns, called the Sangha, was founded by the Buddha some 2500 years ago, and is certainly one of the oldest institutions in continuous existence on the planet, living according to the same ancient code established by the Buddha. It serves to uplift the wider community by fulfilling three social functions:

• First, as an community of dedicated Buddhist practitioners the Sangha is a source of role models and teachers. Just as it bene­fits us to have artists and good plumbers among us, or good citizens, it ennobles us to have saints and sages, adepts and awakened people in our midst, an effective civilizing force.


• Second, the monastic Sangha provides an ideal context for Buddhist practice for those who want to pursue the high aspirations of the holy life as far as possible. It does this by defin­ing the life most conducive to up­holding Buddhist principles, a life so barren of any op­portunity for personal advantage that a “me” can scarcely find a footing.


• Third, the monastic Sangha is charged with the continuity of the Buddha's teachings. It plays a role much like the faculty of a university, full-time staff without which scholarship would become anemic if it were to survive at all. Keep­ing the flame of the Dharma burn­ing bright is critical for the perpetuation of the teachings in their full integrity for future generations. Be­cause those teach­ings are so subtle and sophisticated, they are easily misin­terpreted and corrupted if they are not sus­tained by practitioners of attainment.

The monks form the core of our community, and are venerated throughout Asia. The Shwedagon pagoda is a consecrated space in which monastic ordinations can occur and we have the capacity for training new monks. There is a tradition in Myanmar for teenage boys of Buddhist families to ordain as novice monks temporarily as a kind of rite of passage and we typically host a group of Burmese boys in the Summer months who live at the vihara and receive Buddhist training. Occasionally non-Asian devotees also ordain as novice or full monks, some as life-long monks.