Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mizza | Hacker News Reader

I think a lot about the right to be a monk. It solves a lot of other human rights issues along the way. Monks create their own food, have a place to live and work, and don't cost a lot of money. Let people monk.

View on HN

Who is stopping them again?

I am an atheist. I still want to monk. I want to monk in my own way, which would probably be growing vegetables, keeping chickens, and making open source software. I don't see how that's possible given the way society is currently organized - it requires periods of time spent to commercial toil, in order to pay landlords, taxes, etc.

Monks work for their living. They make soaps, candles, bread, icons, prayer ropes, translations of holy books, etc. There are cooks, and they rebuild/repair the buildings. Their work is generally more "local", but one of the ways the monasteries survive is by selling their goods to the outer world.

The main reason for being a monk is to crucify one's ego each day in obedience to one's spiritual father and more importantly, to God. "I want to monk my own way" completely undermines the whole way of life of a monk.

In order to monk, you need a sponsor. Religious monks may have a sponsor in their religious organization (although their commercial activities may make them self-sufficient or often self-sufficient). As an atheist monk, you'd need to find someone or group to sponsor you, or do it yourself. If you're raising chickens and growing vegetables, you may qualify your property to be taxed as a farm, which typically is a much reduced rate than a property with just a home. If you monk out in the countryside, the property is likely to be inexpensive to start with.

There's some amount of commercial utility to chickens (and their eggs) and vegetables, so you might be able to make your sponsorship go farther.

So I'm trying of think of something monastery like, but without the religious aspect, and I'm really drawing a blank. Since you basically surrender your life to the community and ultimately to whoever is leading it, the religious element seems almost necessary to make this work. I think the only exceptions to this are probably something like the military or meditation/yoga practice communities - but they almost inevitably come with religious elements to them(although in some you can be much more lax about actually subscribing to the spiritual elements).

The Glass Bead Game (aka Magister Ludi) by Herman Hesse is more or less about a secular monastery. I highly recommend it.

Sounds like you want to join a commune? You could look into that.

I think you're underestimating the extent to which monasteries are commercial, and have been for many many centuries. You don't go there to chill, you go there to work hard and earn money for the monastery. In past times, they were helped along because they were given a monopoly over certain economic activities. Getting a job at a sclerotic state-owned enterprise is probably the closest equivalent today.

The point is not to LARP as a 15th century monk, the point is to live a non-commercial life of quiet, focused service.

I dig it, I just think monk is the wrong model.

Oh, ok. Religions seem to get a lot of legacy exceptions in society whether that be something like you described here, certain Native American peoples having freedom to use certain otherwise controlled substances, or like someone else mentioned a waiver for the “no women allowed” thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com