Monastics have been instrumental in creating, preserving, and enhancing institutions of religious and secular learning and in transmitting cultural goods, artifacts, and intellectual skills down through the generations. Monastic institutions have also fulfilled medical, political, and military functions, though since 1500 the latter two have ...

monasticism, Institutionalized religious movement whose members are bound by vows to an ascetic life of prayer, meditation, or good works.Members of monastic orders are usually celibate, and they live apart from society either in a community of monks or nuns or as religious recluses.

As an intensification of an overarching religion—whether Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity, Buddhism, or, to a lesser extent, Hinduism—monasticism has never before been so widely studied by non-monastics or so eagerly pursued by …

2025年1月23日 · Christianity - Monasticism, Celibacy, Vows: The origins of and inspiration for monasticism, an institution based on the Christian ideal of perfection, have traditionally been traced to the first apostolic community in Jerusalem—which is described in the Acts of the Apostles—and to Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness. In the early church, monasticism was …

The body and the mind, which are part or all of the impediment, have to be controlled, disciplined, and chastised; hence, monastics advocate either asceticism or a set of psychophysical practices that differ radically from the normal routines of life.

Much of the zeal of early Christian monastics may have been anticipated by the Jewish Qumrān community, made famous in the 20th century by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Monasticism - Asceticism, Celibacy, Solitude: Since monastic systems developed mainly in the Mediterranean monotheistic religions and in South Asia’s theologically more complex situation, monastic diffusion into other parts of the world generally entailed modification of practices that began in these two historical core areas. Although Hinduism has been the dominant religious …

The Daoist quest after the elixir of life, and its expression in cryptic and enigmatic poetry that is well known to, and generally misunderstood by, modern European and American readers, are in no way comparable to the supererogatory search of the monastics thus far discussed.

A number of 20th-century monastics were recognized and admired worldwide. The American Trappist Thomas Merton furthered intermonastic dialogue and pursued imaginative spiritual quests through dozens of writings; he remains the most …

Buddhist monastics in Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Cambodia can be termed non-wandering mendicants, for the monks fan out in the early morning to collect food in their alms bowls but return to their houses to eat in a cenobitic fashion.