…senior member of the Order, and is a key figure in the functioning of the Order. The Head of the Order serves both as the spiritual leader of the Order, providing a critical refuge point for all who practice within the Order, monastic and lay alike, and also as, in conjunction with the Order officers and the senior monks of the Order, its administrative center. His function and range of authority are defined in the Rules of the Order. Rev. Master…
…n on “Priories and Parish Priests” was revised by the previous Head of the Order in order to bring those rules up to date and to make them applicable to all the temples of the Order, from the smallest hermitage to the larger abbeys. The collection of provisional rules had been made between conclaves and due to various circumstances had not yet been ratified by a conclave. This ratification is a necessary step for a rule to become a permanent addit…
…pose was to simply get together and discuss issues in our practice and our Order Twenty-four monks from the UK and various locations in North America joined the Shasta community [of 24] to participate in the gathering. Following up on a monk’s suggestion, we began by discussing together what it means to be a contemplative order. We reached no definition, but shared broadly about what it means to be a monk and to have a monastic vocation. This deve…
…supporting a particular Temple or meditation group. In addition, there are Order-wide funds set up in the US and the UK to support those monks whose main role is in the administration of the Order or who are not otherwise supported by an individual Temple. As well as covering the expenses of the Head of the Order and other Order officers, these funds cover a variety of running costs, including the printing and distribution of the OBC Journal. Ther…