It 's been a great pleasure to visit an old friend, whom I had not met for 18 years, in Grenoble, France. It was a very warm feeling. We had great time chatting old stories. The vivid memories that flew out made me felt like we just departed only few years ago. The environment in the city and in the suburb of Grenoble were extremely pleasant. My friend took me (and our families) up the Chatreuse mountain nearby the city where there is a forest monastery there. Grenoble is the city known for its high tech and nanotech industries and science park, yet the presence of a Christian forest monastery on one of the 3 flanking mountains is quite paradoxical. The atmosphere there is very serene. My friend told me that the monks there live separately in each hut and don't talk to each other, perhaps only once a week at most. It 's amazing that a Christian Order has forest monastery like Buddhism has forest monateries (like several hundreds that we have in Thailand, although I think ours might be better suitably called Jungle monateries). However, technically speaking, I guess their meditation techinique might be more similar to the Samatha style, rather than Vipassana style for sure. My friend also told me that Dalai Lama visited this place once several years ago.
2 comments:
Thank you for your beautiful
Link and Picture...
I have spend quiet some time
in Thai Monastery's as well as
in Tibetan Buddhist Monastery's
in Nepal and India
and i can asure you that there
is a World of difference between
this different traditions.
And it's word exploring.
And again i can asure you
there is Huge difference between
Thai Buddhist Monastery and this Christian Monastics...
how ever i feel you word's are
not enough ... in order to know
one need's to experience it
did you know there is a amazing Move about this Monastery;
Its called Into Great silence
you can fin it here.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Into+great+silence&emb=0&aq=f#
enjoy and thank you for the Blogg
be well
and God Bless
you
Thank you for providing information that may be of use to other readers.
I have been to a Thai jungle monastery and it was a good learning experience to observe one's own wandering mind days and night when one was alone in a dark jungle. I plan to do it more often when I have more time.
Each person has a preference of what kind of "living condition" that he feels suitable for his mental study.
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