The Four-Fold Sangha

I sometimes feel the term four-fold sangha is misleading.

For those of you haven’t heard the term, the four-fold sangha is something we talk about in the OBC, comprised of 1) Male monks 2) Female monks 3) Female laypeople. 4) Male laypeople.

Gender essentialism notwithstanding, I can see how that division might be useful from a monastic perspective. But from a lay person‘s point of view, I think the term can be misleading, because it implies the world is divided into monks and everybody else.

Not so. The world is not just monks and laypeople. The world is monks and electricians and stay-at-home parents and firefighters and strippers and middle management. It’s divorcees and professional wrestlers. It‘s chronically ill senior citizens and child prodigies.

As laypeople, it is tempting to compare ourselves to monks. I think its also tempting for a lot of us to project things onto the screen of their robes, of seeing, not a person, but something special to  either aspire to or to condemn ourselves for our inability to emulate.

I remember talking to a monk once and being frustrated by her inability to understand what I was saying and give me the right feedback to me. It wasn’t her fault; she was doing the best she could. But there was no way she could live up to the image of wise counselor I had built in my head. Looking back, I think that was a good thing for both of us.

We also need to remember, one monk is not the same as another. One size robes does not fit all. It is more than just monks and laypeople. It’s this monk specifically, and that one and the other one over there. It’s the most experienced master and most junior novice. It’s this layperson and that one, and, yes, even that one, the one who always shows up late and the monopolizes any conversation and makes it about themselves.

I notice another thing about us self-proclaimed ‘serious practioners,’ particularly those of us who have considered monkhood. For some of us, there is a sense of all-or-nothing…we either go all the way, or we consider ourselves failed.

And sometimes, for whatever reason, we aren’t able to do it. Our health prevents it. Or we have family responsibilities--young children, old parents, even business or financial ties that cannot easily be severed. It’s not that we fail at monasticism--it’s that we never get the opportunity to try. As a result, like spiritual failures.

To those people, I offer this: just because we can’t be monks, doesn’t mean we have to continue the way we always have.

All-acceptance trips us up sometimes. We can misinterpret it as telling us to put up with all manner of things that leave us unhealthy or unhappy. Suck it up, Buttercup.

We have choices. It is okay to make them. In fact, we have to make them.

Monks take action every day. When the chief cook arrives in the kitchen and sees breakfast has not made itself in the night, he does not accept since food has not prepared itself, the monks must all-acceptingly accede to not eating. When a sacristan arrives in a darkened meditation hall, he or she does not see the unlit candles and accept that this means there will be no ceremonies this morning.

Monks are making choices every moment of every day. Sometimes, the choice is simply not to leave. I know lay people who also know what it’s like to make that decision.

One hand, the four-fold sangha is a million-fold sangha, made up of each and every one of us. And yet, all of us, male and female, monk and insurance adjustor and washed-up sitcom star and social worker and chemical engineer, must make the same kind of decisions, make the choice to do what we can to find a life that brings happiness to ourselves and others.

Maybe the four-fold sangha is best described from a lay perspective  as a million-fold sangha. But it’s also possible splitting it into four is four too many.