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How to Think Like a Medieval Monk (2017)

• shoshin23 9y ago
  Link seems to be down.
  • handedness 9y ago
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.laphamsquarterly.org%2Froundtable%2Fhow%2Dthink%2Dmedieval%2Dmonk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3...
  • vog 9y ago
    <!-- insert rant about the "challenges" of serving static(!) websites here --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16060256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16060256
    • shams93 9y ago
      Yeah although ipfs looks cool until we have a p2p based web you really need a cdn service for static sites that take a lot of hits. I wonder if Amazon is worried about ipfs because if that gets big there won't be a need for the S3 service.
      • vog 9y ago
        > you really need a cdn service for static sites that take a lot of hits No, you don't. HN traffic isn't that large. Even a Raspberry Pie should be sufficient (with good internet connection, though). See the above link. You'll need a CDN for videos and maybe huge hi-res images, though.
    • BrandoElFollito 9y ago
      I cannot digvup right now an article I read on HN about the load spike following HN visibility of a site. I was planning to get back to it someday to understand how a static site like mine (with several HTML files and just one webpack-generated JS) would behave.
• chinatrnp 9y ago
  Wololo
• efoto 9y ago
  TL;DR imagining yourself dying every day, meditating on it, will change your brain in a way that will make you a better person. This technique is about one thousand years old.
  • titzer 9y ago
    I love the pithy irony of this comment. Not sure if it was intentional.
  • heuan 9y ago
    my tl;dr .... The author told us to do three things: 1 - Evaluate your good/bad actions, morning and evening. Makes you act according to your "standard" more. 2- Practice feeling bad about people in difficult situations. Makes you automatically have those feelings without practice (more empathetic). 3 - Blame something external for your boredom/listlessness. Makes you cope with it better. Last one seemed a bit odd tbh.
    • erikb 9y ago
      I'm always surprised when I see another Western European religious movement that is so similar to Zen. Why do we look so far for solutions if we have some in our own history? But one thing I feel is lacking in most western movements: The handling of emptiness. If you really think about consequences of actions and how small one is compared to the whole, one cannot avoid realizing how meaningless and heartless the world is. Facing this void and not running away is one of the hardest challenges a human can cope with. We have a very deep desire to see some meaning in life, even if there isn't. Zen at least admits this and offers ways to interact with this void and one's own growing understanding of it. I think these monks don't because they simply assume the meaning is to show how good you are so you can receive redemption after death. So I think that would've been a great point three of the article instead of handling boredom, which in some way is also about handling the meaningless, but on a less deep understanding of it. If you are bored you still believe other people are doing meaningful things.
      • kybernetikos 9y ago
• paganel 9y ago
  Related to the Cistercians, there was a map posted on Reddit not so long ago detailing their expansion in Europe during the middle ages: https://i.redd.it/bwirmwctdf501.jpg https://i.redd.it/bwirmwctdf501.jpg . The /r/europe discussion can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/7lfx2l/cistercian_order_exapnsion_in_europe_during/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/7lfx2l/cistercian_o...
• jtrip 9y ago
  TL;DR 1. Meditate on death everyday when you wake up. Face the fact that you will die with help of a belief system that helps calm anxieties about death. Termed Terror Management Theory (TMT), it helps reduce existential anxieties. In the framework of the christian afterlife of resurrection and judgement, it also makes you more motivated to do the tasks that promise a better afterlife. 2. Through ruminating on the suffering of others and explicitly realising emotions of empathy repeatedly would overtime make such reactions a second nature applied in real life. 3. Attributing boredom (or rather distraction) to an external malevolent force helps better combat it. 4. Performing 'living funerals', meditating on their life as if they might die now, before going to sleep to help gauge their life and maybe how happy they are with the direction.
  • NoGravitas 9y ago
    This is an accurate summary, but I also feel that a TL;DR is quite contrary to the spirit of the article!
  • saiya-jin 9y ago
    Fear of dying is just so distant to me, I don't understand why people make such a great deal out of it. That doesn't mean I have some suicidal thoughts, in contrary I love my life. And I am an atheist/agnostic, so there is no magical fairy tale land after this life, nor does the wheel spin one more time. Just this time we have now, and that's it. And it's perfectly fine and correct way of things. Only exception I would understand is fear of leaving behind people who depend on you, especially children - but I don't have the impression that is what fuel most of the fear. I believe in mankind, as long as I give a bit of positive energy/actions in it and leave things in a bit better shape that's enough. Anyway we achieve some form of immortality via our kids, have to work hard on this topic since I believe I can be a good parent and provide loving environment for them. I guess it helps me being active in potentially dangerous sports and activities (climbing, alpinism, paragliding, diving, ski touring etc) where you are facing your built-in fear of death on very regular basis, and being successful in it lies in great part in constantly overcoming that fear in smart ways. Of course I take great care in doing stuff as safely as possible, within unavoidable amount of risk. But if you are 100% safe and have really everything under control, there is simply no adventure. When I compare to my fiancee who is hardcore catholic and should logically look forward to meeting her creator and master of it all, she is way more afraid. I presume emotions > rationality even long term.
• greenmana 9y ago
  Is the 'why' explained anywhere in this?
• peterwwillis 9y ago
  There's a couple other things you have to consider to think like a medieval monk. Their lives certainly weren't dull, and there was a lot to think about. Probably a lot more than this article goes over. Depending on the period and place, you may have to consider whether a marauding band of heathens might sack your monastery or local village, raping and murdering nun and priest alike. But at other times you'd have to consider how to extract more money from the gentry and peasants to support your monastery estate and expand its control over the country. You'd also have to think about how to tend to all the property your monastery owned, such as prisons, inns, brothels, shops, farms. You might have thousands of laborers that you had to organize to maintain it all! Later in the day you might indulge in one or two sexual perversions as a result of your vow of chastity, to the point of demanding sexual gratification before absolving women of their sins. But this became more rare over time as the church maintained brothels as a public service, to the point of even taking a sort of 'holy tax' out of their wages. (At least the monks paid better than the other patrons) Most of your time was spent working on some skill that had to do with science, literature, the arts, or a craft or trade, harvesting and preparing crops, creating garments, recording prayers for cash, cleaning, cooking, brewing, eating, sleeping. But all of this had to be stopped immediately at each of the up to eight prayer times a day, and resumed thereafter - coders that value their "churn time" should take note!
• jdtang13 9y ago
  I wish that meditative practices like this were more common in modern-day Western Christianity! You can still see a lot of this type of contemplation in Eastern Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but not so much in Western Catholicism. Also, I disagree with the writer that practices like this tend to "distance" yourself from death. I think that ascetics (Christian or not) are extremely, extremely aware of death in a way that average people are not. And I think that to these people, it's not some "immortality standard" which is just a checklist of rules, but a complete and all-consuming lifestyle that gravitates towards a single principle.
  • bmj 9y ago
    I agree! The truth is, there is are contemplative traditions in Western Christianity, most notably from Ignatius of Loyola. His spiritual practices include the lectio divina, and deeply contemplative readings of Scripture. What's interesting is that the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) are Ignaetian, but you often don't here them talk about the contemplative nature of their order. There are lesser-known traditions in Anglicanism as well (Martin Thornton did much work in this area, though he is a bit more ascetical in his practices than Ignatius.
  • djtriptych 9y ago
    Prayer is similar in many ways. Even the poses associated with prayer, hands pressed in front of the heart center, are quite common in physical meditative practices. There are codified names in yoga for all of the poses in the islamic prayer ritual as well (tadasana (mountain pose) and balasana (child's pose)). These are particular orientations of the body known to the ancients to align the mind towards meditation. It's not an accident. Nor is the fasting requirements common to various traditions, which are meant to quiet the gut, and thereby the mind, making meditation much easier. Even group singing/chanting can be considered meditative. Many monk traditions of course incorporate this as a formal meditation. So it's not too far off. Modern life obscures the original intent of course, but the meditative elements are there for any adherents.
• astine 9y ago
  It always amuses me to see articles which talk of monasticism as something of the distant past. These traditions are alive and well. Also, a lot of these features exist not just in monastic practice but also in the practice of lay Christians of the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
• cicero 9y ago
  I work with about a dozen Cistercian monks at a school run by Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey[1]. I started here 10 years ago after working 22 years as a software developer, and it's been the best job I've ever had. I manage the IT and I teach computer science and theology. The things discussed in this article are still a part of the modern Cistercian life. In fact, the crests for the abbey and school feature the word "mors", which is Latin for death. However, there is much more to their lives than these meditations, especially since the monks of this community work as educators either at our prep school or at the University of Dallas. [1] http://www.cistercian.org/ http://www.cistercian.org/
• djtriptych 9y ago
  I do a lot of this stuff as a yogi. Very interesting. A while back - maybe ten years ago - I'd do a meditation where I imagined myself on my knees facing an executioners gun and allowing my thoughts to visit that moment. Quite illuminating. It's long been a part of the Japanese samurai culture as well - to meditate on death every day.
• mncharity 9y ago
  > meditate on death Years ago I read a story. As I now recall it, a mother drew a picture of her child, each day, as they headed off to school. For she (correctly) knew, that was the last time she would ever see them alive. The child who returned in the afternoon, was invariably a different person than the one who had left that morning, never to be seen again. One hears advice like "consider that this may be your last day". But it never has been, and for most isn't likely to be. And one-shot it-will-happen-someday processes aren't great for iterative improvement anyway. So I like the story's twist on this. There will likely be someone tomorrow with your name on them. They will likely be a person very similar to you. Though given the vicissitudes of life, they may have different, even very different priorities than you now imagine. A disk crash, an injury, a phone call, an opportunity - things change. You can give forward - a good night's sleep, a new bit of insight or wisdom. And you can weigh their wellbeing in your decisions, as you do all those whom you variously care about. But for you, this day is it. Was it. You do not get another. You will not see another. As usual, immortality lies in the lives you have touched, now including, some future people, who though they share your name, really aren't you.