A Typical Day

Life at Abhayagiri revolves around our daily schedule. This schedule provides a consistent pattern to our lives, integrating our individual practice into the rhythms of community life and into the rhythms of nature. The daily routine provides us time both for quiet, silent reflection in the forest, as well as for community activities such as group meditation, chanting, and community work. Underscoring every aspect of our day and threading all of these aspects together is the continual effort to learn, apply, and develop insight into the teachings of the Buddha.

The day begins around 4 am when most of the community wakes up in their dwelling places scattered throughout the forest. The landscape is still dark, the forest still asleep, and the stars bright in the sky. Many members of the community use this early morning stillness to practice yoga or chi gung, and to prepare their bodies for the coming day. Scattered across the mountainside on which the monastery lies, we then hike down from our various dwelling places and converge at the Dhamma hall near the bottom of the mountain.

At 5 am, we hold morning pūjā in the Dhamma hall. The senior monk lights offerings of candles and incense. The community all together bows three times, and then with their hands held before their hearts in añjali, chants traditional homages to the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha. The chanting is immediately followed by an hour meditation. During much of the year, as we sit in morning meditation, dawn breaks and the first light of the day begins to glow above the mountain to the east. Sitting together as the new day begins, we find silent encouragement and support for our own practice in each other’s presence.

After an hour, the meditation bell rings and we chant a reflection on the Buddha’s teachings or a sharing of merit. We then file out of the meditation hall and move immediately into a morning chore period, focused on cleaning and maintaining the main monastery buildings and their immediate surroundings. At 7 am, a small breakfast of oatmeal is served and at 7:30 we meet together to plan for the day’s work period. Since Abhayagiri is a monastery under construction, there is always work to be done in the forest–shaping trails, building dwelling places, maintaining old buildings and roads. There is also work involved with preparing the day’s meal, in distributing Dhamma materials to laypeople requesting it from the monastery, and correspondence between the monastery and the lay community. During the morning meeting we plan the day’s work and then we take a few moments to pause and listen to a Dhamma reflection by the abbot or one of the other senior teachers. This reflection reminds us to contemplate and practice the teachings of the Buddha throughout the work period and throughout all the movements of our day, often suggesting particular themes of practice for the day.

The work period provides the monastic community and visitors an opportunity to serve the community with generosity, as well as to bring their meditation practice into daily tasks. At 10:45am (11am DST) the work period ends and the meal is offered. In accordance with the monastic discipline prescribed by the Buddha, monks are offered food anew each day by lay supporters. They may not eat anything that is not offered and they may not eat after noon. These monastic rules insure that the monastic saṅgha and the lay community are locked in daily interdependence. The lay community provides for the material survival of the monks and the saṅgha provides spiritual inspiration and guidance for the lay community.

After receiving the meal offering into their almsbowl, the monks return to the Dhamma hall where they chant a meal blessing, delighting in the generosity and goodness of those who offered the meal. They then eat in silence. Any visitors to the monastery are also welcome to eat their meal with the monks in the Dhamma hall or wherever is convenient. After the meal has been finished, bowls and dishes washed and the kitchen cleaned, individuals hike back up the mountainside, returning to their dwelling places scattered throughout the forest.

The afternoon provides a time for solitude and for stillness in the forest. As the sun moves from its apex in the sky towards the western horizon, individuals use the time alone to practice sitting and walking meditation or to quietly study. Then at 5:30 they again descend the mountainside, coming together at the main house for evening tea. During this time the abbot sits in the Dhamma hall to speak with visitors to the monastery and to answer any questions they may have.

After teatime, the community prepares for evening pūjā at 7 pm. Once again, the senior monk lights offerings of candles and incense and the community together bows and chants. Again, we sit together for meditation. For much of the year the sun sets during this evening sit, descending below the mountains to the west. Just as we began the day together sitting in silent meditation, now we end it together sitting in silent practice. After an hour the meditation bell rings, a short reflection or sharing of merit is chanted and we file out of the Dhamma hall. It is time for our final hike of the day, returning up the mountainside to our dwelling places in the forest.

Day after day this schedule repeats, creating a rhythm to life; a rhythm centered around learning, applying, and developing insight into the Buddha’s teachings. Day after day this pattern flows, moving naturally from one phase to another–from early morning chanting, to chores, to breakfast, to Dhamma reflections, to community work, to the meal offering, to solitude in the forest, to tea and discussion of Dhamma, to evening chanting and meditation. As this daily routine unfolds, it allows us to bring together our formal meditation practice with our cultivation of mindfulness in everyday tasks; it allows us to bring the wholesome qualities which we develop in our meditation practice into our conduct and relations with each other; and it allows us to bring together three key aspects of the Buddha’s path of liberation: the cultivation of generosity, virtue, and meditation. It is not an easy routine and there are always challenges along the way, within our own minds and in the world around us. But it is a routine which also provides us many opportunities for delight, for enjoying the forest, for appreciating each other. And as the days flow on, repeating again and again this daily schedule, both those challenges and joys are swallowed up into this pattern of life, and become parts of the practice.