Monastery NYC

Sometimes life gets so busy, so overwhelming, so exhausting, so full of dealing with the people and problems and various and sundry challenges of the modern world, that I get a sudden urge to chuck it all and seek refuge in a monastery. 

The idea of a simple life, a quiet life, a life devoted to calm and devotion, sounds so tempting, so peaceful, that I swear to myself that, perhaps one day, I'll vanish into a monastery, leaving the sinful, greedy Babylon behind. 

But then I wonder if I'd get Wi-Fi and Coca-Cola inside the monastery and realize this will never happen.

Also, the monastic life is not easy. It's not a full-time "chillax" situation, not any kind of vacation -- far from it. It's a vigorous, rigorous, total life. You wake up very early and pray, eat and pray, work around the monastery and pray, eat and pray again, take some recreation time and then pray some more, eat again and pray again, then go to sleep early and do it all over again, praying all the way. There are rules, strict rules, that you must follow, and you are expected to relinquish your ties and possessions from the outside world (almost) completely. It's almost like a cult but, apparently, you can leave anytime and, in fact, aren't expected to stay forever.

And it's not easy even getting into a monastery in the first place -- apparently they reject many applicants and, needless to say, you are expected to be a strict adherent to the monastery's relgion -- most usually the Christian Orthodox, Buddist, Hindu, or Catholic faiths. Monasteries are not places for religious looky-loos or temporary refugees from modernity -- they are homes for the hardcore faithful, not retreats.

I wasn't able to get a lot of information about working monasteries in NYC but most of them seems to be in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. You can find a list of them here. Most of them are in beautiful verdant campuses with gorgeous architecture. Like everything in NYC, monasteries are all about the real estate.