Tricycle | Awake in the World

I read your collection of articles on monasticism with interest [Winter 1995]. I am glad that a forum exists to discuss such aspects of Buddhism from a wide variety of perspectives; but the question of “monasticism,” in contrast to “lay” practice, created a polarization that could have been circumvented had the subject had been approached in terms of “ordination” in a wider sense. Stephen Batchelor touched on the existence of “the noncelibate yogic tradition of the Tibetan Nyingma School,” but did not mention that it represented half the Nyingma School. This noncelibate tradition is called the“ngakphang,”or mantra-holding, sangha, and is the tantric equivalent to monastic ordination. Tantric ordination is often overlooked, because its adherents tend to be reclusive, itinerant, and live in small communities or family situations.