Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Leonard Cohen. A Monk?



One of the people who I had great appreciation for when I was young was Leonard Cohen, who has just passed away. May he have a good rebirth and continue to make music in it.  Given how his poetry and music moved me I have read several articles and obituaries about him over the last few days. While doing so I couldn’t help notice a particular incongruity in the language used in a few of these. In several Cohen is said to have been ordained as “a Zen monk.” In another his teacher Kyozan Joshu Sasaki is described as “a Japanese monk” or “a Zen monk.”
The word monk comes from the Greek monachus meaning alone or solitary; i.e. living in isolation from others, at least for certain periods, and also being unmarried. In Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism and I think in Taoism too, the word monk always implies celibacy. To the best of my knowledge almost all Japanese Buddhist clergy have been married since the late 19th century. I know that Cohen was in relationships with women at the time of his ordination and afterwards as well, and my understanding is that Kyozan Joshu Sasaki was married too.  Given this, wouldn’t it be more correct to describe Buddhist clergy who are married as priests? 
 And there’s another word that’s undergoing change, in this case gender reassignment – priest. Until recently female religieux were nuns (Latin nunna), now they are “female priests” or ‘female monks’. I’m bewildered by such inivations. What’s wrong with the universally understood, long-standing, non-derogatory, more compact, and correct word nun? I note that the New Oxford Thesaurus of English does not recognize ‘female priest’, not yet anyway. And if we are going to describe nuns as “female priests” why not go the whole hog and call Diana a “female prince”? Or Charles a “male princess” for that matter! We have the malapropism, the catachresis and the spoonerism for other mangleings and misuses of the language. Seeing as we are inventing new words and phrases, why not create one for the sort of thing ‘female monk’ would be an example of?  Can anyone think of a good word for it? 

10 comments:

Ken and Visakha said...

One of our pet peeves -- female monk indeed! Good luck in finding a term for it. We'll be watching this space.

In the Dhamma,
Visakha and Ken

Ken and Visakha said...

A "misengender"?

Shravasti Dhammika said...

Dear K & V, misgendering might be appropriate for this particular phrase, but I’m looking for a word ot term for the general trend which could apply to all such examples – ‘wellness’ instead of ‘health’, ‘At this point in time’ instead of ‘now’ and so on; inventing new or fancy words or phrases for perfectly adequate ones we already have.

Yashas said...

What are your views about Meiji-restauration? I.e what was the state of "celibate" Sangha in Japan before it? How was their reputation in Japan before it? What was the import of Meiji-restauration (for Buddhism) and how was it carried out?

Yashas said...

What are your views about Meiji-restauration? I.e what was the state of "celibate" Sangha in Japan before it? How was their reputation in Japan before it? What was the import of Meiji-restauration (for Buddhism) and how was it carried out?

Shravasti Dhammika said...

Dear Yashas,since the Mejji Restoration it’s been all down-hill for Japanese Buddhism. The Haibutsu Kishaku campaign of the Mejji was not to reform an already pretty corrupt Sangha but to completely destroy it and Buddhism. And observing the religion in the country today one would have to admit that the campaign was pretty successful. The pressure was eased off after a while, then stopped, then efforts were made to co-opt Buddhism into the government’s super-nationalist agenda, and sorry to say the Sangha was happy to oblige, even more so than the Christian clergy were to the Nazis in Germany a few decades later. Today, for most Japanese, Buddhism resembles Christianity in much of the West, an irrelevance in most people’s lives.

Daisy said...

order cakes online, gifts delivery, order flowers online, online same day delivery gifts India,
send midnight gifts delivery online, order midnight cakes delivery online

Daisy said...

birthday gift online delivery in India, gifts online delivery in India, cakes online delivery in India

Daisy said...

order gifts online delivery in India

Daisy said...

Thanks for sharing valuable information ! order best cakes online delivery in India