Q. We talked about the cenobitical vs. the eremtical life approaches. A point that I didn't think of while we were talking, but was hovering in the back of my mind, is that cenobitical approaches live in accordance with a rule (like the Rule of St. Benedict). That is to say that every member of a cenobium has to align their daily activities in accordance with an objective rule that is the basic structure of that way of life. I think this has advantages for spiritual practice. It means that those who participate in this way of life have abandoned personal choices in many areas of life (e.g. when to eat, what to wear, etc.). I see this as a form of renunciation that opens up the possibility of a higher goal in life, beyond that of self-satisfaction in making one's own choices.
A. Would you like me to respond briefly to this observation? We could always talk about it more sometime if you like, but a few quick thoughts follow. I understand that this is a common argument made by the cenobium in its favor, but I don't think it is really valid or is a superiority of cenobitical monasticism over eremitical. (By the way, as I'm sure you know, all the monastic traditions that I know of--Buddhist, Jaina, Hindu, Christian, Quanzhen Daoist--started as eremitical and then only in time developed cenobitical forms that eventually took over and declared themselves to be superior, but were never able to entirely eliminate the original eremitical ideal. Reform movements within them tended towards a return to the original eremitical way as superior for actual spiritual practice and attainment. And there have always been individual renunciant practitioners within them who were truly striving for liberation who took to and remained in the eremitical life of spiritual necessity, who were the greatest in their systems, and often the systems always retained this as an option. Anyway, it would take a long time to discuss all of this and various examples in detail.)
Eremitical renunciants, at least real ones, also very much, at least as much, follow an objective rule that is the basic structure of their way of life and renounce and give up personal choices of the lower self and self-satisfaction therein. They, however, have to have the discipline to do it themselves without external enforcement and be able to do it with understanding of the principles and reasons involved (though some may not always have had such understanding). Further, their objective rule or way is, at least ideally or at least for Platonists, the actual 'rule' or requirements in the very nature of reality, not a more or less conditioned rule created by a specific temporospatial figure or group. They must conform themselves to the 'paradigm laid up in heaven for those who want to see it and seeing it establish a colony in themselves', which is the most objective and least self-satisfied and of idiosyncratic choices 'rule' or 'way' possible. This, I think, even more, much more, opens the possibility of a higher goal in life, indeed the highest.
Many of the arguments that the cenobium and other institutionalized spiritual groups use for their advantages, including, I think, this one, I think are confusing conditioned, and ultimately mundane, personal development with actual unconditioned based spiritual advancement. Of course, individual eremites can confuse these also, but real spiritual practice has to be based on a genuine aspiration and determination from within that comes from the Good starting to re-manifest Itself from within the practitioner/ascetic, and thus is very far from a self-satisfied personal choice. (The decision to follow a cenobitical rule and be part of the group and let them make the choices in certain regards can be just as much a self-satisfying personal choice without necessarily having real unconditioned spiritual motivation.)
These are big and most important topics that are a lot to go into, but here are a couple quick thoughts of mine to go with yours. Incidentally, as I guess you know, historically, many eremitical monastics have actually had written 'rules' like those of cenobites that they had to follow given to them by preceptors or institutional authorities or written by themselves.
If it is of any help to think of it in this way, not going to social or worldly events like the fine dining experience that you narrowly escaped is an objective rule for eremitical renunciants and one that is inscribed in Reality Itself and something that you don't really have a personal choice about--you simply can't do such things but have to be 100% focused on the askesis, especially given impermanence and your age and condition and the urgency of 'the Great Matter of Birth and Death'.
If Platonism had ever manifested as an organized religious institution or an organized monastic institution, it would have become, by definition, another thing of this world, another conditioned phenomena, and, like all things of this world and conditioned phenomena, been subject to impermanence, change, decay, decline, corruption, destruction, and disappearance. It would have lost its pure transcendence and liberative power, like all the other systems that did become institutions for the many. It would have become, to whatever degree, just a shadow or phantom, rather than a real being, like everything else in the sense world, including the other religious and spiritual systems and institutions that are part of the sense world.
We are trying to get free entirely from this world and all phenomenal sensory spatio-temporal individuated worlds. We renounce this world entirely and completely as far as we can in all its respects and hold only to the Absolute, to Transcendence. Organized, institutionalized monasticism doesn't actually do this. It just creates another alternative conditioned phenomenal world of its own, complete with costumes, uniforms, rituals, ceremonies, ranks, hierarchies, positions and offices, laws and codes, etiquettes, properties, finances and maintenances, family structures and bonds and attachments, politics, entertainments, emotional appeals and satisfactions, etc., etc.--all the things of this world that we have renounced and they are supposed to have renounced! Thus, while it is certainly much better than ordinary worldly life and can be a useful, and, for many, necessary, half-way house, it is difficult to attain full true liberation within it. This is why most of the real people, even if they formally belonged to a monastic order and were initially brought up in the cenobium, even in the highly institutionalized systems, tended to eventually become hermits, solitaries, forest ascetics, etc. to try to really practice and pursue liberation and perfection.
