Q: What Monastery.com is all about?

A: Monastery.com is place where wisdom is shared. While monasteries typically are aligned with a particular religion or philosophy, Monastery.com hopes to be inclusive of all beliefs or opinions. We are happy to have everyone who joins to be a "monk" in the sense that they dedicate their time and effort to explore truths and help others. That being said, some of our members and people related to the company had or still have affiliations with monasteries. We ask that if you do, please include a bit about that in your profile page.

Q: What advice do you have when responding to questions?

A: The most important thing to keep in mind when being a monk on Monastery.com is to remember to be humble in your thoughts. One of the challenges many people face is to "step outside" of opinions and view each as they truly are... an opinion of a tiny person in an amazingly large and ancient universe (note: we understand that some people are of the opinion that we are all part of that universe and therefore not tiny at all).
We have noticed that the moment someone declares their opinion as an absolute truth (e.g,. "the world is flat") instead of a relative truth (e.g., "I believe the world is flat"), passionate disagreement and fighting occurs.
Consider your personal reaction to the following statements:

A. "The meaning of life is to exchange energies"

B. "I believe that the meaning of life is to exchange energies"

A. "Apples are more tasty than Bananas"

B. "I believe that apples are more tasty than Bananas"

We would like to request that you try to make your answers to questions to be worded in a way that is open to debate and communication.