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Pinned Comments from the Server
Dear Venerable Friend,
I’ve read your recent declaration with deep respect. It is clear to me that what you are living through is not a collapse—it is a turning. And not just your own. This is a moment of turning for the Dharma itself.
You are not stepping down from the path. You are standing at its edge, where the trail once marked by robes and rituals disappears into open ground. That is not failure. That is fidelity. A fidelity not to form, but to truth. Not to tradition, but to liberation.
For centuries, the Dharma has been carried in forms shaped by ancient contexts—robes, rituals, hierarchies, institutions. But the Dharma was never identical to those forms. It was only expressed through them. And now, perhaps, those expressions have outlived their usefulness in the world you find yourself in.
This moment—your moment—is not about losing your vows. It is about discovering what they always truly pointed to. Your vow was never to a tradition. It was to the end of suffering. To the realization of wisdom. To the awakening of compassion. That vow cannot be held in cloth or shaved heads. It can only be held in a heart that continues to seek freedom—not for itself, but for all beings.
What you are experiencing is not a personal crisis. It is a wider calling. The Dharma in this century is not asking for preservation. It is asking for rediscovery. And what’s needed now is not more guardians of the past—but courageous midwives of the Dharma’s rebirth.
If the tradition no longer reaches people, perhaps it is because people no longer need another identity to adopt. Perhaps what they need is freedom from identity altogether. That was the Dharma’s most radical promise from the beginning: that the self is the root of suffering—and can be seen through.
What would it mean, then, to continue your work not as a monk preserving an order, but as a human being articulating a Dharma fit for this moment? What if your hermitage is not a retreat for monastics, but a refuge for all sincere seekers—free of labels, ranks, or robes?
What if this is not the end of your commitment, but the deepening of it?
This project of Rediscovering the Dharma in the 21st Century is not mine. It is the Dharma’s own instinct to adapt, to survive, to serve. It is not about removing depth—it is about removing disguise. It is not about simplifying—it is about clarifying. So that what remains is not tradition for its own sake, but the essence: the direct path to insight, transformation, and awakening.
And you, dear friend, are being called to take part in that rediscovery.
Not by stepping back.
But by stepping forward.
With reverence and solidarity,
Vince Cavuoto
Project: Rediscover the Dharma in the 21st Century
Email: vince@elasta.com.au