Why a Dudeist Monastery?

What came first? The Dudeist or the monk?

We founded the monastery before we came across Dudeism. We quickly decided that we could easily create a branch off the main trunk of the monastery, and that we could perhaps add some texture to the religion. With a bit of encouragement from the Dudely Lama, we began by creating a small area to house a dojo called The Dude-Jitsu School of Self Defense.

The Dude-Jitsu School of Self Defense

Introduction of a Dudeist monastery

Once we had our little dojo, we started pondering whether Dudeists wanted a monastery. Then again, what if they didn’t actually know they wanted us.

The thing is, Dudeists can sometimes get a little uptight when someone starts talking about rules of this or that, and monasteries are not without rules, or at least not without a strong sense of mission.

But then it hit us — Dudeists are not necessarily irreverent or rejectionists 100% of the time. Because at their core, Dudeists are truth seekers.

What’s a Dudeist monastery supposed to do?

The Little Creek Monastery is a think tank in the sense that while we are mostly about writing and preserving we also contribute to helping build consciousness models. These are certainly things that Dudeism could benefit from. Regardless, we’re here, being a monastery, whether Dudeist priests utilize us or not. [1]

We think we’re in a good position to do for Dudeism what monastics have always done… to at least help assemble the Holy Scriptures. You can see a small organizational example in the list below.

The Holy Writ of Dudeism, by the Founder

• Zen and the Art of Dudeism, by Oliver Benjamin
• The History of Dudeism, by Oliver Benjamin
• Dude Vagabond, Secret Agent, Man, by Oliver Benjamin
• The Tao of the Dude: Dude Defined, by Oliver Benjamin
• The Abide Guide, by Oliver Benjamin and Dwayne Eutsey
• The Dude De Ching, by Oliver Benjamin

Scholarly Contributions

• Psychological Analysis of the Dude, James Kerr, BEd
• Does the Dude Abide by the Tao?: A comparative study of Dudeism and the Tao Te Ching, Jimmy Brandt
• Fans by any Other Name, Timothy E. Craig’s graduate thesis

The monastery can contribute to the greater discussion, as well

The monastery provided Dude-Jitsu with five Essential Points of Self Defense.

These points were publicly discussed in 2013 on the Dudeism forum. Some people liked what we posted, while others were concerned about the whole idea of rules. There exists in Dudeism a notion of impinging on the free-wheeling, laid back “fuck it” attitude of the mythological Dude. Here is what we posted:

The Essential Points of Self Defense:

1. Compete with no one except yourself.
2. Be aware of your surroundings.
3. If you are surrounded, relax.
4. Abide. Your surroundings will want to imitate you. That’s nature.
5. Self defense? The main thing you have to defend against is yourself.

Discussion Summary:

THE DISCUSSION FOCUS: There are better semantic choices than rules. Principles, guides, guideposts, trail markers, experience, and so on.

DISCUSSION OUTCOMES:

1. Do we get too caught up in certain rules of behavior? Too invested? Too attached or biased? There is a point, between subjectivity and objectivity, that contains the potential for both attachment or dis-attachment. But it is not purely one, never devoid of the other.
2. To be totally, naturally unaffected by everything is a contradiction. To be ‘totally naturally unaffected’ would be a state wherein we were totally and completely this thing we are calling ‘unaffected.’ Everything else in existence would have to cease to exist. There could be nothing else but Total. Natural. Un-affection.
3. This is an area where our rationality sometimes breaks down. We take sides — it’s one side OR the other. You are either this OR that. But the Everything has everything in it. So, the state of ‘Being Unaffected’ is going to be compelled by Nature to have elements of everything else in it, including affection.
4. If we shape shift our discussion just a little, it might look like this: “I am training to stand and live in the center, in a state of Constant Abidance.”
5. The Essential Points actually work well, if put into practice.

I am training to live in a state of Constant Abidance.

Conclusion

There isn’t one yet.

With approximately 450,000 Dudeism priests worldwide, are any of them hanging out here? Oddly, our small, core group of early monks are all Dudeists. Which suggests interest. But in practical terms, we don’t see any substantial interest yet. Then again, we’ve done a poor job of publicizing our existence.

Perhaps this will change if we sell t-shirts, caps, refrigerator magnets, memberships and coffee mugs. The whole ‘sense-of-belonging’ thing. It’s rather hard to say.

Candidly, people will say they want something deeper, and in certain moments will admit to a genuine yearning. But generally speaking, when they come up against it they tend to reject it. Especially if it seems too hard, too complicated, too opaque, too serious, or whatever. In this regard, Dudeists are no different than anyone else.

The thing is, we've all been infected by a quite a mind virus.

Seeing Wetiko: on Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition

[1] The Little Creek Monastery, in addition to our modest efforts to support Dudeism, quietly supports the work of Great River Institute.