Open Organization Networks: Combining Closure and Openness in the Social World of an European Buddhist Monastery ()
1. Introduction
This paper presents results of a sociological study of a Buddhist community created with the goal of taking Buddhism from the monastery to society.
Broadly, it is an example of the processes of fusion between Buddhism and the west, or the processes of its adaptation to modern times and new lands. It is an original experience of adaptation process of Buddhism and its organizational format in its recent arrival to a southern European Catholic country (Arroyo, 2013).
We wonder how a Buddhist organization, alien to the dominant Catholic religious and cultural life of the country, could survive and strive becoming a reference of a new modern form of Buddhism in the west. We are intrigued by what model of Buddhism and what organizational form make it possible.
We adopt the Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach and relational perspective to try to better understand its adaptation process, in this specific case to try to cast some light over the organizational forms used, dynamics, life and relations with the surrounding society.
2. From the Monastery to Society1
It all began with Chill Out. At the end of 2005, the Sakya Tashi Ling Buddhist Monk Community2 released the Buddhist Monks CD3 whose songs are Buddhist mantras wrapped in Chill Out, or as it was defined by the press at the time, “mantras to a pop rhythm”. In three weeks it had become a Gold Record (selling more than 40,000 copies); rapidly reaching number one on sales lists and on iTunes, and in three months had already reached Platinum (with 80,000 copies sold). In few months it sold more than 150,000 copies in Spain, and its total number of world sales was much higher.
Buddhism in Spain is a relatively new phenomenon. Its presence starts being noticeable during the seventies (of the last XX century)4, more than a decade later than in other European countries or in the United States of America. But unlike the American and Anglo-Saxon experiences, the expansion of Buddhism in Spain is not related to ethnic immigrant populations and flows. It is essentially the result of the new value system that makes that most of the Buddhist people are locals who were socialized in another religion and have voluntarily chosen to learn, believe and practice Buddhism (Philips & Aarons, 2007: pp. 329-330). In 2007, Buddhism is officially recognized by the state as a religious denomination with presence in the country and therefore granting its centers and practitioners the religious status5.
The Buddhist Monks CD is a novel product which differs from many CDs of mantras sung by monks in the traditional way or New Age music CDs that incorporate complete or partial mantras. These latter cultural products are primarily geared toward a limited public, whether it be practicing Buddhists, New Age followers, or spiritual seekers (Tweed, 1998). Buddhist Monks is a product which takes the mantras from the Monastery and brings them to a new public with no prior interest in religion, Buddhism, or spirituality. It is a product especially addressed to youth but also appropriate for a wider public. In addition to making Buddhism very visible, it offers a new vision of Buddhism, of the role of monks and of the very concept of the monastery. It is an indicator of a different type of project and organization representing the new Buddhism (Baumann, 1997b) resulting from adaptation to modern contexts (Lenoir, 1999; Baumann, 1994, 1997a).
The format as well as the transmission method used exemplarizes a new model of Buddhism that goes beyond the so-called westernization or occidental adaptation (Batchelor, 1994; Coleman, 2001; Prebish & Baumann, 2002). They shape a form of open Buddhism which somehow differs from the traditional Buddhism in its methods of transmission and dissemination as well as in its organizational forms and even in its prioritization of its content, presentation, and role in society (López, 2000; McMahan, 2008). The use of market and consumer products to introduce their values in society results, in return, in the modernization of the message and product. This adaptation of the product facilitates the reach of a wider range of Buddhist followers and, essentially, of non-Buddhists. They become messages intended to generate well-being in the general population rather than to make Buddhist converts6. In general, this approach results in greater social acceptance from a population that is just starting to become acquainted with Buddhism and its low-demanding practices. Is an example of the diversification taking place in the religious space in the last decades (Chaves & Cann, 1992; Einstein, 2008; Wuthnow & Cadge, 2004). As expected, these changes create reticence and tensions in more traditional and orthodox Buddhist groups and sectors trying to control the definition of the Buddhist space.
The model proposed and practiced by Sakya Tashi Ling (from now on STL) is also the result of the leading role played by local westerners7 in the adaptation and application of Buddhism, and as such it differs from more traditional models of organization lead by oriental monks. It fits perfectly the category of “Modern” in its organizational structures and pragmatism, in the configuration of a wide and active spiritual community of the faithful, in its link with and insertion in society and in its social role (McMahan, 2008; Shark, 1995).
Looking at Success
What originally called our attention to the study of the STL Buddhist monks was their religious, social, and cultural success in a society not open to religious phenomena, which had traditionally been Catholic, whose public practices were lay and where religion had been relegated to private practice (Díaz Salazar, 2006; Díez de Velasco, 2010). That led us to study the organizational forms used in their Project “Buddhism for Society” and specifically from the perspective of social networks8. Social networks analysis offers us a novel and appropriate way to understand these new organizational structures and their dynamics (Laumann & Pappi, 1976; Newman, 2010; Scott, 1991; Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Wellman, 1999).
STL is a Tibetan Buddhist Community belonging to the Sakya lineage and the Ngagpa tradition9. At the time of the field work (2007-2010) the ordained community was composed by thirty-five people (including two Lamas acting as Abbott and Prior) and more than two hundred active lay members regularly involved in the life of the monasteries.
Sakya Tashi Ling has two working monasteries in Spain, and one more is being finished in Peru. The community also has two Dharma houses in Spain The main Monastery, created in 1996 transforming an old mansion and estate at top of the Garraf Natural Park near Barcelona, is the headquarters from where they run their project of Buddhism for Society.
STL is not a traditional closed an inward looking type of monastery (Nietupski, 1999) but rather an outward looking provider of Buddhist services aimed at reaching society at large10. At the organizational level, taking Buddhism outward requires non-hierarchical organizational systems, in the form of networks, which transcend the dyadic and often highly centralized master-disciple relation. It seems a clear example of the neo-institutionalism theories stating that all organizations or institutions are embedded in networks of social relations that facilitate their survival and expansion (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991).
Overall, the entire project is built upon social relations and networks. And so, in order to adequately understand its organizational structures and its role in society, and to somehow understand its success, we need to understand its social networks (Barabási, 2003; Buchanan, 2003; Watts, 2003). Relations—and the networks rising from them—yield a new organizational form which transcends the closed master-disciple relation, allow for the creation of a wide spiritual community and facilitate its insertion into society by generating trust and social legitimacy.
3. Data and Methods
The social system analyzed is the complete extended community (the Sangha). To analyse the social system, we turn to relational information that we obtained through a questionnaire administered in December 2007 and January 2008 to all the members of the Sangha: 35 members in the ordained Sangha and 120 members of the spiritual community of followers. They were asked about their relations of collaboration, communication and trust among themselves (ordained and non-ordained Sangha) and with people and institutions outside the Community. The statistical analysis and the representation of the information have been carried out with Ucinet and Netdraw, programs specialized in social networks. Two large groups can be identified within it: the ordained Sangha11, consisting of Lamas, monks, nuns, novices and postulants; and the lay Sangha, which plays a very active and decisive role in the life of the monastery. The unordained part of the Community includes all the faithful following the project. They are involved in the various Dharma study and practice programs and also regularly take part in religious ceremonies (rituals and initiations) and activities (retreats, pilgrimages). It is precisely in these collective spaces of practice (courses, rituals, initiations, etc.) where relations and ties between members of the project are created making up the extended community in a network form.
The application of SNA to the study of an organization can be helpful to uncover, visualize and analyze the relational structure of the organization, its vital structure, its life. It will help to identify how organizational forms based on relations are created and maintained. It will also help identifying social relevant and central positions for the life and dynamics of the organization. We believe SNA well fit to contribute to the understanding of the types of organizational forms used to run a monastery that it is also open (to the public) and that offers services and products oriented towards the entire society outside its walls. It is also a fruitful avenue to see the social life of the institution.
4. The Sangha: The Entire Relational System
The Sangha can be thought and visualized as a network product of the interactions between members of the community, ordained (red, blue, and black nodes) and non-ordained (in fuchsia)12. As can be seen in Figure 113, it is a complex relational system centered on the ordained Sangha (Lamas, monks, nuns, novices, postulants)14 surrounded by the lay community members. And, as expected, the strongest and most cohesive relational structure is that formed by the ordained members. But perhaps the most outstanding feature of this network, in spite of the centralization role played by the ordained, is that is not a pyramidal or hierarchical organizational structure, typical of more traditional organizational models. The organization lives (communicates, collaborates, learns, acts, etc.) as a network, an organizational structure that facilitates non-hierarchical relations among members and empowers them as a community.
The center of the network is occupied by two large substructures linked together which correspond to the two main sites of the Community: the Garraf Monastery with ordained residents (in red) and non-residents (in blue)
Figure 1. Network of the complete Sangha.
and the Castellón Monastery with resident monks and non-monks (in black). The relations among and with members of the Garraf Monastery are the most intense ones and account for a large part of the relational structure (approximately two thirds of all relationships). The network built around the residents of the Castellón Monastery (in black) is smaller and substantially less dense.
Taking as an indicator of relevance and centrality the amount of relations received by any given actor (InDegree here represented by the size of the nodes) in this network there seems to exist a double system of centrality15: global and local. The two Lamas (Actors 4 and 8) are the most central actors globally and they form what we can define as the core of the functional and religious authority structure of the Community. At the local level two additional pair of monks play central roles: nuns 5 and 24 join the Lamas in the functional authority structure of the Garraf Monastery; and monks 13 and 34 assume the local functional authority and are the reference points of the Castellón Monastery.