The Monastery That Used Apple Macs
It was a traditional cloistered Hindu monastery on Kauai with no contact with family, three meals a day and a 4am start, led by a guru who was traditional in philosophy and bought the first Macs so the monks could publish digitally.
Dandapani describes the monastery he entered after engineering school: cloistered, strictly routined, and cut off from the outside world, yet full of Adobe software and HTML. He explains how monastic vows are renewed every two years, why he left after ten, and how his guru's first principles of the mind became the work he does with organizations now.
What this talk covers
- The monastery was a traditional cloistered Hindu monastery on Kauai, founded by his guru in 1970, with no contact with family or friends, three meals a day with no snacking, and a 4 or 4.30 wake-up.
- His guru was traditional in Hindu philosophy and also embraced technology, buying the first Macs and moving the monks from the Heidelberg press to desktop publishing, which Apple made a short documentary about.
- Monks there learned the Adobe Creative Suite, HTML and CSS, programming, and video and audio editing.
- Vows last two years and are renewed for the first ten to fourteen years before lifetime vows, so a person can experience monastic life before committing to it; he did not renew after ten years and is now a priest and householder who runs a business.
- What he carries into organizations is his guru's first principles: like learning the clutch and gears before driving a stick shift, you need a basic understanding of the mind and the ability to focus before anything else.
It's like you date before you marry, unless you're in Vegas, then you marry, and then you date.Dandapani
Questions
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Cloistered and highly routined. No contact with family, friends or relatives, three meals a day with no snacking in between, waking at four or four thirty, and a day that runs on routine.
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No. Vows last two years and are renewed every two years for the first ten to fourteen years before lifetime vows are taken, which gives a person time to experience monastic life before committing.
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In his monastery they were. His guru bought the first Macs and had the monks do desktop publishing, so they learned design software, HTML, CSS and video and audio editing.
Transcript
981 words · 4:55
Dan, Dapandi, you really have done some incredible work around the world. I know your story. You've shared it with me. I shared a stage with you in Las Vegas a year or two ago.
That's kind of where we met. And then again, rekindled in Costa Rica. Tell us a little bit about your experience in the sort of monasteries, what you were doing there, what that sort of world was like, and then
we'll expand it into the next few topics. Yeah, it was a very traditional cloistered Hindu monastery. So only monks and Dabows could live there. The monastery was on the island of Kauai in Hawaii, and my guru had founded it in 1970,
though he had a monastic order that already existed before then. They just formed that as their headquarters. So when I graduated from engineering school, I moved to the monastery. And because it was a traditional Hindu monastery, you don't have contact with your family,
friends, relatives. You have a very strict routine throughout the day. You're eating three meals a day. You're not snacking in between, waking up at four, 4.30 in the morning.
And the whole day is routine. The one thing I would say, even though my guru was very traditional in how he approached Hindu philosophy and the way we lived our lives, he was very embracing of technology, which made him a very different monastic than a lot of other monastics within the Hindu
tradition. When the first Max came out, he bought them, and we did desktop publishing. The monks used to publish newsletters with the Heidelberg Press, you know, printing ink letters.
And then when the computers came out, he decided to go digital. And even Apple even did a whole documentary on this, like a five minute documentary on the street and the monks with Macs.
So, you know, a lot of my technology skills came from the monastery, learning the Adobe Creative Suite, learning HTML, CSS.
So monks learned to program, learned to edit videos, audio. So yeah, when my vows expired after 10 years of living, I decided not to renew it.
And so going back to Australia, I moved to the mainland US. And here I am, about 15 years or so later. What made you want to go and do that?
I mean, it's quite an extreme process to want to go. And did you initially have to say 10 years? Was that the sort of vow initially to do that? No, the vows last two years.
And then every two years, you renew them for the first 10 to 14 years before you take lifetime vows. And I always kind of jokingly say, it's like you date before you marry, unless you're in Vegas,
then you marry, and then you date. And it's a really nice process because it gives a person a chance to experience monastic life for a couple of years before committing for life, or, you know, and then be able to renew that periodically
before making a lifetime commitment. Because you have concepts of what a monk is by, you know, watching TV and reading books. And then you go there, and then all those concepts just go away. And it's a whole different life.
And you realize, oh my God, you know, I don't see the outside world. I don't connect with the outside world. I'm just in here in this monastery. Yeah.
At least Kauai is a beautiful place. I mean, you were obviously in nature and you were kind of, that's a hell of a win that. Yeah, if you're gonna choose a place that would be it.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're coming out. I'm not, I'm no longer a monk anymore.
I'm a priest and in Hinduism, priests are householders, family people. So, you know, as you know, I'm married and because I'm a householder, I can work and earn money.
And so I'm an entrepreneur, I run my business. And how are you taking that? Sorry, go ahead. Go for it John.
How are you taking the principles that you learned there and how they're being applied to organizations and sort of the lead into helping them with preparing their leaders for what's happening.
How do you relate that into? What's the bridge over into that? My guru was very focused on like, you know, basic principles of the mind that everybody should know.
You know, it's the one on one. So for example, look at a stick shift car. You know, you really need to know the clutch, the brake, the accelerator, the gears,
and how to release the clutch. Slowly pressed accelerator, change gears. Once you get that down, you can drive the car. But if you don't understand those basics,
you can't even drive the car. Then the next step is going faster, making sharper turns, doing donuts, or whatever it is you want to do.
But the mind is no different. People don't have a basic fundamental understanding of the mind. And because they don't, they're unable to harness it
and direct it. And one of the basic understandings of the mind is just understanding how does it work and the ability to focus it.
If I can't focus on you for longer than three minutes, how can I even hear what you're saying? Then, you know, communication breaks down, I hear bits and pieces, I misunderstanding creeps in,
everything just falls apart. For me, it's let's go back to first principles, you know, let's get a basic understanding of the mind, let's just learn to be focused.
If I can focus, I can be present, if I'm present, I can hear what you're saying, we can communicate. Now we can build on that, but if you can't even do that, Why bother with the next step?