The Surprising Lives of Monks and Nuns

[Music] i don't think there is a contradiction between a simple life and a spicy food perhaps someone who's living a simple life needs to have something to spice it up maybe that works [Music] my name is father richard walls and i am a monk of subiaco abbey which is a monastery in subiaco arkansas after i graduated from high school i entered the monastery so i've been 55 years a month [Applause] monk sauce which we produce here at subiac abbey is an habanero pepper sauce we call that monk sauce because it's monk made anybody who has handled habanero peppers knows that you should not be doing this without a glove on a good monk is a good balance between prayer and work [Music] it ought to be done want to find out if it's any good where's the water i suspect that a lot of people have kind of fanciful ideas about monks and what they do and they get into the monastery and they find out that monks are very much like everybody else [Music] i feel very close connection to the land in this area the longer that i was here the more i realized that god got me here because he knew how to be in a community the community is a very important thing to me [Music] we are the only neneri in all the himalayas doing deadly martial art these nuns can even break bricks with their hands and the purpose behind this practice is sacred this is a lifelong purpose i make it for drupa order and i am very proud of my practice my name is jigme yangchin jigme means fearless i'm a confunant of the drupal order the drukpa order is a branch of buddhism that has been around for thousands of years but in 2008 the nunnery based in kathmandu nepal started to learn kung fu as part of their spiritual practice 800 nuns are here in drupal now jigmei wanted to be a nun since she was a little girl i'm 10 years old when i became a nun i constitute all the nuns like my family [Music] no other nunnery in nepal does kung fu training and jigmei and her sisters go the extra mile to master this art form the drupal order is not for lazy people we wake up at 3am we meditate we bicycle we train for the three hours they run and climb upstairs to strengthen their bodies and they use sticks and fans to enhance their coordination the hard work is rewarding and the purpose of training these nuns to fight all comes back to the philosophies of peace and equality comfort train us to focus our mind for meditation the nuns also take these philosophies and apply them to disadvantaged communities in nepal in 2015 when a devastating earthquake hit kathmandu the nuns knew this was their call to action when the earthquake healed our comfort training helped us to brave and strong we went to many villages that many and jews and government thought that it's too dangerous we brought many supplies we survived the landslide avalanches and earthquake the nuns also biked 14 000 miles throughout nepal to protest against the human trafficking of women and girls we talk about equality and safety we wanted to show everyone that nuns can ride bicycle and girls can do anything i learned i can do anything a man can do fu has trained me to be confident strong and happy the teachings helped me put my compassion into action helping others is my religion [Music] the shaolin monks of china are an ancient order surrounded in mystery they spend their lives learning kung fu and buddhist philosophy you can choose to practice martial arts or choose to pray [Music] but i choose combined both together i chose the worst way after defecting from communist china one shaolin monk found himself living in new york training some unique clients ranging from movie stars to hip-hop artists my name is sriamin i'm the founder and arbit of usa shaolin temple [Music] i was training at the park first some training said do you want to teach we want to study and i said no problem and people talk to people you know spreading the words out very quickly i have students come from everywhere from around the world they come here just for one week sometimes a month they just come here to study as she young ming's popularity grew his teachings began attracting the attention of one of new york's most famous hip-hop artists the shifu has spent years training with riza from wu-tang clan even going so far as to appear in the music video for shaolin temple [Applause] a perfect face they love chinese culture they love martial arts [Music] but xi'an ming strongly believes that the benefits of shaolin can be adapted for any individual anybody can get benefited because different kind of styles for different people never old never young never told i never assured problem for everybody i want to reach as many people as possible in my precious lifetime that's my ultimate goal [Music] [Applause] [Music] character mistakes [Music] [Music] on a greek peninsula sits mount ethos one of the most important centers of the christian orthodox world isolated and autonomous monks first arrived in the 9th century and it is a place where time has stood still access is very limited and the location is hard to get to especially on the southern side where cabins sit on cliffs a hundred feet above the sea [Music] yesterday [Music] [Applause] the [Music] there amongst life on mount ethos is almost exclusively dedicated to prayer beyond that life is rooted in self-sustainability monks grow their own fruits and vegetables make their own wine and do any required handiwork [Music] it [Music] here [Music] mount ethos remains a holy site where numbers of visitors and prospective monks continues to rise every year to some outsiders this simple communal life may seem archaic but for the monks it is a peaceful existence with no distractions [Music] is

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 120,773

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, New Releases, Great Big Reels, Human Condition, Weird & Fun Knowledge, weird, fun knowledge, monk, monks, nun, nuns, prayer, passion, expectations, Kung Fu

Id: k89Md8-hVE0

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020