ABSTRACT
The basic sociological fact in Buddhism is the samgha, the order of monks. The monastic order is not a unified organization throughout the Buddhist world, and its structure and role vary. In modern Japan, it is often no longer celibate, but almost always, where there is Buddhism, there are men and women who have given up “natural” life and its goals to take formal vows that orient life in another direction, the realization of a different state of consciousness from the ordinary. They are the teachers and bearers of Buddhist tradition, and by their distinctive garb, by their monasteries and temples, and by their way of life, they make the Buddhist presence unavoidably visible in the midst of society.
