Life at a Japanese Zen Monastery

This is what the West is missing. You can't live like that, you have to pay "property tax" which means you rent the land you live on from the government. The existence of "property tax" binds you to the wage slave economy. You cannot escape and become self-sufficient. You cannot have true monasticism and simple living with the economic system of the West.

"Peter Barakan interviews Muho Noelke, the German abbot of Antaiji, a Zen monastery that is located deep in the mountains, close to the Japanese sea. The community commits itself to the practice of zazen and the study of the Buddha's teaching, while cultivating the fields around the temple, cutting grass and trees and doing construction work to keep self-sufficient. Muho explains about zazen, community life and the relation between teacher and student."