As Henry points out in his comment, certainly at least some 1,000 and 10,000-day monks must need to encounter the territory daily. I think that for some monks there is probably a restriction to actually not look for the full duration, but for others there are probably more regular contacts.
I think that one thing the duration of seclusion is likely to be a firm proxy for is “length of time between impinging distractions.” Like, there is in fact a way in which most people can have longer, deeper thoughts while hiking on a mountainside with no phone or internet, which is for most people severely curtailed even by having phone or internet for just 20min per day at a set time.
So I think that even if a monk is in regular contact with society, the world, etc., there’s something like a very strong protection against other people claiming that the monk owes them time/attention/words/anything.
As Henry points out in his comment, certainly at least some 1,000 and 10,000-day monks must need to encounter the territory daily. I think that for some monks there is probably a restriction to actually not look for the full duration, but for others there are probably more regular contacts.
I think that one thing the duration of seclusion is likely to be a firm proxy for is “length of time between impinging distractions.” Like, there is in fact a way in which most people can have longer, deeper thoughts while hiking on a mountainside with no phone or internet, which is for most people severely curtailed even by having phone or internet for just 20min per day at a set time.
So I think that even if a monk is in regular contact with society, the world, etc., there’s something like a very strong protection against other people claiming that the monk owes them time/attention/words/anything.