Ordination Advice
| Getting Ordained |
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| Rinpoche gave the following advice on becoming a monk or nun. | |
It is very good that you become a monk or nun for all living beings: every hell being – they are numberless, every preta – they are numberless, every animal – they are numberless, every human – they are numberless, every sura – they are numberless, every asura – they are numberless, and every intermediate state being – they are numberless. So, be a monk or nun for all of them.
I want you to remember this every morning after you finish your prostrations, which is part of the refuge precepts. Then, recite this verse a few times while kneeling down, in order to inspire you to be able to live in the ordination and to continue to purify negative karma. Recite this verse of Buddha's words from the Sutra of the King of Concentration and then the mantra:
When the holy Dharma has become extremely perished and the teachings of the One Gone to Bliss have ceased, the merit of somebody who is enjoying (living in) one vow for one day or night is more exalted than offering umbrellas, flags, garlands of light offerings, food, and drink with a calm mind, or service, to one hundred billion times ten million buddhas, for ten billion eons equaling the number of grains of sand in the Pacific Ocean.
The meaning is "Keeping even one precept for one day collects far greater merit than the precious merit of having made extensive offerings every day to that many buddhas."
Then, you should recite the mantra:
OM AMOGHA SHILA SAMBHARA / BHARA BHARA / MAHA SHUDDHA SATTVA PADMA BIBHUSHITA BHUJA / DHARA DHARA / SAMANTA / AVALOKITE HUM PHAT SVAHA*
You can recite it 21 times a day or however many times you can. At the end, think this is what I am offering to all sentient beings. I offer this practice and these merits to all sentient beings and also this is my contribution to world peace. One thing that is helpful to strengthen the mind is to think you are making preparation for the happiness of future lives by living according to the vows. This also becomes the foundation for liberation from samsara and helps you to achieve enlightenment, and before that to achieve the higher training of concentration, shamatha, and great insight – Wisdom. With the support of bodhicitta and this realization, you achieve the Mahayana exalted path, which eliminates the defilements, and then you achieve full enlightenment. What makes the mind strong is by reflecting that this is the advantage that you get, and this is the happiness you can get by sacrificing this life and living according to the vows. Also, you should reflect on karma and the suffering of the lower realms. These two things are very important, especially when your mind becomes weak and follows samsara more than liberation. When the thought of seeking liberation is weaker for various reasons and the attachment seeking samsaric happiness is stronger, especially in these cases you should think that in order to achieve samsaric happiness you are giving up liberation – ultimate happiness. Also, it is very important that you read a lamrim prayer every day, mindfully reflecting on the meaning, such as The Foundation of all Good Qualities.
So, thank you very much.
With much love and prayers...
| Considering Ordination |
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| Rinpoche wrote the following response to a man who had written saying he was considering ordination. | |
My Dear Nick,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. You are a stable and growing inspiration—not only for practicing Dharma but for dedicating your life to goodness—and liberating yourself and all other sentient beings. Also, you want to engage in ordination, which is taking a strong responsibility to liberate yourself from the ocean of samsaric sufferings. It is especially taking responsibility to liberate countless sentient beings from the ocean of samsaric sufferings, the continuation of which has no beginning.
My advice for making important decisions in your life is that the most crucial thing for you and all other sentient beings is to think well. One must see things thoroughly—not just for a few days or months. In the Tibetan tradition, ordination is until death. It comes down to the point of what happens to oneself by following attachment. Delusion can harm us, and all sentient beings. This is how it has been since beginningless rebirths. This effort (of following attachment) has been with us from time without beginning. So, by not following desire and delusion, you achieve liberation—everlasting happiness—and, of course, with bodhicitta, you reach enlightenment.
Not only that, you will be able to liberate countless sentient beings, from whom you have received all your past, present, and future happiness—from the oceans of samsaric suffering—delusions and karma.
Your main deity for quickly achieving enlightenment is Tara Chittamani—the highest yoga tantra aspect. Also, Kalachakra—you can take the initiation and do some practice with that, also some retreat. The main deity, though, is Tara. Practice mind training, lamrim, and the three principal paths on the basis of Tara. Try to learn as much as you can, and then focus on generation stage and completion stage practices. At first, the main focus is lamrim. After a few years, the main focus is generation stage.
The preliminary practices you should do to purify obstacles, negative karma, and delusions and create the necessary conditions to achieve realizations and to receive the blessings of the guru in your heart are as follows:
20,000 guru yoga—For blessings of the guru for the common realizations in the lamrim, and the uncommon realizations of the tantric path;
300,000 tsa tsas—Mostly Mitrugpa, but then also do a few of the seven Medicine Buddhas, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, and the 35 Buddhas.
Also, please read the Golden Light Sutra.
The objective or purpose of this life decision you are making is not just for your temporary happiness of this life, nor for your samsaric happiness of future lives. Of course, practicing Mahayana Buddhism has limitless amounts of benefit. Living in the ordination vows correctly makes it much easier to achieve this goal.
With much love and prayer. Take care of life with Dharma.
In the Dharma (bodhicitta)...
| Request to Take Ordination |
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| A student wrote to Rinpoche saying he’d completed a five-month lamrim retreat and had enjoyed it very much. He said he had realized his love of solitude and celibacy, among other things, and had made prayers to continue his lamrim meditations and to be ordained. Rinpoche sent the following reply. | |
Dear Scott,
There are many benefits of being a monk. If you become a monk, then you gain so much more merit from living life meditating each day, or doing retreat. Then things will be easier.
Please think about this quotation from the Buddha:
If all the beings in the universe were to become bodhisattvas as lay people, and they each offered a butter lamp as vast as the great ocean to a stupa containing the relics of all the [past] buddhas, this would not equal even a fraction of the merit gained by a single ordained bodhisattva offering one butter lamp to the holy stupa—Lord Buddha.
The nature of life is impermanence. Any day, any moment, you can die. So, meditate on death and impermanence. In Buddhism, this is the most important thing, especially in the beginning, for overcoming delusions. It makes one able to achieve bodhicitta, realize emptiness, begin the path, and complete the path. Therefore, you need to meditate on death and impermanence.
You have already done enough things in this life as a lay person There is no need to do any more activity as a householder. As long as you are going to be in retreat, becoming ordained would be very beneficial, and the merit of doing so will bring realizations much sooner.
I am offering you a gelong shemtab. You don’t have to wait. You can become a gelong tomorrow after taking ordination.
| Carrying Suitcases |
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| Rinpoche gave this small note to a student who was taking two big suitcases of tsatsas on Rinpoche’s behalf to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She was going to take ordination from His Holiness. | |
My very dear Jean,
For Indians and Nepalis, normally, the biggest two events in their lives are marriage and death; usually they don't think about death. For you, this is a replacement for marriage. In reality, this is the biggest thing in your life – this moves your feet toward enlightenment. This is the biggest step toward liberation – a great decision.
This is one of the biggest things in life for a Dharma practitioner, as well as death. For someone who is renounced, then death is just a transit, like traveling from one place to the next, like you are now flying to India. Of course, when death comes, it is traveling with your mind, not your body; you just travel with your mind.
I carry three suitcases of texts when I travel, and I have two smaller suitcases of texts and holy objects, so it will be very difficult when I travel with my mind, as I won’t be able to carry even one page, even my jola. I can't make them mental, familiarize all these texts. So, when I am in the hell realms, none of my many suitcases will be there with me, and that will be a very sad thing. I will miss them.
With much love and prayers...
| Bhikshuni Ordination |
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| A Western nun holding getsulma vows asked whether it was a good idea for nuns to aim toward taking Bhikshuni, or gelongma, ordination, as it is called in Tibetan. She wanted to know whether it made a big difference for the mind to hold such higher ordination. Rinpoche gave the following reply. | |
Bhikshuni (gelongma) ordination is not officially accepted yet in Tibetan society, particularly by Tibetan lamas, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The lineage that confers this ordination has not yet been accepted. For that to happen, there needs to be an assembly of the abbots of all the Buddhist traditions, including the four Tibetan traditions, and senior monks of the Theravadin traditions, and so forth. If they agreed about this, it would be fine, but this hasn’t happened yet. So, at this point, officially Bhikshuni ordination is not accepted.
In the past, there have been a few nuns from the FPMT who have taken Bhikshuni ordination, and this has inspired others to do so. My suggestion is that 36 vows are very few, a small number compared with the vows that Bhikshunis have, about 350. Therefore, there may be benefit when you make such a promise, but it depends on how much you keep it. For example, one of the secondary remainder vows of Bhikshunis – not a root vow – is that you can’t travel alone without another nun. If you can’t keep the 36 vows purely, how can you keep Bhikshuni vows? It would be impossible.
There are many important vows to practice and to cherish. In the Tibetan tradition, there are bodhisattva vows, 18 root vows, and 46 secondary vows. Then, there are tantric vows and commitments, including the five dhyani Buddhas’ samaya and mother tantra samaya vows. Bodhisattva vows create the cause for you to attain full enlightenment, and tantric vows cause you to achieve enlightenment very quickly. Therefore, it doesn’t make much sense to take gelongma vows if it’s only to hold the title gelongma.
As far as practice is concerned, there is not much meaning. However, if one can live purely according to 348 vows, then it’s good. But if it’s only to be a gelongma in name, then even the motivation is not good. There are so many vows to keep and practice purely. If one can’t keep tantric and Bodhisattva vows purely, then one won’t be able to keep these 348 vows purely.
I was invited to attend a Bhikshuni ordination, when a few nuns from the FPMT were taking vows, but as it has not yet been accepted by the Tibetan tradition, I didn’t attend.
| Full Ordination for Nun | |
| A nun requested Rinpoche’s permission to take full Bhikshuni vows. | |
My very dear Ven. Tenzin,
Thank you very much your kind letter. It would be very good for you to take full ordination. I hope the reason you want to take it is not because it looks good, or because it is a fashion to enjoy for some time. This is really a serious matter and decision in one’s life.
The thought that you should have every day, the basic idea, is this: I am doing this to achieve liberation and the total cessation of sufferings and their cause—delusion and karma—which have no beginning. But not only this, the reason that I have taken these vows is to free the countless hell beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment; to free the countless hungry ghost beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment; to free the countless animal beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment; to free the countless human beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment; to free the countless asura beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment; to free the countless sura beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment; and also to free the countless intermediate state beings from sufferings and their causes and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, I MUST achieve enlightenment. For that reason I am living in ordination. To liberate and enlighten other sentient beings is the ultimate goal of my life. That’s why I have taken this human body, for that aim: to actualize the path, achieve enlightenment, and liberate and enlighten all sentient beings. The human body gives all the opportunities for this, including achieving enlightenment in one life. This is on the basis of this human body, born in this southern continent, where tantra is existing. This body is the only, best thing, which gives all these opportunities.
I have collected merits, by practicing charity and dedicating merits, to receive a perfect human body for so many lifetimes. I have worked so hard for thousands of lifetimes to receive this human body, so therefore I must use this human life in the best, most productive, beneficial way for all sentient beings, not only for myself.
Thank you very much for your letter. This is what you should think every day. Learn the vows and try to live in them as much as possible, otherwise you take the vows and are very virtuous at the beginning, but after some time they mean nothing, you just see a person’s robes, and that’s all. It shouldn’t be like that.
With much love and prayers...
| Thinking of Disrobing |
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| Rinpoche heard from a Sangha member who does a lot of Dharma work for him and for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He had been thinking that he might be able to do his work more effectively if he gave back his vows. | |
My very dear George,
Thank you for your hard work. Regarding your message, this is what I think: According to what the Buddha has said, the way you are thinking is silly. Most people disrobe because they have problems of strong desire or their vows have degenerated, but in your case that heavy problem doesn't exist. Just because you have a lot of work isn't a reason or an excuse to disrobe. In fact, to consider doing something like that in this life is a most foolish thought.
In the lamrim, it is mentioned that one should keep one’s vows at the risk of losing one’s life. You can see what this means. This shows clearly the value of living according to the vows. You can understand from it how important it is to keep one’s vows. It is saying that even if you have to give up your life, that is OK. It is better to give up your life than to give up your vows and to live on. As a person living according to pure vows, even if you have to die, or someone wants to kill you, there is no danger thanks to your living in those pure vows. If you are killed, you take a human rebirth. You take a young body to practice the Dharma and to continue your Dharma training.
It is said by Lama Tsong Khapa that the best practitioner of tantra is a fully ordained person, because keeping the pratimoksa vows is the best base for keeping the bodhisattva vows purely, and therefor the best base for keeping the tantric vows. An analogy is given in the texts that the pratimoksha vows are like the container, the bodhisattva vows are like the water, and tantric vows are like the reflection in the water.
Buddha said in the King of Concentration Sutra that if we compare the merit of someone who with a devotional mind offers food, drink, umbrellas, flags, and garlands of lights equal to the number of grains of sand in the river Ganges and makes that offering to buddhas equaling a million times a thousand million to the merit of someone who keeps one precept for one day and night in a time like now, a time in which the teachings of the One Gone to Bliss (Buddha) have degenerated, the merit of the latter is far greater.
So, now I leave the decision in your hands. So far I only know of one student who disrobed not for reasons of desire but because they were attached to wearing lay clothes. This is not the same as your case, but there is some similarity.
You are able to use your knowledge to help me and His Holiness the Dalai Lama and people in prison, so that is very, very great.
With much love and prayer...
| Considering Giving Up Vows |
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| Rinpoche offered the following advice to a monk who was considering giving up his vows. He had been very dedicated to serving others and worked very hard for others. He had been a monk for some years, but recently his mind had become discouraged and he was thinking of giving up life as a monk to live a lay life. | |
You said that you think it is simpler and easier to live a lay life. However, I know you are a very nice person and very dedicated to serving others, and I think it would be a big pity for you to give up. I think your main problem is that you are not thinking correctly.
You said that you think lay life is fully alive and very easygoing, whereas a monk’s life is not easy, and one creates heavy negative karma. Your main mistake is that you don’t think of death. If you knew you were going to die tonight, there would be nothing else to do but practice Dharma. The only useful thing would be is to practice Dharma, and to live life with morality and as an ordained person. There is nothing better.
When you think that death is going to happen tomorrow or tonight, the conclusion comes to live according to the vows, in a monk’s life. Therefore, you are totally wrong to be thinking of a lay life. There is nothing else to do but what is useful: practice Dharma and live as an ordained person, as a monk. It becomes essential, the best thing to do, when you think of death. Therefore, the way you are thinking is crazy.
Attachment to lay life is due to not analyzing lay life well. There are many additional problems in lay life. When living a lay life, if your motivation is not of compassion, bodhicitta, unattached to this life and to samsara, or realizing emptiness and having mindfulness of emptiness and the object of refutation, then the attitude is always delusion, and all the actions that are performed create negative karma. That’s how lay life is. You are totally hallucinating to think that lay life is freedom. You are totally wrong.
When you don’t think and analyze well, then you think lay life is free. It looks as if they are free from karma, but they are not. There is so little freedom in lay life to practice Dharma. There are so many obligations – family, friends, parents, and children, so many things. Life is filled with them and it makes one unbelievably busy. On top of that, this life is filled with many distractions, inside and outside. Inside, the mind is filled with all the worldly things, following desire, and clinging to worldly things. Life is filled with distraction.
A monk’s life has much more freedom. There is always merit. Even if you don’t do any other special practices, you are still always collecting merit because you are living according to the vows. The number of vows of a fully ordained monk is 253 and as many vows as you have, you collect that much merit. So, merit is collected all the time just because one is living according to the vows.
Since you haven’t broken the major vows, you are totally silly to be attracted to the lay life. You are not analyzing lay life. As is mentioned in the ordination text, if one leaves the householder’s life – this life’s suffering and future lives’ suffering – and lives in the ordination of renunciation, then there is so much freedom and happiness in this life and also in future lives. Living the life of ordination and renunciation has so much freedom and happiness, and future lives have greater peace and happiness. So, we go from happiness to happiness to enlightenment. This gives us the greatest opportunity.
Also, you need to think about liberating yourself from samsara. That means eliminating the cause of delusion and karma. Otherwise, one will have to experience the suffering of samsara without end. So, one has to think of these important points and the bigger vision. The biggest problem is being in samsara and the biggest vision is to achieve enlightenment, free all sentient beings from suffering, and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore, one needs to practice Dharma for that. These are the reasons you should continue to be a monk. Because of some difficulty in your life, you think that lay life is much easier and there is more freedom. This is simply a hallucination coming from your own delusions. This is not Dharma wisdom. It is not how wisdom thinks. It’s how delusion thinks.
The essence is that there wouldn’t be any buddhas, bodhisattvas, or arhants if everybody thought the same way as you. If everyone thought that, when things were difficult, then they would give up practicing Dharma or give up the monk’s life because they had found some difficulty. With delusion, with your self-cherishing thought or attachment, you will always find some difficulty. But if everyone did what you want to do, then there would be no Buddha, bodhisattva, or arhant now.
Why are there so many buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhants? Because even though they had all the same delusions and sufferings as you, they put effort into actualizing the path and eliminating all the defilements The buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhants all actualized bodhicitta by letting go of the “I,” and attachment to samsara's happiness. That is why there are numberless buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhants. Before, they were ordinary beings, but they made an effort and became buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhants. So, you also can do this.
It is extremely important to analyze when these kinds of thoughts come. Analyze the benefits and shortcomings, and determine which way has benefits, and which way has no benefits but only shortcomings, and choose the one with benefits. Among those that have smaller or greater benefit, choose the greatest benefit, the one that causes happiness in future lives and causes liberation from samsara and full enlightenment. Choose those things rather than what causes more suffering in samsara and is the cause of the lower realms.
This is what to do when the thoughts come that you want to give up the life of ordination, Dharma practice, and so forth. When one has that mind, which is deluded, make a decision without becoming a friend of delusion. Without being a friend of delusion, but rather being in the middle, then you are able to see clearly the benefits and the shortcomings. This way, you proceed toward Dharma rather than following delusion. Otherwise, your thoughts can deceive and cheat you. They cheat you out of not only this life’s happiness but also out of your future lives’ happiness. You lose all your happiness, your future lives’ good rebirths, and your liberation from samsara and enlightenment.
| Ordaining Again | |
| Rinpoche gave the following advice to a man who was a fully ordained monk for some years, then disrobed. After he disrobed he continued to offer service in Dharma centers. He then wrote to Rinpoche requesting if he could become ordained again. Rinpoche gave the following reply. | |
My very dear Kevin,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. If you returned your vows without breaking them, or even if you broke them but you did not hide that, then it’s OK, you can take ordination again. It is especially good to do that now your mind has become stronger. So, it’s OK, you can take them again. Then, you should continue your life in that way, thinking of its purpose, until you achieve stable realizations, bodhicitta, and special insight.
With much love and prayers...
More talks by Rinpoche on this topic:
See the Vows topic in the Miscellaneous section of the Advice Book.
Read Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche's Advice for Monks and Nuns.