Greeting,

Ordainment is one of the highest virtues of the Buddhist practitioners. The Buddha taught that ordainment has three types: free of worldliness, free of afflictions, free of the triple-realm.

• Worldliness ordainment means leaving the worldly life, shaving all hairs, and becoming a monk/nun.
• Free of affliction ordainment means detachment from afflictions, sadness, unpleasant and negative feeling, attachments, prejudices, and one’s own shadows in the psyche created by the ego.
• Free of the triple-realm means leaving the realms of Desire, Form, and Formless. These three realms represent all sentient beings in hell, hungry ghost, animals, asura, human and gods. Normally, only the Arhats truly attain the triple-realm ordainment.

All ordained Buddhist monks/nuns go through two stages: the stage of receiving the precepts for Sàmaịera, i.e. 10 apprentice precepts for the true practitioners. The following stage is to receive the precepts of Sàmaịera consisting of 250 precepts (or 348 precepts for Bhikkhuni) to officially become a monastic practitioner. Whether it is Sàmaịera, the focus of religious life is on leaving the mundane life, not getting contaminated with the mundane worldliness. Therefore, ordainment is an extremely noble deed worthy of our praise, offering, support, protection, and maintenance.

When the Buddha set up the practice of the eight precepts, he taught that if one only need to keep eight precepts in one day and one night, their merit would be on par with that of the Buddha, which is an extremely profound thought about the effect of maintaining the precepts on our minds. That the path of liberation through the precepts is the one that brings countless merits, blessings, and goodness; thus: if we keep only 8 precepts whose merit is so innumerable, let alone 10 precepts, or moreover 250.

In line with the effect of precepts, many countries that follow the Theravada Buddhist tradition, especially Laos, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, (and recently Taiwan) have popularized the so call Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun. This is a short-term practice, a few days to a few weeks or a few months. The purpose and motive behind this practice become rich following the flow of history:

• The practice of Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun is a way of creating merits for ourselves: in the past we created many sins, now we become Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun in 7 days to repent, eradicating all the sins created in this life.
• The practice of Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun is a way for us to start a new stage in life: previously, we encountered too many adversities, obstacles, sufferings, sad events … now we become Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun in 12 days to repent, at the same time starts a new perspective, point of view and a new way of life.
• The practice of Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun is a way to manifest our filiality to our parents: for example, after we get married, we no longer have the opportunity to be with our parents, now we become Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun in 12 days to transfer the merit to our parents.
• The practice of Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun is a way to repay Buddha: for example, I was really ill, and I asked Buddha for help; now that I am cured, I become Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun for 12 days to repay the Buddha. Or my parents were sick, I pray for them to be healed, now they are healthy again, I become Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun to repay the Buddha’s help.
• Short periods are the way to repay debts: sometimes it is monetary debt, blood debt, love debt, debt of grace. It’s about creating merits to pay creditors those very difficult debts.
• Short-term cultivation is a way for us to try to see if a pure life is suitable for us to be ordained for the rest of our lives.

These are the motives and purposes of the practice, which constitutes a precious tradition, maintained and passed down for generations. For today’s society, ordainment is a very practical way to help the lay person understand the nature of the path of ordainment. Once the lay person have “tried” to short term ordainment, they will surely increase their faith, greatly support and respect the Triple Jewels.

This short-term ordainment program is called Altruistic Monastic Practice, which means living 12 days of monastic practice, it requires those who are ordained to cultivate on behalf one (or more) loved ones. Our relatives may be sick, aging, having a hard life, and karmic causes and effects that hinder them from this practice; that’s why we ‘cultivate’ for them. Obviously, we can also cultivate to alleviate our own karma. It is only when we practice “for others” that we generate true love, and manifesting the practice of altruistic bodhisattva principles.

Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters,

Please share with each other about the meaning of this altruistic ordainment, as well as encourage those who have the opportunity to participate this program.

Sincerly

Ven.  Hang Truong