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INTRODUCTION TO MONASTIC LIFE

Monastic life is the heart of Sravasti Abbey. Traditionally the monastic community has been responsible for preserving and disseminating the Dharma. For that reason, Dharma study, practice and service are their full time focus.

Living a monastic life requires commitment and training. Every moment of the day at Sravasti Abbey is part of our training, including following the daily schedule of meditation, teaching, Dharma discussion and service to the community. We maintain the Vinaya discipline as well as the Abbey's community guidelines to pacify our body, speech and mind.

FOR THOSE CONSIDERING MONASTIC ORDINATION:

Having the aspiration to ordain is very noble. To make your ordination successful, it is extremely important to put the proper conditions in place. When you take the time to do this, your Dharma aspirations become strong and firm and your ordained life will flourish.

GENERAL INFORMATION ON MONASTIC LIFE:

Monastics, people considering ordination, and those who want to learn about monastic life can find more information here:

DOWNLOAD APPLICATION FORM (Word Format)

CURRICULUM FOR MONASTIC EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The general curriculum includes:

  • Study and practice of Vinaya, emphasizing its practical applications and use in subduing our physical, verbal, and mental activities.
  • Study and practice of Lamrim, the Gradual Path to Enlightenment
  • Study and practice of Lojong, Thought Transformation, particularly how to transform situations and how to work with emotions
  • Philosophical studies of the great treatises, for those who have a solid foundation in the Gradual Path and in Thought Transformation
  • Tantric practice, for those who have a solid foundation in Buddhist practice
  • Daily meditation practice
  • Retreat—individual and group
  • Community life as practice
  • Communication skills
  • How to lead discussions, meditations, and give Dharma talks

It takes time and enthusiasm to learn and integrate the above material into our being. This cannot be rushed, but is a life-long process undertaken with love and diligence.

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TO THOSE INTERESTED IN JOINING SRAVASTI ABBEY AS LONG-TERM RESIDENTS

We welcome your interest in Sravasti Abbey and in the Buddha's teachings. Sravasti Abbey is a community of monastics who follow a common way of living the Pratimoksha precepts, common Dharma practices, and a common daily schedule including Dharma teachings, meditation, discussion, and work (offering service). We aim to establish a community of committed practitioners for whom the Abbey will be their home. To promote harmony, the community will grow slowly.

Considerations

Adopting a monastic lifestyle requires adjustment as we learn to live with the protection of monastic vows and to live harmoniously with others. People wishing to live at the Abbey must want to live as a community and contribute to the welfare of the group. This means that residents and long-term guests commit to full participation in the daily schedule of practice and community activities.

While we respect and learn from all Buddhist traditions at the Abbey, when we meet to practice together, we do practices found in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Of course, there will be space for individuality. For example, while monastics do common meditation practices as a group, individuals may do other Buddhist practices when meditating in their room.

Tibetans speak of "nay ki lama" or the resident teacher (teacher of that place). Those who have already ordained and whose principal teacher lives elsewhere should be willing to follow the Dharma and Vinaya guidance of the resident teacher at the Abbey, currently Ven. Thubten Chodron. Ven. Chodron has studied principally in the Gelug tradition and will teach according to what she has learned in that tradition. She has studied in both the Mulasravastivadin and Dharmaguptaka Pratimokshas and brings perspective from both of these traditions.

Sravasti Abbey is located in a rural area, ideal for quiet monastic living. To create a peaceful environment for Dharma practice, monastics and those in training at the Abbey adopt a simple and virtuous lifestyle, learning to find contentment through Dharma study and practice. Living in a rural area without access to your own car, television, music, or Internet access in your room and eating a vegetarian diet can be quite challenging for some people It's good to consider these realities before asking to join the community.

Process

Monastic training at the Abbey entails a gradual process of living with the five lay precepts, eight precepts, novice monastic precepts, and then the precepts of a fully ordained monastic.

Entrance into the community is also gradual, whether you are ordained now or a layperson exploring the possibilities. You should be familiar with Ven. Thubten Chodron and her manner of teaching before exploring residency at the Abbey. We recommend that all applicants come for a short visit to get acquainted with the community and our lifestyle. Go to “Opportunities to Visit" < http://www.sravastiabbey.org/calendar.html> to check out the possibilities. You’re welcome to arrive early or stay after the event to get a better idea of life at the Abbey and so we can get to know you. Please schedule your visit in advance by contacting .

After your initial taste of Abbey life, if you want explore further, you may apply for a longer visit—six to twelve weeks—then take time away to assess your experience. You may then apply for provisional residency, which you and the Abbess will evaluate and renew every three months during the first year.

For your Dharma journey to be successful, it's important to have a teacher and to know which Buddhist practices appeal to you the most. Before accepting someone as your teacher, you should know his or her qualifications, and be familiar with his or her teaching style and to make sure it suits your temperament. Before ordaining, you must also have confidence that the teacher will train you as a monastic and provide appropriate Dharma guidance. While you may be eager and enthusiastic to ordain, taking the time to check things out well and establish a solid foundation will lead to happy results in the long run.

The Abbey is still a new community and a work in progress. We cannot offer what a well-established monastery can in terms of convenience or an established program for monastic training. Nevertheless, we are building and growing rapidly. It is joyful to participate in the beginnings of a new abbey and to be part of the creative process of bringing Buddhist monastic life to the West.

For more about community life, please read Dharma Principles: The Foundation of Sravasti Abbey.

Visits of one-week or more require an application. Click here to download the form and directions for how to apply.

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THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Recently one of the abbey residents considering ordination asked a good friend who had ordained a few years ago some questions. The following is the communication they had that may prove beneficial to others also considering ordaining.

I would like to get a dialogue going on some of the things that one gives up when one ordain. Which ones did you find especially difficult and which ones were surprisingly easy?

What do you give up when you ordain? A lot! Your identity, your independence, your privacy, many of your precious needs, hopefully your self-cherishing. This also depends on where you live and who's guiding you. Venerable is pretty strict but there is benefit in that. What do you gain? A lot! Learning to know what makes life meaningful, learning to discipline the mind, learning to love equanimously, learning to let go of "my needs, my happiness" as most important, etc.

I have questions about friendships and family relationships. How have they changed (your opportunities to visit, call, and see them). I am trying to see what is attachment and what is a lot of good hard work on both sides of my friendships that I would hate to lose. Maybe one doesn't give them up, but extends the circle to encompass a larger group of people.

It sounds like you think happiness comes from friendships. Yes, we all need love to flourish but in the past few years I have realized that happiness comes from my mind, not from others. Friendships may be the condition that allows seeds of happiness to ripen, but they are not the substantial cause of that happiness. Often friendships shore up a sense of identity, but as we grow in the Dharma, more of that identity comes from realizing our true nature and our potential. When the goal becomes more focused on achieving a good rebirth, liberation, and enlightenment, our friendships naturally change of their own accord, similar to when you stop drinking, you naturally stop associating so much with drinkers and going to parties. This doesn't mean that we cut off friendships altogether, but the Sangha really becomes more of your family and more of your arena for growing, learning, and reflection. The more I surrender to this, the happier I am. Every person can be that friend. And our own loneliness is a great tool to learn from! Yes, we work to extend the circle of people who are friends. His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that he tries to see every person he meets as an old friend. That comes from working with our mind and not so much with making sure we're surrounded by people we naturally like.

Looking back, would you have done anything differently? When did you really start contemplating ordination? And when you decided to ordain, how did your process actually unfold time wise?

In hindsight, I wish I had understood the Dharma better before I ordained. But even as naive as I was, I'm also glad that I ordained when I did and have had the opportunity to study. I know more clearly than ever that Dharma is about transforming our own mind into an enlightened mind. I didn't really understand that before I left for India. I didn't really know about the mind and its process of transformation. I didn't see the bigger picture very clearly, but I just jumped.

Do you have any suggestions as to reading material; I am reading Venerable's booklet "Preparing for Ordination" for Westerners which has a lot of good questions to ask myself, so that will help.

The questions in Ven. Chodron's booklet are very helpful. I answered them a couple of times, and I could have kept going, looking more deeply into motivation, expectations, etc.

You might find some reflection/meditation in these areas helpful:

  1. What is happiness? (Big question) What are the causes of greater happiness and satisfaction? (Hint: positive states of mind that drive virtuous acts of body, speech, and mind) How am I creating their causes now? Since everything I do is an effort to create happiness (check it out – it's true! Everything right down to choosing which socks to wear!), what will support me to create more genuine causes of happiness for myself and others? Is it possible to exist in a state without any suffering (free of cyclic existence)? Begin to imagine what that would be like.
  2. Has your family always been your family? What relationship did you have with your current sister in the life before this one? What relationship will you have with her next life? How many times has she been your mother, sister, lover, enemy? Can you lead her to enlightenment right now? Can you eliminate her suffering? What kind of love can you offer her now and what kind of love could you offer her in the long run if you devoted yourself to the Dharma?
  3. Of what benefit am I to others now? Realistically, how many people can I actually help as an ordinary sentient being? How could I be of utmost benefit to others? What causes do I need to create to bring that about?
  4. What is attachment? What is love? What is equanimity? What are the benefits of really trying to bring these about?
  5. What are your fears around ordaining? What do you think you will lose? What are you afraid of experiencing?
  6. What could shift inside you on its own accord, making the direction you want to take in the future clearer?

I can't emphasize enough that meditating on the sufferings of cyclic existence is what begins to wake us up. All ordinary happiness is merely the suffering of change - it's temporary, in the nature of suffering, impure, and without any inherent existence. Our basic nature is dissatisfaction. (Check it out. Know this for yourself.) How much chocolate or rhubarb pie can you eat before the pleasure disappears? How many kisses, hand holding, or orgasms would it take to really satisfy you completely? Or do we keep needing to get a new fix? How long could you spend with your friends before you'd be bored and ready to find a new friend?

One metaphor that sticks with me is thinking that we all need brain surgery, so I'm stepping away from relationships to study medicine and surgery so that I can one day be of greater and greater benefit to others. Right now, all I can do is hold their hand, and this does nothing to cure their brain tumor.

Hope something in there is helpful. Looking forward to a good chat.

 
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