How do you become a Monk??? (Thats 20 Characters!!!!)?

Question

How do you become a Buddhist Monk?

Do you just join a monastery or is there more to it?

Answer 1

Don't.

Answer 2

I think you enter a monestry.  That's what a good friend of mine did.

I'll have to ask him for more though, I'm not sure

Answer 3

Although the details vary from tradition to tradition, the basic procedure for ordaining as a monk goes like this:

- Establish yourself as a student with a teacher who is authorized to ordain monks and nuns. This teacher will need to be a monk or nun themselves.

- When the teacher and you determine that it's time (and this can take quite some time, depending), you can become a "trial" monk. In most traditions, this means living and working as a monastic, but without taking monastic vows. This period can last from 6 months to several years, depending on many things.

- When you are ready, the teacher will ordain you as a novice monk.

- Several years later, if you are still ready, the teacher will ordain you as a bhikkhu, or full monk.

The best way to explore the monastic option is to live for a period of time in a residential center. Even the lay people in residential Buddhist centers tend to live semi-monastic lives. By doing this for a year or two, you will be able to determine if the monastic path is truly the best path for you.

Answer 4

Buy yourself an itchy robe with a cowl, stop doing anything but breathing, eating mush and meditating.  Joining a monastry helps.

Answer 5

On the tv show Lost, Desmond just randomly happened upon a monastery and they let him try to be a monk.

But... it wasn't a Buddhist monastery... and it was a tv show. Oh, and it ended badly for him because as usual he couldn't stop thinking about his girlfriend, Penny. At least that's the way I remember it.

Ooh.. you're using your real pic - I've thought about doing that but I'm terribly unphotogenic. I'd frighten people.

Edit -- real answer, apparently it's pretty intense. You do join a monastery but there's some preparation as well - http://www.imisangha.org/ordain/preparin...

Answer 6

As a Roman Catholic monk who has had the honor to know monks of other faiths the process for the most part is all the same. It begins in postulancy where a person asks about entering and lives with the monastic community and looks a their lifestyle, then novice when once actually is in the monastery as the most junior of juniors. Then is the actual entrance.

Best of luck to you in your discernment!

Regards,

Br. Josemaria Rojas, OSB

Answer 7

So that's what you look like!

Honestly have no idea.

Answer 8

You have to be hardcore Buddhist and live at a temple.