Become a Buddhist Monk, Myanmar Monks.

achieve one’s goal although one’s spiritual progress is expedited by this process. A lay follower can also become an Arahat (Saint) and proceed to his or her final destination.

Community of Buddhist Monks

is the Sangha. After his enlightenment the Buddha founded an order of monks, who under his training were to attain to Arahants or Enlightened Ones and then spread his gospel to men. His first disciples were five ascetic wanderers with whom he had lived for a time in his earlier search for truth. These were converted as a result of his first sermon at Benares, the sutta of turning the wheel of the doctrine.

A little later two Brahman ascetics,

Sariputta and Mogallana, joined him and attained quickly to the status of arahants. The Buddha made these two his chief disciples. Perhaps the best known of the early disciples is Ananda, who became the Buddha's personal attendant, and by his faithfulness and affection earned the title of the 'beloved disciple'. He was spiritually the most immature of all the disciples and in the Scriptures is constantly asking questions which however result in the clarifying of the Buddhism teaching in monastery.

monks and this continued to grow.

Become a Buddhist monk

and join many other. Alone in Burma are over 200.000 Myanmar monks in Burma alone. These must not be thought of as priests in the Christian sense of the word, for there is no ritual or prayer in Buddhism. They are primarily concerned with their own quest for enlightenment and Nibbana, though many of them expound the Law for the benefit of the laity, and. all of them afford a means of gaining merit to their dayakas or supporters.

The original name of the was Bhikkhu, meaning mendicant or homeless one. But in Burma he is known as Pongyi meaning 'Great Glory', thus showing the great reverence in which he is held by the people, who in speaking to him use a whole set of honorific words to describe his daily actions : thus he does not 'walk', he `processes', he does not 'speak' but 'pronounces', he does not 'sleep' but 'reposes'.

More Buddhist teaching.

Any male of over seven years of age may be ordained as a Buddhist novice and in practice almost every Myanmar or Burmese boy enters the monastery for a period, it may be for a Lent, or a year or several years, or even for as short a period as a fortnight. Any fully ordained novice may leave the Order at will at any time.

Until he becomes a novice a Burmese lad is not looked upon as having come to maturity either in religion or in membership of the nation.

In commemoration of the Great Renunciation, the entry of a boy into the Novitiate is frequently made the occasion of one of those public festivals which delight the play. The Buddhist monastery also function as a social network to integrate kids who lost their parents and have no place to go and at the other end of the lifespan, to take care of the elderly. Become a monk is not so easy it takes a lot of preparation and suffering.

Even poor parents will often save money for some time (a very hard task for the generous and, indeed, thriftless Burman) in order, to give their sons a lavish Shin-Ptu (making a Holy One), as the festival is called ; and the Shin-pyu of a rich man's son is often a very grand affair. Personifying the Prince Siddhattha, the boy is dressed in regal robes and crowned ; and, after receiving all his friends in state, the little Prince rides round the village, mounted,. if possible, on a white horse, in memory of white Kanthaka, the Bodhisatta's steed.

In the monastery

the novice acts as attendant to the monks, studies his religion from the sacred books, and joins in the morning and evening religious exercises of the Order.

To become a full member a man must be at least twenty years old, must be free from debt, government service, and certain diseases and deformities. He can only be ordained by a senior of at least ten years' standing in the presence of a chapter of at least ten fully-ordained monks. The office of ordination handed down from earliest times is read out by the senior in Pali, and sometimes in Burmese as well, as an understanding of the

In a Buddhist monastery

important monastic practices which have survived from the time of the Buddha are two. The first is the Uhosatha or fortnightly chapter at which the list of offences given in the Vinaya is recited and confession is made by each of infringements. The second is the keeping of the Buddhist Lent (Wa) which covers three months of the Rainy Season ; this period is to be devoted to religious retreat, and traveling is forbidden.

In Burma the Buddhist Lent is opened and closed by two great festivals which in their social nature and hospitality do much to compensate the pleasure-loving Burmese for the quietness and sobriety of the period between.

There are still Buddhist monastery schools,

in which the boys of the village were taught reading, writing, some elementary arithmetic and the principles of their religion. The teaching methods in most of these schools were primitive and the boys learnt most of what they did, by heart, shouting out the lesson after the teacher. Yet the result was that almost all Burmese boys learnt to read, making Burma the most literate country in the East. In addition they received a good deal of instruction in the Buddhist religion at an impressionable age and this combined with the custom of every boy becoming a novice for a shorter or longer period helps to explain the hold which Buddhism has on the people of Burma. In Burma it is assumed that to

This insistence on the necessity of leaving the world and join the monastery is not seen in the teaching of the Buddha, although he undoubtedly held that the monk was freer to pursue the goal. One day he was asked by a layman : 'Must I give up my wealth, my home and my business enterprises and, like you, go into homelessness in order to attain the bliss of the religious life''