How does a person become a Buddhist Nun? What is a Buddhist Monk? How you become a Buddhist Nun or Monk, the steps. It starts with our wish, with our intention. In this tradition, we actually write a letter...
It starts with our wish, with our intention. In this tradition, we actually write a letter to Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, our spiritual director and we request ordination. If he says, "Yes," we can go at anytime. It usually happens during the summer or spring festival. We go and we change. We change our clothes. We change our name, and we change the way we look.
It use to be that anybody under 16 could be ordained right away, but now Geshe is asking that people reach the age of 16, because lots of people were not experiencing life fully. They would be ordained and then five years later they would leave. It's better for that not to happen. It's better once you're ordained to stay ordained. He sometimes may say," Why don't you wait a year, because you're too young. He may say better you wait." Some people have huge financial things going on and their life is in turmoil, and it would be more stressful for them to be ordained. So Geshe has great wisdom. Most of the time, he says yes. Every once in a while, he says maybe wait a year. If our mind is pure, he will say yes, every time.
A monk is a male aspect of an ordained person. A Buddhist nun is a female ordained person. Different monasteries have different stipulations. So, some of them say, "You have to be a monk for a year, or a nun as a little kid, for a year, and see if you like it, if you can do it." If you don't want to, you're not under any real obligations, but then they take what are called Final Vows. And they are like teenagers, the young people who go in. They vow to be a monk for the rest of their lives or a nun.
A monk or a nun means we have chosen to make our spiritual life the most important thing in our lives. So our spiritual path becomes our life. No difference. We change bad mental habits to virtuous, positive states and help and benefit others. You know monks and nuns across the country teach in different centers like here.
