Intent and purpose of monastic life

• Proper behaviour for lay practitioners and monastics
• Guidelines for lay teachers and monastic teachers
• Value of monastic precepts
• Qualities cultivated by monastics
• Motivation to become free from cyclic existence
• Properly preparing before ordination and training in monastic life after ordination
• Four ways monastics using the requisites

38 Intent and Purpose of Monastic Life (download)

Contemplation points

1. What are some of the qualities of a monastic life that provide a conducive environment for progressing along the spiritual path?
2. In the text, His Holiness the Dala Lama says that “everyone must choose the lifestyle most suitable for themselves and have confidence in their ability to practice.” Consider your own life and circumstances. How can you best make use of this precious human life whether you are living as a lay or monastic practitioner.
3. What are some of the benefits of keeping monastic precepts for a long time?
4. Consider each of the factors that enable a practitioner to become a monatic and then live as one. How do these benefit monastic life? How can lay practitioners also benefit from cultivating these? What effect do they have on the practitioner themselves as well as the world around them?:
   • Dwelling restrained by the restrained of the precepts
   • Persisting in right behavior
   • Seeing danger in the slightest faults
   • Observing the commitments he has taken regarding body, deed, and word
   • Devote to the skilled and purified life
   • Perfected in ethical conduct
   • With the sense doors guarded
   • Skilled in mindful awareness
   • Content