Success and meaning in life
06 Exploring Monastic Life (2025)
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
Exploring Monastic Life 2025 
Aug 2, 2025 Part of a series of teachings given during Sravasti Abbey's annual Exploring Monastic Life program in 2025
- The importance of examining your motivation for ordination
- Aspects of monastic life that those wishing to ordain may not have considered
- Why being happy to create the causes is essential
- The benefits of living in a monastic community
- Attachment and the desire to ordain
- Things one might need to do before ordination
- How considering others’ lives can help us develop renunciation
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
