Hi, K, she was probably talking about Barma Rabjung - the hair cutting ceremony. It isn't monastic ordination but is the prelude to it. I've also encountered people who describe themselves as monks or nuns having gone through this procedure but it's incorrect, they are still lay people but have permission to wear the shantab and zen - but not the monastic upper garment (Yellow/red 'chougou') . In Sakya we don't have temporary monastic ordination like the Theravadins. I'm a Sakya monk.kirtu wrote:Temporary ordination is obviously found in the Southern School. I had thought that it was entirely absent in the Mahayana. Pema Chodron's group in Halifax does offer temporary ordination. I was talking to a Sakya nun about this and mentioned the lack of support for temporary ordination in Tibetan Buddhism and she told me that actually temporary ordination is practiced as a possibility. She further mentioned that one or two people who had ordained at an ordination ceremony that we had both been to had ordained temporarily and this was an all Sakya event.heart wrote: Temporary ordination? Hardly a tradition that comes from the Buddha, or?
About 50-55 - Pema Chodron's group. About the same age limit is used for a Western Theravadin training monastery in Thailand (I can look them up - they are apparently the main Western training monastery in Thailand).I never heard of the upper age limit at 50, who use that?
Kirt
...Actually, strictly speaking, all vinaya lineages do have provisions for monks and nuns handing back unbroken vows and retaking getsul and gelong ordination a number of times afterwards, but in Tibet this is not the custom as it is in the Southern tradition.