Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

riley
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Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by riley »

Hello!

I am finally moving to India to ordain as a monk in a monastery (after a little sightseeing of course, its India!) and would love some help finding a suitable one! I have indeed contacted several, yet no response came and I'm seeing that that isn't uncommon. I have not had the fortune to have an in-person sangha or lama to guide me either so, please, any guidance is welcome!

I am not fully committed to Kagyu yet but I will say: every single lama I really resonate with or every temple I visit (and there have been many of both) has been Kagyu by chance, so I want to start here.

I do not speak Tibetan or Hindi so somewhere that can facilitate learning Tibetan from English (or Norwegian, if that is, by chance, possible) would be preferable.

I will first be in India for a month and then Nepal for a month before returning to India (at least that's the plan: visiting a couple of monasteries i have already on my list (Ösel Ling is on there for example), and I am very willing to travel to visit several wonderful lamas and monasteries if need be!

I realize I might come across as a bit ignorant or ill prepared (and I am regarding who's who and what monastery is which) but I am not new to Buddhism (or travel) and this is my path, so I would love some help with who's who and what's where!

Thanks for your time and help! Stay healthy, happy and safe everyone.

- Riley
Sherab Rigdrol
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Sherab Rigdrol »

Lingdum Monastery in Sikkim.
riley
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by riley »

Thank you, I will add it to the to-visit list!
Nicholas2727
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Nicholas2727 »

You mentioned you speak Norwegian, if you live in Norway Samye Ling in Scotland could be a great option to look at. Might be easier travelling and staying long term there then in India or Nepal.
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Virgo
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Virgo »

Riley, Good luck! But please remember the main point is to receive an empowerment from a master, and then to meditate based on their instructions.

Virgo
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Virgo »

Riley, Good luck! But please remember the main point is to receive an empowerment from a master, and then to meditate based on their instructions.

Virgo
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bryandavis
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by bryandavis »

Hello, Riley.

You want to ordain as a monastic in the Tibetan system, but have not yet found a monastery to yet, is that correct?
Also, you do not speak or read Tibetan?

I rejoice you have the aspiration to ordain, but let me share a few observations. These are not to discourage, simply to point out what will come. I lived in India during a long retreat and a few return visits, so about 5 years total, and around a few centers and monastic seats.

Do you have income to fully support yourself? Will you visa allow you to stay in India for extended time? Will you have resources to return to your home country if needed? How will you navigate the education you will be receiving in a language you do not speak?

Will said institution even be allowed to house a foreigner? Will you be alone as a European in this place? Have you thought about the social isolation that will come with being the outsider in this culture?

Things to consider.

all the best,
Bryan.
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Zhen Li
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Zhen Li »

I had experience with Kagyu, but not part of it now. I don't really think this is the kind of thing you should just jump into without preparation.

Namo Buddha in Nepal does retreats and training, but you need to know Tibetan. They have Tibetan language lessons, but they're on hold due to Covid. Nepali is easy to learn, so start that too. No idea about Hindi.
https://namobuddha.org/

You need to be prepared. Learn Tibetan first and have enough savings to last you a few years at least. It may be easier to do this preparation in Europe. If you get a job in India or Nepal, you won't make enough to last you so long. But a few years' work in Europe can last you many years in India and Nepal.
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Arnoud »

Try to become a Drukpa Togden at Tashi Jong. I liked it there. Americans could get 10yr Indian tourist visas. Europeans only 3-6 months. In Nepal you should be able to buy a business visa and stay for an extended time.
Tai Situ’s in India has housed westerners but I don’t think many stayed long. And most disrobed after a while. There is druponrinpoche in Nepal who guides many westerners through retreat. Don’t know if he is a monk or not. You can ask Khedrup on this forum. He is one of the few monks posting here. Very knowledgeable and seems very nice. Good luck. I don’t want to be too dismissive of the other poster’s advice but I feel if you prepare and wait too long you might decide never to do it. Which is fine in and of itself but if you feel it’s your calling, then just do it, stick through the difficulties and enjoy the ride. Just know that your life will be a lot easier if you have financial support from home while you are a monk.
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Sādhaka »

There was a poster here who once made some observations about some interesting relationships between Kagyu and Bön (and I think that Jamgön Kongtrul himself was a Bönpo at one point, and he never even denounced Bön; he just went Kagyu for various reasons).

That said, there is Menri monastery in India, and Triten Norbutse in Nepal (I’m partial to the latter).
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Zhen Li
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Zhen Li »

There's some truth to that. Of the westerner monks I have known, I think they all essentially learned the language on the job.

I put off ordination in a few lineages because monastics there told me to learn the language first or get degrees first as a backup. Now, due to karmic circumstances, I'm married and have permanent head damage (PhD). :lol:

Keep in mind that 9/10 westerner monastics also disrobe. It's not just culture and language that does it, but that is probably the main reason. Finances are another. Be prepared for a bumpy road, and with lots of perseverance you can make it and maybe end up with stable support. Some monastics end up having to return and live with their family. Not ideal, but sometimes there's no choice.
riley
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by riley »

Wow! Thanks for all the replies, I appreciate everyone's investment on my behalf!

I might have been overlooking the importance of finances but not completely ignorant of it, so I will be comfortable for a couple of years if I'm reasonably careful. It is also my understanding that monastic life does not require personal finances (one of the reasons for moving to Asia for monastic life would be the existence of the tradition of alms, for example) so maybe if someone could explain that for me a bit more in terms of the Tibetan tradition I would really appreciate it.

I am fortunate to have American citizenship (only raised in Norway) so I believe I can obtain a 10 year visa, like previously mentioned.

I have definitely been putting off ordination so I am grabbing the opportunity before I take it away again haha!
Does anyone have any other insights as to why westerners might disrobe? I have definitely contemplated cultural challenges but, currently, I believe I can see them as a challenge to my personal identity rather than the monastic life.

So many great things to add to my list, thank you all again so much!

-Riley
riley
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by riley »

Virgo wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 10:30 pm Riley, Good luck! But please remember the main point is to receive an empowerment from a master, and then to meditate based on their instructions.

Virgo
Thank you, this was very helpful!
-Riley
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Zhen Li
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Zhen Li »

I can't really speak to alms in the Tibetan tradition, but it works differently from Theravāda.

This is specifically about the female situation (I gather you are male), but might give you an idea: https://tricycle.org/magazine/tibetan-b ... monastics/
I have been a nun for 16 years. In Australia, where I ordained in 2001, I took off my robes on my first day as a nun to go and work in a lay job because I was being charged rent by the Tibetan Buddhist center where I lived; all Western monastics paid, while the Tibetans stayed for free. In the evenings, we Western monastics would watch as people brought food for the Tibetan lamas but not for us. We cleaned, did administrative work, offered communal meals, and taught classes, but somehow we were always considered to be less “authentic” than the Tibetan monks, even though we took all the same vows and had often completed the very same retreats and philosophy courses. I was told also that women could not become buddhas and that I should pray to be reborn as a man; and we were repeatedly asked for money to build yet another monastery that would never admit the foreign women who supported it.

When I asked a Tibetan monk why living at a temple donated by a Western nun in Nepal was free for Tibetan monks but not for Western ones, he said, “Why should we support you? You are just a tourist.” It was heartbreaking for me to realize that there was no place for me—an empowered nun and a Western woman—in the tradition to which I had devoted my life.

This is not just my own experience. Approximately 30,000 ethnically Tibetan monks and nuns in India live in lavish monasteries, largely funded by foreigners’ donations. There are less than 2,000 Western monastics in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in the world, and only a few monasteries do not charge these monastics to live there. In Australia, for example, where I’ve spent a lot of time, every Tibetan Buddhist temple charges Western monastics. The assumption seems to be that if you are Western, you must have money. But one Western nun I know had to pay so much to stay at a center that she had to look through the garbage for food. A Western monk was made to live under his center’s staircase, while the head lama slept in the spacious penthouse apartment.

Never before in 2,600 years of Buddhism has it been considered acceptable to charge monastics to stay in places of Buddhist practice. This decision was made by the Tibetan patriarchy without consulting Western monastics and is damaging the continued presence and viability of the transmission of monastic life to the West. (According to surveys conducted by the Kalyanamitra Foundation, a charity I founded that is devoted to supporting Western monastics in the Tibetan tradition, 75 percent of Western monastics in this tradition ultimately disrobe. Of the 15 people I ordained with, for instance, only two are left.) Tibetan and Western monastics have taken the same vows not to work in lay jobs but to devote themselves to the study and practice of the highest goal of Buddhism. Why are the two groups treated so very differently?

The decision not to support Western monastics was made largely because doing so is expensive; it’s hard to inspire Western laypeople to contribute to them; and the Tibetan lamas’ agenda has always been to raise funds for their own endangered refugee community. On the second point, although every Tibetan takes it for granted that monastics are an important part of their culture, Westerners do not share that cultural value and seem a little confused by lamas who are married and wear robes resembling monks. They tend to think: “If our teachers are lay Tibetans, what need is there of monastics?” ...

I myself started a charity called Bodhicitta Foundation for Indian Buddhists from the “untouchable” (Dalit) caste. The organization runs a home where poor girls can avoid child marriage and receive education. We also have a food program that serves six thousand meals a year, a women’s job training center, and a school sponsorship program. Our organization helps two thousand people every year. If I were a normal layperson, in need of a regular wage, we never could have achieved the work we do. And in Australia, I previously taught meditation in jails, drug and alcohol rehab centers, and HIV hospices, all for no pay. Yet after all this people still tell me, “I don’t want to pay for your lifestyle,” or, “Get a job.”
So, I suppose the real message is for the laity here, but it can give you an idea of the attitudes you can face as a westerner in India and Nepal, even as a monastic.

In fact, blatant racial (and caste) discrimination is commonplace in India and Nepal (and the west/Australia) still. In Nepal there are Hindu temples where non-South Asian-looking people simply cannot enter because they are "bideshi" (foreign), and for both Buddhist and Hindu temples where they can enter, a two-tiered entry fee is commonplace—or simply only foreigners are charged and locals get in free. Frankly, if you are western looking (even if you were an Anglo-Indian who grew up in India), you are usually just seen as a source of money and not as a source of religious wisdom or as a practitioner, the latter attitude is present in even westerner's opinions of fellow-western monks.

So, the real trick is simply finding the place where support can be given to a westerner who is perceived as among the undeserving of alms. I think some western monks get support by being attached to the outfit of a rinpoche or teacher as a support staff or translator, in which case alms that goes to the teacher is also going to help support you, but that is not the usual situation. Maybe writing to the organisation you wish to join first is necessary.

I think the semi-lay/ordained model might be more realistic for westerners in this case. But in other non-Tibetan traditions, life-long ordination with support of westerners is possible.
Does anyone have any other insights as to why westerners might disrobe? I have definitely contemplated cultural challenges but, currently, I believe I can see them as a challenge to my personal identity rather than the monastic life.
I think seeing things as a challenge to personal identity is the right way to view it. The above reasons (financial) are probably one of the main ones. Of those I knew, it was mainly because the way things are done in many Asian cultures is not flexible or willing to bend to different ways of thinking. As one example, I know a western monastic who was a novice in Taiwan, and he was being asked to water the flowers and do gardening at midday in the summer without even a sun hat. He suggested why not just get up before sunrise and do all the gardening then? But that's not the way things work: you wake up together, eat together, and work together at the same time. You have to be willing to accept this kind of unreasonableness and put up with a lot of things that would not make sense to a western way of doing things—sometimes "that's just the way things are done" is the only answer you will get and you have to be willing to accept that. Another example: the same monastic was told that he can get full ordination when he speaks Chinese, he was told he would get Chinese lessons, but was only given them a couple of times a month—otherwise he was put to that kind of work without any opportunity to truly study. So, he was put into an impossible situation which would simply not be faced by a native Chinese speaker. Granted, if he stuck around he would get support for life (to do that kind of slavery-level job without any study or meditation), which is a tier above what many western monastics get in Tibetan orders (i.e. no support).

Anyway, just be sure to have some scruples about you in selecting where you ordain. Be sure to identify that they have successful and supported western monastics first and keep in mind that just because a place is a monastery doesn't mean it works on the basis of compassion, common sense, or morality. Sometimes, when it comes to treating westerners as a resource, "that's just the way things are done" and you can't question it. Make sure the place has sound principles and compassionate leadership when it comes to this kind of thing... I just say this to help you and to make sure you don't have a romantic idea—if you find the right place, there is no better lifestyle than to ordain and uphold the vinaya.
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

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:good:
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Zhen Li
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Zhen Li »

I just wanted to add to the point in the third paragraph after the long quote:

The point there is, essentially: make yourself useful. Monasticism can't be retirement. You may still have to make money, but learn a way to make money within the system. If you know both languages and translate and/or interpret, that is the obvious way to get by and seems to be the way for most of the successful long-term monks in Tibetan sects.

This is the Kagyu forum, but FPMT (Gelug) has an interpreter training course here: https://www.lrztp.org/
Advice on ordination here: https://imisangha.org/ordain/preparing- ... nk-or-nun/
And a pre-ordination course: https://tushita.info/programs/pre-ordin ... requisites

Note how they say that many monastics now have to support themselves, but also that it is prohibited for them to work at the same time—this is what Ayya Yeshe was alluding to, and frankly, it's leaving out the part that this doesn't apply to Tibetan men, only foreigners and women. This is circular and they don't provide any guarantee about support. This is why I would be very hesitant even about joining such a well-reputed system.

If you go ahead with anything, please keep us updated. I hope for your success, but be careful. :anjali:
riley
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by riley »

Again I am very grateful for the help, and this is all indeed very helpful.

I clearly have much to contemplate still, before ordaining in the Tibetan system. Yes, I am coming from the Theravadin tradition, so there are quite a few drastic changes to adjust to, but I do find it rather inspiring instead of confusing or worrisome. I dont doubt I will face challenges too great to conquer alone, but my resolve to ordain is firm.

Zhen Li thanks so much for those links and the body of text from the eminent nun. I am definitely going to look into this issue of westerners being considered outliers in the Tibetan system. It seems much less so of an issue for Theravadins or some Japanese traditions, anyone have ideas on why?

Anyway, again thank you all for many wonderful contemplations and places and even some teachers!
-Riley
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by jmlee369 »

Zhen Li wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 8:24 am Note how they say that many monastics now have to support themselves, but also that it is prohibited for them to work at the same time—this is what Ayya Yeshe was alluding to, and frankly, it's leaving out the part that this doesn't apply to Tibetan men, only foreigners and women. This is circular and they don't provide any guarantee about support. This is why I would be very hesitant even about joining such a well-reputed system.
Tibetan monastics had to rely on family and find their own patrons or otherwise work to support themselves even in old Tibet, let alone India. It's simply not true that only women or foreigners have to support themselves. Back in old Tibet the major monasteries like Sera and Drepung only ever provided a few cups of tea if you joined prayer assembly, and maybe a little bit of food and small token cash offering if a ritual was requested by patrons. If a young monk was lucky their house teacher would provide enough food. Older monastics had to support themselves working as tailors, bootmakers, labourers for hire, doing business etc to make ends meet. Scholar monks could end up being extremely poor, until they were advanced enough to become a tutor, maybe to an incarnate lama's household if they were lucky.

Even now in the restablished monasteries it is thanks to initiatives like the Sera Jey food fund that all monks are given three meals a day by the monastery these days. The monks still need to find other means for meeting their personaI needs. I sponsor individual monks there as part of a sponsorship programme but it barely covers their daily necessities.
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Re: Finding a monastary in India (or Nepal)!

Post by Zhen Li »

jmlee369 wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 4:54 am
Zhen Li wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 8:24 am Note how they say that many monastics now have to support themselves, but also that it is prohibited for them to work at the same time—this is what Ayya Yeshe was alluding to, and frankly, it's leaving out the part that this doesn't apply to Tibetan men, only foreigners and women. This is circular and they don't provide any guarantee about support. This is why I would be very hesitant even about joining such a well-reputed system.
Tibetan monastics had to rely on family and find their own patrons or otherwise work to support themselves even in old Tibet, let alone India. It's simply not true that only women or foreigners have to support themselves. Back in old Tibet the major monasteries like Sera and Drepung only ever provided a few cups of tea if you joined prayer assembly, and maybe a little bit of food and small token cash offering if a ritual was requested by patrons. If a young monk was lucky their house teacher would provide enough food. Older monastics had to support themselves working as tailors, bootmakers, labourers for hire, doing business etc to make ends meet. Scholar monks could end up being extremely poor, until they were advanced enough to become a tutor, maybe to an incarnate lama's household if they were lucky.

Even now in the restablished monasteries it is thanks to initiatives like the Sera Jey food fund that all monks are given three meals a day by the monastery these days. The monks still need to find other means for meeting their personaI needs. I sponsor individual monks there as part of a sponsorship programme but it barely covers their daily necessities.
Thank you for the clarification.
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