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Why would someone become a monk?
cook99
Explorer
No dinner, no sex, no tv, no music and life in a forest.
Why would some one choose that?
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It is a form of escapism.
When you can't deal with the problems in life,
you seek a refuge.
Some find it in drugs, computer games, porn etc.
Do you consider yourself a buddhist @cook99?
If so, I am very surprised you would ask this question.
If not, then I would say that people would become a monk or nun to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Buddha and achieve the ultimate bliss of enlightenment.
Maybe it's one of those feeling people out kind of questions.
I consider myself a seeker of truth.
Because some people are drawn towards that way of life. For what it's worth, here's something I wrote about renunciation and monasticism a while back:
Both Jesus and the Buddha encouraged their followers to renounce the world. This doesn't mean, of course, that one must literally run away from the world and go hide in a cave. It's primarily a kind of attitude, a shift in the focus of one's life. To renounce the world is to play by a different set of rules, to go against the current of selfishness and craving, and live a life that others may not understand.
To live in the world is to be fully immersed in sensuality, to live for the sake of experience and pleasure and according to the whims of worldly opinions. To live in the world is to be moved by the eight worldly winds of gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain, to be swept away by the passions of the world. To live in the world is to seek happiness and satisfaction in the conditioned, that which is impermanent, subject to change and dissolution.
The Buddha said that life is uncertain, that death may come at any moment, so we should practice heedfulness, the way to the Deathless, and freedom from the yokes of sensuality, becoming, views, and ignorance. In the Bible, too, one can find this kind of exhortation to live a life against the current of worldly passions and concerns for the sake of a greater happiness, to live heedfully and with wisdom:
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It's the craving for sensual desires that give rise to greed, hatred, and delusion, leading to quarrels and conflict. To live by the whims of these passions, one 'makes a friend of the world' and turns away from the noble life, from truth and peace and the Deathless. Our actions and intentions must be cleansed, purified. We must give up some of the short-term happiness and pleasure we experience from following our passions because they lead to long-term harm and suffering; and we must do what might initially be difficult for us to do because it will ultimately lead to our long-term welfare and happiness. We must be honest and practice right speech. And above all, we must not be heedless.
Although many have escaped into the forests, mountains, caves, and other remote places of the earth to help them renounce the world, which can be helpful, 'the world' itself goes with them. One can't escape the world simply by fleeing from civilization. Renunciation, then, is ultimately an internal turning away from our craving and desire once we begin to discern the drawback of sensual pleasures and the limitations of feeding our hunger for pleasant feelings and experiences.
Unfortunately, renunciation is often perceived as a negative word, especially in the West—a word that implies depriving oneself of something essential to living a full and happy life. But in the Buddha's dispensation, as well as in the teachings of Christianity, renunciation actually means the opposite of this—it's a word implying the relinquishment of something unessential to living a full and happy life.
One of the main reasons I find monasticism so appealing, I think, is that it's a way of life specially designed to help foster this kind of internal renunciation on the external level. Monastic life is like a spiritual training ground for those who either have trouble cultivating this spirit of renunciation while living a worldly life (like me) or who simply desire to devote themselves fully to a life of renunciation.
What I learned from Jayantha's journey towards monkhood is that you will not be accepted if you haven't delt with the problems of life beforehand. They aren't looking for people who are crippled by life.
At which point, without the distractions of drugs, computer games, porn, and such you deal with what's left. It does not sound like escapism. It sounds like the opposite.
After 50 years of TV, living in a house, plenty of food and sex and lots of other kinds of luxuries and pleasures, they've gotten BORING. The craving that seeks fulfillment in these lovely things can long outlive the relative pleasure the things (sometimes) give. A person may think they'll never get tired of something or find themselves wondering 'so what?', but then it happens.
Just the opposite.
For some it may be an escape.
You can live the life of a monk while holding down an uncomplicated job and keeping oneself as free as one can from worldliness. Even Asian monks are not always on target. Monasticism can take many forms in this world, and to call it escapism is sheer prejudice, IMO.
One need not be cut off from all the assaults of life outside the "cloister," as it were to be a monk. Indeed, being in contact with worldly people and interacting with them is part of a monk's vocation. It's not that they shut the world out; they merely tune out the disquiet and cultivate inner contentment -- even as the world rages on from novelty to novelty...
Sure.
Sounds wonderful
The perks.
. . . plus you get to live in a forest if that way inclined
Why would someone want to become a monk?
Plain and simple: because he has the vocation to.
You can't understand it because you don't have the calling.
Some people do.
As simple as that.
They become monks to devote the entirety of their life to finding the truth, AKA enlightenment. Becoming a monk is beneficial to that end.
Of course that can't be said of each and every monk out there, but that is often considered the "proper reason" to become a monk.
There are likely some who go into it for escape. But they find it empty just like all their other escape endeavors and they do not stick with it. There are others who are basically born into it, who are monks from very young ages, most of them before an age they can truly comprehend what it is. It becomes a way of life for them just like our growing up becomes for most of us.
But for those who choose it as adults with an open heart, it is something else entirely. Just because you cannot comprehend it doesn't make it incomprehensible. I could never be a kindergarten teacher but it's not beyond me to understand why some do. A lot of the things you mentioned in your OP are just empty things. Things we use and do to entertain ourselves away from exploring ourselves. We don't like to know what is within, so we look outward. That doesn't seem like the best way to do things by any means. More people are recognizing the value of a simple life. Monasticism takes it to a whole new level and thus they go into themselves on a level the rest of us can't handle.
If you are such a seeker of truth, you are better to point your aim to yourself, and not others. Most often when we claim we are trying to understand others, we are really looking for justification of ourselves, our choices, our lives. Just because you don't understand doesn't make you entitled to an answer about someone else's life. Ask questions about yourself instead, the answers are much more important.
Well you're not going to arrive at it by asking pointless questions such as this one, or what success is, who kills chickens or pigs in Sri lanka and whether we would pay for sex.
If you really ARE a seeker of truth, I'd stick to more study, and consider aspects of application, of a less trivial nature.
Just saying.....
yes, in sri lanka some children become monks because they want to be monks after living in a temple for sometime because they lost their parents owing to the war or other reason
and
some other children become monks because their parents want them to be monks
(out of them "some monks" at a later stage practically involve in politics and other things that monks are not supposed to do)
but
older people become monks having some understand of suffering of lay life and thinking that practicing the Buddha's Teaching is the only way out
they are the monks who really try to practice Noble Eight-fold Path
@upekka, true in Thailand, too.
We all live in a cell of one kind or another. Some welcome the boundaries and live their lives accordingly; others deny these boundaries and hurt themselves trying to escape. My cell is my family; my friends cell is his job.Living in a forest may not be the best way to live according to a westerners views. but how many monasteries are in the North or South Poles?
No more seeing forks in the road perhaps.
In any case, only a small % of monks remain as monks through out their lives.
Very few people can endure the life of a monk.
Perhaps so.
At the moment you may be a seeker of confirmation. Perhaps confirming your opinions and limited experience and knowledge. A seeker of truth is a high calling. It involves looking beyond superficial words and self evaluations.
Eventually one becomes a seeker of lies.
Ones own.
This gives the ability to fathom our relative and absolute nature. Do you feel there is anything worth reconsidering in my, others or your evaluation?
. . . and now back to the usual considerations . . .
Where exactly did you find the statistics?
Most drop-out monks are Westerners who become monks as the latest New-Agey fad and then go back to "the world" when they had enough of joint-deprivation.
Edit: Okay, my comment was a bit extreme, @lobster, thank you!
So, I could not come up with statistics about Buddhism, but Catholic sites agree that the reason some people leave monastic life is mostly because they had thought a religious vocation would help them disentangle their own personal confusions in the first place.
These people thought they had a calling but were only trying to solve personal problems by joining a religious community, instead.
The statistic was provided by a monk based on a research.
I tried to find the original post but could not find it.
I believe less than 5% of monks stay till the end.
I read it at the dhamma wheel forum.
@hermitwin, I don't give a great deal of credence to things I have read on that forum. Seriousness and sombreness are no evidence of sagacity.
To escape from lust and unhealthy desires......
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the stat is pretty close to on target. Consider that in Thailand, the vast majority of Thai men become monks...for periods of time as low as 3 weeks...as part of the Thai cultural expectations of men.
Is that supposed to be a deep and meaningful question? I tend to delete those as being occasionally pretentious...
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(That's supposed to be an 'eek!' and a 'grin'... not sure these emoticons really convey the intent!!)
In some cultures one son, usually not the oldest, is sent to the Monastery by custom.
Not always. The resident Khenpo at the center I take retreat at, entered the monastery at an early age and his parents weren't too happy about it.
Interesting. I wonder how that tradition is holding up in modern times. In Thailand there has been a rather startling decrease in the number monks. I have visited several temples that could not even find monks to keep the temple open.