Sadhu! Dawn.
R.
'Letting the Buddha Relax.' by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
'Since we have obtained this precious human life, now is the time to stop the suffering of samsara. When you remain a layperson or householder, there are many interruptions to your Dharma practice. On the other hand, if you ordain, in contrast to the life of a householder, you have greater opportunities to engage in Dharma practice. Therefore you should appreciate the life of ordained beings and the qualities of ordained beings, and you should know the faults of the householder life.
This is not to say that you will not be able to engage in Dharma practice if you are a layperson. But what is clear to all of us is that when you lead a household life, you naturally need to take care of all the members of the family, which includes gathering wealth and so forth. Then, in relation to your family members, you develop many more enemies and many more objects of attachment. It is in this way that you extend your circle. Therefore, under such circumstances, even though you have the wish to engage in Dharma practice, you will be naturally compelled by the situation itself to spend most of your life, your energy and your time looking after your relatives and so forth...
...In the case of very serious practitioners, particularly among the monks and nuns, there are those who really try to develop the specially trained qualities. Among the Tibetans there used to be a monk from Changse Monastery who made it sure that in the rest of his life he would not live under a roof. The purpose of this is to be able to engage in practice remaining under a tree with our robes and maintain contentment with tattered cloth and simple foods.
Such serious practitioners choose a very natural way of life, remaining in the forest near the water or watch the rising and dying of the waves in the sea and reflecting on impermanence, seeing one’s body and mind as similar to this rising and falling of waves. Then, they spend their time discerning the truth of the grasping at self and they develop disgust towards the afflictions of samsara and they see the world and sentient beings within it as an illusion. Serious practitioners aspire to such practices, and all these practices are possible in the case of an ordained person.
You should all develop some appreciation toward such a way of life. That way, even if you are unable to become ordained, if you appreciate this way of life, it leaves an imprint to be able to be ordained in the future...'