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Kevin has a question.

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What are the major differences in the rules that must be followed by Samanera and a fully ordained bhikkhu?

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Is there a different Vinaya?

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You want to go ahead?

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You know all about the differences now, no?

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Hardly, really, but

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I'm currently trying to ordain as a seminary, and I believe Jens would also like to as well at some point.

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It's a bit trickier being a female, but from what I understand, you're asking about bhikkhus, so that's the male.

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227 rules, females have 311.

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But as a seminary, you take on two more precepts formally.

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The big one is that you're no longer handling money.

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Another one is kind of an extension of no more sort of entertainments and

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Actually, you only add one, really.

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The seventh one becomes two.

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All they do is split it in half.

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So yeah, in truth, if you're talking about from the eight precepts, you really only add one.

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That's a very important step, and it's an important point that for any monk who claims that there's nothing wrong with using money, it's literally the only thing that defines a difference between a yogi and one who has gone forth

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But I think the important thing, if you're doing it as a seminary, maybe with the exception of some cases, as Bonte has said, in Sri Lanka, people stay as seminaries so they can live the life.

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of a recluse and still cook food.

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But I think in general, if you're ordained in the seminary, you're becoming a novice to become a bhikkhu and therefore

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You're expected to be training as a bhikkhu while you're a novice so that the day you do ordain as a bhikkhu, it's not a huge jump, a huge shift.

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Actually, I was just talking to Jens today.

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Sorry.

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I remember you, Jens.

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You had more hair than me.

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I was just talking about ordaining just a little bit today with Jens.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Sorry.

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It's funny because she's only known you for a very short time.

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We've all been climbing with her.

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And he was saying...

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The training actually starts now for us being here even as yogis with the intention, the volition to ordain should start now.

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Gearing the mind

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towards relinquishing a lot of sensual attachments.

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And for me, most recently it's been tea.

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Even though I can make myself a cup of tea, I have now officially

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And hopefully this will be, you know, a very committed, I've really committed myself to no more making myself tea.

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If I'm offered a cup of tea, that's one thing.

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But Pontes would really like people to not be taking caffeine.

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And I really, really enjoy tea.

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And Sri Lanka is famous for its tea.

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It's probably the best tea in the world.

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So it's one step at a time.

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We get so caught up in the little things.

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When I was in Thailand, it was the same sort of things.

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But it was much later because, of course, the monks in Thailand are mostly not keeping the rules.

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So I had to just pull myself up by the bootstraps, one rule at a time.

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It was like just, OK, so today no tea.

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Oh, what am I going to do?

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No coffee today, no?

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It was that kind of thing.

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We're going to stop having coffee.

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Stop having coffee.

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No coffee, mate.

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No coffee, no sugar.

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No more.

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And then the tetrapaks.

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Soy milk.

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Soy milk tetrapaks.

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No more soy milk in the evening?

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What are we going to do?

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And then it was just surviving off of cold alms food.

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That all took place at Samung.

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Samung was really funny because it was so cold and very poor alms round.

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The people there were not really interested in what we did, so there was very little support.

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And sometimes all we would get is these packages of mama noodles, mama, like Mr. Noodles in America.

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And I'd go back to the monastery and collect together this rotten firewood because it was so wet and cold.

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And spend like an hour lighting a fire to cook these, not cook, but to reconstitute, to get boiling water and reconstitute these already cooked noodles.

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And until these supporters of mine from Chiang Mai came up.

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And what are you doing?

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I'm cooking mama.

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But it was really hard.

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So that was all that we had.

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And then having to give up on top of that, all of this other stuff.

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And Brian was very upset.

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Brian, you heard about Brian, this guy from the Dutch guy.

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He's actually contacted us again, joined our site.

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He was so upset at me.

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Come on, we can have something in the evening.

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What can we have?

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The soya milk.

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We can have the soya milk in the evening.

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No, no.

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Oh, and it was so, because it was very difficult.

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We didn't have any, it was just the two of us, and no one was offering us anything.

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There was no one, you know, there was certainly no rice gruel in the morning.

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Off on alms round, you know, basic, quite a bit of alms, which is true, but most of it was just like pork rind or sweets and mama noodles.

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So it wasn't, certainly wasn't a good protein count or vitamin count.

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And then we were there in the evening alone, so I made some concessions.

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We had those belly fruits, those little round fruits that you were going to buy at Anuradhapura.

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I know you were going to buy it.

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Little round slices in the dried for making tea.

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They're big in Thailand.

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And we had some of those and I said, okay, so we'll boil up some of these.

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And we sat there, the two of us, boiling up these bell fruits and making tea out of that and drinking it.

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Because it's actually quite good for you.

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The problem is that you really shouldn't be drinking it daily unless you're sick.

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But

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We were bordering on sick with that sort of lifestyle, but it was fun.

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But I remember that period because it was a real challenge.

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The hardest part was not that.

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The hardest part was that we were so used to having soya milk and having tea and having these luxuries, getting what we want up in Samoan.

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Until I told the Mechis that we were leaving and then they made me bacon and eggs and just luxury food because they were so happy that we were leaving.

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That was horrible.

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It's the stories of my monastic life.

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Anyway, yeah, it's amazing how the mind can cling to its comforts.

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Yeah, actually, it's a bit ridiculous, but I'll be walking in meditation and I'll think, oh, okay, yeah, no more tea, or what am I going to give up today?

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Something.

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It's like Lent.

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I used to be Catholic and had to give up something for Lent, but here it's like, okay, it's my Lent for today.

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Lent on top of Lent on top of Lent.

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Lent on top of Lent is just adding all of my things, but I do watch this sort of inner panic, inner fear arise when I

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And I say to myself, oh, I'm going to give up.

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And it's funny because before I decided, okay, no more tea, like making tea for myself, I had this mindset like, oh, God, that's really going to suck.

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I'm going to be watching Kathy make her tea.

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She's going to be like, oh, it's so good.

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And talking about her tea all the time.

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Do you really tell her that?

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No, I don't tell her that.

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I just sit there drinking my tea.

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Yum.

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Tea is so great.

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I went to the restaurant the other morning.

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No?

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Like, oh, this is so good.

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I did sit in the restaurant the other day saying how great my cup of tea was, but I didn't actually know at that point that you'd given up tea, else I wouldn't have said anything.

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But it was a very, very good cup of tea, actually.

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Exceptionally good.

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These are attachments.

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these are attachments well i was going to say that um i tend to find when you give something up that it's better not to think of it as oh now i'm gonna give this up like but to think of it as ah okay now if i decide i'm not having this anymore then i gain the sense restraint of not needing to worry about this thing and just to say like okay i'm no longer gonna feel like

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lust for this thing or going to even think about it.

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I'm just not going to have it anymore.

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That's an excellent point.

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What are the benefits?

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That's the whole point.

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It's a wonderful benefit thing.

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Yeah, you have to look at it more like that.

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When you do look at it like that, it is more of a benefit.

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It takes away so much stress.

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Like, for example, here we don't have, at previous meditation centers I've stayed at, you were allowed to have Ovaltine in the evening, or milk, or soy milk, or lots of other things.

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And actually you would just get a lot more cravings for these things because you were allowed them.

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And here when you just say to yourself, okay, I'm not going to have them, then actually you don't feel so much craving for them.

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And you don't, yeah, it's something, another thing you don't have to worry about.

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It's another thing.

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It's a great happiness.

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That was what I wanted to say, is that the power that you feel, you know, there's stories that I was telling you about this guy who, I wasn't telling, we were telling the Sri Lankan women about this man who

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threw his pint pot of beans into the river and said, I have conquered, I have conquered.

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Because he conquered the power, at the very least, I mean, the power that you feel at not giving in to your desires, to be free from your desires.

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But that's really an important point is that freedom from desires brings happiness.

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It brings power, it brings clarity of mind and it brings

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joy.

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It brings true, unadulterated bliss that we don't realize.

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We think it's the clinging and it's the craving and it's the getting that leads to happiness.

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But as the Buddha said, for every desire that is let go, a happiness is won.

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He who would all happiness have must with all lust be done.

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Yes, sir.

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But the interesting thing is, sorry, the mind is very, very tricky.

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It doesn't matter if it's tea, coffee, or whatever.

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Like when I did the 21-day course here, I knew five o'clockish, I'd have fruit juice.

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And the mind would start at, I don't know, 4.30, you'd start thinking about fruit juice.

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And you'd start visualizing it.

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You can really see what's happening in the mind and

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It wouldn't let go.

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Like, okay, now you're saying, doing the course, okay, I'm going to not have coffee, I'm not going to have no tea.

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And then you start craving for fruit juice.

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I mean, it's just simple little things and it's so interesting to watch and it's so difficult to let go of.

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That's a big reason.

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I mean, the monastic life really does help.

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That's one really good way that it helps is that, no, you may not have fruit juice.

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You may not get anything.

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You may not even get alms fruit.

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I mean, to have that fear in your mind every day is really a challenge.

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And there are times where you go without food.

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I mean, you feel ashamed as well because you're so weak inside.

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But the seeing of it, and this is another point, is that because you're giving up this and that, then you see it more clearly in every sense.

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But for sure this that would be a good example of the importance of the benefit of ordaining because then you got no choice.

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There's no there's no wishing for anything because if you don't get it, you know, I mean, and that's really why the rules are so comprehensive that tea should only be

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As a monk, tea should only be for medicine.

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Because otherwise, that's how it goes.

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You don't get fruit juice.

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Well, I'll have some tea instead.

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Because tea I can keep forever.

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Because Buddha said tea can be kept forever.

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But it can only be kept forever if it's a medicine.

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So it's blocking up all the holes, I suppose.

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But in the end, there's the other point of what you're saying is that it's really guard the mind.

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It has nothing to do with what rules you keep or what you abstain from.

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And that's a good point that Kathy brought up as well.

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You have to teach your mind what is truly a benefit.

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You can't just say no, no, no, no, no, forbidden, forbidden, forbidden, forbidden.

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The mind will not accept that.

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The mind can't accept that what it likes is a cause for suffering.

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You have to find it true happiness and bring it to true happiness.

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So you have to see these things as a cause for happiness.

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I think we moved quite away from the question.

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I don't remember what the question was.

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The question was a difference between a samanera and a bhikkhu.

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Well, there's a good example.

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There's a good difference.

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In terms of rules.

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Samaneras are still able.

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But they have a different veneer.

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A Samanera still can keep food, for example, still can cook food, still can have fruit juice of their own at five.

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I mean, Nagasena was having some, it seemed like some trouble with that, like he was able to take what he wants and so on, and that seemed to be a distraction for him.

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It's a real...

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encouraging thing to not have that ability.

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It's a test and you're actually able to test yourself.

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It's just too much convenience to do otherwise.

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And that's why what you're saying I think is as well, yes, they only have one extra rule, so they only have a total of ten rules that they have to keep, but

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for sure they should be training in all the rest of the rules to some extent.

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And so we start novices off by keeping the 75 Sakyas and we'll have them.

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So I had Nagasena start to memorize them.

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But the most important is that you're keeping the Sakyas which are considered to be appropriate for novices as well.

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And I must say that

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If I end up ordaining as a Meiji, one of the real pitfalls of that is that I still have that option technically to make food or drink.

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You can buy food.

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You can go to the restaurant as a Meiji and not break the rules.

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Yeah, even handle money.

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I could...

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I could give up all my money.

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I could say, oh, I'm not going to make myself food.

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But what I find is that's much harder.

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Say at a monastery like this where you don't even have the option of soy milk in the afternoon, cheese and chocolate, I mean, that's...

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I totally have the question.

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When it's not even an option, it's much easier to just let go of it.

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But when the stuff is sitting there, and here it's not cheese and chocolate, it's kind of liquefied cheese and chocolate in a way.

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So you've got this Viva stuff that's popular and the Milo chocolate drink.

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And I don't know what they put in it, but maybe it's somewhat addictive or something.

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It tastes good.

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And then there's sugar and sweets.

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Of course, even on alms food, there's lots of sweets to tempt.

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But I think the vinaigre is such a blessing to be, you know, hopefully I will actually be able to

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fully ordain um and have such a blessing that it's like no it's not even an option anymore like you it's like a protection uh in a way it's like not uh because much easier to let go whereas i don't know maybe it is it's good to exert the extra effort and say okay well it is an option right now and i'm choosing not to but it's much harder i think

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And then there's the cynical other side of it is that it's easy to get egotistical about your rules.

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Look at me.

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I have all these.

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Look at how good I am at keeping these rules.

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Buddha cautioned against that.

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The only final word is that it's important to keep them

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in perspective that the Vinaya is not the most important and the most important thing is that the person has decided to go forth so whether they're a Samanera or a Bhikkhu the most important is that they train their minds or even whether it's a lay person the most important is the guarding of the mind there was this monk who had we had this one already this monk who had an Abhidhamma teacher who taught him all the Abhidhamma and the monk had the Vinaya and

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And he also had a vinaya teacher.

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We taught him all the vinaya rules.

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He thought, this is hundreds and hundreds of things I have to memorize.

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I have to keep, he said, I can't even move my hand.

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I can't even move my hand without breaking a rule.

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And the Buddha said, well, can you guard one thing?

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And he said, guard your mind.

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He said, if you guard your mind, none of the rest of this is of any importance.

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Once you can guard the mind and understand experience, understand things from an experiential point of view, and let go and see things clearly as what they are, then there's no difference.

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So the essence is the same.

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The person has gone forth.

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But the difference with the bhikkhu is that they've been accepted into the community, and this is important.

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On another level, as for communal harmony, as a person may use money without being defiled, but when a community uses money, you're just asking for trouble, and you get it.

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There's a lot of corruption, and new monks become powerful and corrupt, and cause problems, and destroy monasteries.

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So yeah, different, differently, yeah.