When is the best time for ordination?

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If you have already gotten the qualified teacher, and your trust is strong enough to do everything follow to that teacher. You should ordinate as soon as you can.

If you don't know how to prove your teacher, see the qualification of buddhist teacher here.

If you choose the right monastery where is most of their monks try to do follow to tipitaka-pali, such as no use money, your ordination will be very easy, then you just have to patient to stop your unwholesome mind and try to attain jhāna and magga.

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When is the best time for ordination?

Now. Don't waste time. Intentions are not for sure.

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To try to complement other answers:

  • A long time ago -- some schools of Buddhism involve 20-odd years of training and people start as children, though perhaps they don't/can't ordain until they're old enough
  • Maybe in a next life -- I think that's the attitude of many lay people; some schools (e.g. Pure Land) maybe write off ordination altogether
  • When circumstances allow -- some people ordain e.g. after a close member of their family dies, or after some other 'life-changing' event
  • Not too late -- this answer suggests that after age 45 or so is getting to be too late
  • After a trial period, and consultation with teachers

Upvote:1

The Pali suttas have the following stock phrase about the best time being when you become dispassionate in continuing the lay life:

Now, there is the case where a Tathāgata appears in the world, worthy and rightly self-awakened. He teaches the Dhamma admirable in its beginning, admirable in its middle, admirable in its end. He proclaims the holy life both in its particulars and in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure.

He [the person discussed above], hearing the Dhamma, gains conviction in the Tathāgata and reflects: 'Household life is confining, a dusty path. Life gone forth is the open air. It isn't easy, living at home, to practice the holy life totally perfect, totally pure, a polished shell. What if I, having shaved off my hair & beard and putting on the ochre robe, were to go forth from the household life into homelessness?'

So after some time he abandons his mass of wealth, large or small; leaves his circle of relatives, large or small; shaves off his hair and beard, puts on the ochre robes, and goes forth from the household life into homelessness.

MN 38

Some men still delight in sex but become monks because they think jhana will give them a better type of o*g**mic pleasure. It is doubtful these men can succeed.

Upvote:3

When you become dispassionate in continuing the lay life or when you get enough confidence that you can successfully fend off the temptations of lay life, it is worth considering ordination. I would suggest staying in a monastery or a meditation center first, continuously for about 6 months while keeping to the 8 precepts to see if you can handle it well.

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