As someone hoping to ordain as a monk to develop the path to nibbāna, duly fulfilling the vatta―‘duties of a layman’―while you still lead the life of a householder would be conducive to developing the said path as an ordained monk.

If you haven’t duly completed the duties of a lay householder, then don’t be in a hurry to ordain as a monk for the purpose of extinguishment. The local Buddhist monastery of the village is the provenance, the cradle, of duties of a layman. Although the attributes of monks dwelling at the village-monastery are diverse, think that that is none of your concern. Due to ‘impermanence’, diversity is quite natural. Instead, what we ought to be surprised at is if that’s not the case. Let go of the mistakes of others. You pursue your own objective. At the village-monastery, make yourself the attendant and the servant of everyone. Facilitate for people to worship and pay their respects freely and to make offerings; assist in providing the requisites for those who observe the precepts of sīla. Don’t inquire about others’ participation or contribution. Make every effort to do all the work so that you can achieve your objective.

Making use of the compassion and loving-kindness that arise in everyone’s mind, stealthily develop your own spiritual strength. Notice the impermanence in everything you do. Although it is you who have played the key role in doing something, let others take prominence. Practise ‘letting go’. Make everyone happy and strengthen yourself with that merit. Upon organizing on behalf of the devotees of the monastery various ceremonies for bodhi-obeisance, processions, kaṭhina-offerings[i] and offering of alms, seeing only the impermanence of those things, strengthen yourself spiritually. Having filled the stomachs of others, you carry on without food; yet don’t indicate that to others. If there are elderly monks, minister to those elderly monks and gain strength from their blessing.

Dedicating yourself to serving society, pleasing others, doing a service for others, strengthen yourself through their blessing. Recall your objective thus: ‘my aim is not gain, fame or prominence but the path to emancipation’. Behold that, no matter how hard you work for the world (society), the slightest mistake is met with sticks, stones, blame and criticism. Behold that criticism, cruelties, and callous disregard, are intrinsic to the nature of the world. Reflect that what we should instead be surprised at is if such things were not present. Serving others, pleasing others, giving ear to praise and criticism, see nothing but impermanence itself. Reflecting upon the nature of the world, develop your spirituality with whatever that can be obtained from the world.

Don’t be reluctant to minister to the sick. See that a sick person is a divine messenger. Reflect that the nature of the patient’s [sickly] body, the nature of the painful feeling he feels, the nature of the disease, is common to you as well. See that your nature is just the same. Tending to him, you strengthen yourself through his blessing. Once every two or three months visit the general hospital, the children’s hospital and the cancer hospital under the pretence of visiting patients. Walk along the wards where critical patients are admitted. Don’t try to share in the patients’ suffering. Realize that the cries of agony you hear are nothing but your own cries of agony. Make those revered-patients in the cancer hospital, whose hair has fallen, whose breasts have been removed, subjects of meditation (kammaṭṭhāna) for yourself. See that this nature is common to even the most beautiful actor or actress in Bollywood.

If minds of lust often arise in you, visit the maternity ward in the women’s hospital during visiting hours. In a humane and purely platonic sense, see the nature of those mothers in labour, see their painful behaviour patterns. This would kill your lustful mind.

Supermarkets are full of consumer goods which gratify your taste buds, which dupe you in this consumer-oriented fancy world. Behold that each food item found in those supermarkets is purely for nourishing this body. In the same supermarket, placed on a shelf are sanitary napkins sheathed in fancy packaging. Behold with the faculty of wisdom what impure bodily waste (excreta) those sanitary napkins are used for. Behold that although we fill bags of goods and flauntingly push the shopping trolley, what we all nourish is merely an impure body. Be skilful to turn everything into a subject of meditation.

If you are travelling on a bus, don’t be reluctant to offer your seat to any appropriate person. If you get on a bus from Colombo to go to Kataragama and upon reaching Pānadura[ii] if the need arises to offer your seat to any appropriate person, then go ahead and sacrifice it. Don’t think of the distance still to go. Don’t think of your own convenience. Sacrifice your happiness for the needs of others. Even if others laugh at you with contempt, pay no attention. Gain strength from the blessing given by the one receiving your service. Tactically, freely gain all the strength you can get from the rest of the world for your own path to nibbāna. While pointing others in the direction of materialistic meritorious activities (āmisa), you cultivate paṭipatti―putting the Dhamma into practice. While deluding the rest of the world, pave the way for yourself to transcend the world.

Think that going in search of the path to enlightenment is the most selfish thing on this planet. Having let go of everyone, turning everything into a subject of meditation, you transcend the world.

If you manage to be skilful to comfortably transcend the world, you can then point the way for the benefit, the welfare, of all worldlings. For that [future] selflessness, in the present you be selfish.

Pass the joy you receive through the above activities on to your guardian deities as well. To avoid obstacles and to receive protection in this journey of yours, make the invisible forces, too, happy, and strengthen yourself through their blessing. Try to relinquish those things that should be relinquished. And delay further the relinquishing of those things that should not be relinquished until the time is ripe. Make sure not to rush into it. Always examine the indiscriminateness, the unrestrainedness, of your mind. Investigate your mind. With the eye of wisdom, which is superior to your mind, always engage in conversation with your mind. Subtly train to bring the arising and passing mind under the dominion of wisdom―paññā.

You are still a lay householder. So, with regard to everything your senses desire, see its impermanence only after empirically feeling it, savouring it (experiencing it). You still have the freedom to do so. Trying to see the impermanence [straight away] without having felt or experienced it may cause you to have to face problems in the future. If there is something you long for and desire more [than others], after savouring (experiencing) it empirically over and over again, free yourself from that desire. Experiencing the desired thing, feeling it empirically, gaining the insightful understanding, seeing the impermanence, and training to let go, after having duly fulfilled the ‘duties of a layman’, set out into the field of monkhood to develop the path to enlightenment.

During lay life, ordain only your mind. Train yourself to abide in solitude with the least resources. Check whether you can walk barefoot on rocks and gravel; whether you can live with only two sets of garments; whether two meals a day are enough for you; whether you can let go of a corporeal form (rūpa) you desire the most―one that you’re so fond of; whether you can live having given up the relatives and the household; whether you have the strength to face on your own any challenge that confronts you. If the answer is ‘yes’, now you are a truly suitable candidate for monkhood. Firmly bear in mind that the aforementioned experiences are suited for only those revered-ones in their [mature] youth and gone past that age, who strive with energy to attain extinguishment in this very life having a broad understanding of life and can practise the path to nibbāna with a strong determination. Consider that the above paṭipadā―way of practice―will not be needed for those revered-ones entering monkhood to protect the sāsana, or wishing for a favourable course of existence after death in human, deva or brahma realms, or hoping to protect the country, nation or religion. Why? Because those distinguished venerables wish for merely suffering (dukkha) while already being immersed in suffering; for due to obliviousness, they harbour the expectation there is happiness in the said objectives. Making use of the sāsana those distinguished venerables protect and preserve, he who is skilful must strive to cross over to the far shore of the world, to transcend the world. If you manage to be skilful to transcend the world, that will no doubt accrue merit that bears great fruit and great reward for those venerables who protect and preserve the sāsana, too.

[i] ‘Kaṭhina’ is the cotton cloth that is annually offered by the laity to the monks for the purpose of making robes.

[ii] Kataragama is a township located approximately 6 or 7-hour bus ride away from Colombo (roughly 300 kilometres), which is a long-distance journey. Panadura is a township only a few kilometres away from Colombo on the way to Kataragama.