A.               Qualifications to be a Buddhist Monk

 i.                   Levels of ordination: There are 2 levels of ordination: novice ordination and full, or higher, ordination as a bhikkhu.

 ii.                  Requirements for bhikkhu ordination

 a)                 Technical Requirements: The requirements for becoming ordained as a monk include that the applicant be at least  twenty years old; not guilty of any crimes of extreme moral turpitude; male; not previously have been expelled from the monkhood; not previously have impersonated a monk; not have defected to another religion while still a monk; be free of serious, disfiguring or communicable diseases; have his parents’ permission; not be obligated to perform military service; be free from debt; not be a fugitive from the law; be properly ordained as a monk by a valid quorum of monks following the established protocol.

 b)         Requirements of Character and Vocation: Beyond the technical requirements, the candidate for ordination must possess admirable character traits and the rare vocation to the challenging life of a monk.

 c)                 Upholding the Code of Monastic Discipline: The truest test of a monk's qualifications is his ability over time to strictly uphold the Monastic Code. As will be discussed later with regard to the monks' daily alms round, the monks make up part of the Buddhist “Holy Trinity” known as the Triple Refuge: the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. The community of Buddhist monks and nuns make up the Sangha. Given the centrality and importance of the monastics' role in the religion, it is their duty to purify their conduct through adherence to the Monastic Code in order to make themselves worthy of the generosity of the lay supporters. Photo of Ordination Ceremony is provided below.

 B.               Duties and responsibilities of Buddhist monks

 i.                   In General: Monks at the Temple have and will perform most or all of the following duties every day: meditation and other spiritual practice and devotion; observation of the monks’ 227 precepts; going on the daily alms round; study and application of Buddhist scripture; memorizing and performing the chanting liturgy; leading and participating in religious ceremonies; full participation in the daily schedule of the monastery; welcoming visitors to the monastery; maintaining the physical facilities; and, providing family-like support and friendship to their fellow monks.

 ii.                  Duties allowed to be performed by virtue of ordination:  Among other things, the following duties are allowed to be performed by virtue of full ordination as a bhikkhu: He participates and votes at formal meetings of the monastic community; he attends the bimonthly recitation in the Pali language of the 227 rules of the Monastic Code; he lives in a monastery in the company of other monks, which is conducive to his spiritual training and ability to uphold the Monastic Code; he performs the “sacrament” of the daily alms round ritual; he leads the liturgical chanting and meditation sessions for the laypeople; and he chants blessing and protection chants for the laypeople.

 C.               Bhikkhus are monks and ministers: In Theravadin Buddhism there is no intermediate class of priests to minister to the laypeople. The monks, therefore, perform most of the typical priestly duties. Based on their talents and disposition, some monks are more inclined to the ministry than others, but none of the monks are cloistered away from daily interaction with laypeople. Because of certain rules in the Monastic Code, monks must receive an offering of food from a layperson on that very day or they do not eat. This means that the Buddha institutionalized a mechanism to ensure that every monk was available to minister to laypeople at least this much on a daily basis. The interaction may take the form of counseling or it may be in the ritualized Buddhist “sacrament” of the alms round itself.

 D.        The significance of the alms round: The bhikkhu's alms round is the daily duty of every bhikkhu in good standing to walk through a residential area of laypeople in order to receive their generosity in the form of a donation of food in his alms bowl. This simple act is the core, sacred religious transaction in Buddhism. Its significance cannot be overstated. Though vastly different in substance, the alms round to Buddhism is at least if not more important than, for example, a priest's performance of the mass to Roman Catholicism.  Instead of a “Trinity,” Buddhism has at its core the Triple Refuge: the Buddha (his example), the Dhamma (the Buddha's teachings), and the Sangha (the monks and nuns). Through this simple act of putting food in a monk's bowl, the laypeople express their devotion to the Dhamma, and they directly support the Sangha's continued presence in the world. And by supporting the Sangha, they preserve the Dhamma for themselves and their children's children. The monks teach the Dhamma and minister to the laypeople in this setting. At the same time the laypeople are actively practicing the virtue of generosity, the foundational principle that runs through all Buddhist practice. And by learning the Dhamma and practicing generosity, the laypeople gain faith in a heavenly rebirth or better. So a monk by fulfilling his duty of going on his alms round performs something akin to the central “holy sacrament” (although this is not Buddhist vocabulary) upon which rests the entire religion. Photos of the monks receiving daily alms are provided below.

Compensation

 A.               Description of non-salaried compensation: The Temple and its lay support community will provide any bhikkhu with room, board, clothing, travel expenses, health insurance and any other needs incidental to his stay.

 B.               Explanation for lack of IRS or comparable documentation:

 i.                   Non-commercial actors: There is no IRS or other financial documentation with regard to the monks because there were no financial transactions involving the monks to document. By design, through the rules contained in the Monastic Code, the Buddha wanted the monks and the monasteries to be outside of the realm of commerce. The prohibitions contained in the Monastic Code explicitly forbid the monks from engaging in commercial or financial transactions to the extent that they cannot even touch money. In the same vein, they cannot sign checks, use credit cards, enter into contracts or leases, buy or sell anything, incur taxes or pay taxes, etc.

 ii.                  Simple lifestyle: The monks go to the extent of renouncing a traditional home and family in order to lessen their burden on the laypeople. What little the monks do own in the form of personal property has been given to them as gifts.

 iii.                Economy of Gifts: The “non-salaried compensation” the monks receive is not, in fact, compensation. It is a gift. The Monastic Code prevents a monk from signing any contract, let alone enforcing one. So the monks are not employees, and there are no employment contracts. The monks live in small simple tidy rooms on the Monastery property, but there are no lease agreements. The monks have no “rights” or “claims” to any of the material support they consistently receive out of the kindness and devotion of the laypeople. The “economy of gifts” institutionalized by the Buddha for the Temple that followed his teachings is something akin to the way family members and friends relate to each other, i.e. not as “rational” economic or commercial actors.  In sum, it is fundamental to the Buddhist religion that the monks and monasteries operate outside the realm of commerce. While nations have risen and fallen, this has been the way of the Buddhist monks and monasteries for over 2,500 years. The continuous survival of the orders of monks for such a great length of time ought to lend some degree of respect for the legitimacy of this organizational model.