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for themselves. This is just selfishness. One should give the robes with the intention that the ordainee will truly take the robes, and practice the novice's practice or the monk's practice in order to gain freedom from suffering. One should put the happiness of their son or grandson first, and not one's own happiness. Only in that way do you advance nobly. You rise in merit.
Sayadaw wants the temporary novices and monks who ordain at his place to have correct intention. He wants them to practice the monk's or the novice's practice with correct intention. So Sayadaw has his competent junior monks under his tutelage teach new monks and novices the Buddha's monastic code which they must follow in neatly wearing the robes, in eating, going, coming, staying, sitting, speaking, going to the bathroom, and so on, from the time of their relinquishment (ordination). New monks and novices have to learn for themselves the practiced method of wearing the upper and the lower robes, formal robes (for going outside the monastery), and 'half-robes' (for appearing before a senior monk), the method of holding the begging bowl, the method of determining the robes and begging bowl (as one's own), the method of using the sitting cloth, etc.
After they have taken robes, while still in the ordination hall, Sayadaw explains the four things a monk must not do. Those are to 1) engage in sexual relations, 2) steal the possessions of any person, even with the value of only a quarter (1/24 ounce troy of gold), 3) cause the death of a human being, and 4) claim to have attained such superior states as jhânas or path and fruition knowledge without have attained such. One who commits any of these four has been "defeated" as a monk (he must disrobe). So this must be explained when people become monks. Sayadaw gives the responsibility of explaining the other rules to his junior monks.
It is, of course, not right for parents to throw out a child after it is born. In accordance with their responsibilities, they don't throw away their children; they have to nurture and take of their children. As their preceptor into the Order, Sayadaw acts as the parents of these new novices and monks. Sayadaw does not throw out these new novices and monks after they are "born". He guides and instructs them. He takes care of them. Just as when parents are not free, they entrust their children to people they trust like aunts and uncles, when Sayadaw has things he must do, he entrusts them to students whom he has confidence in. Sayadaw himself has been doing this since he was young. So if there's anything missing in what his students do, he notices it, he corrects it, he completes it.
Sayadaw has his junior monks take care of all the guidance and Vinaya (discipline) instruction for monks-to-be. This is because he wants the junior monks under his tutelage to be competent at doing the whole thing. He makes sure that none of his students are unable or incompetent to do this. When foreigners ordain, he has the Kammavâca read with international Pâli pronunciation (as opposed to the unique Burmese pronunciation which is taught in monasteries all over the nation). Sayadaw himself reads with the international Pâli pronunciation. When still at the Mahasi Sâsana Yeiktha, the author and other students had to practice the way of reading the Kam
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