Ordination Programme for India

No. You pay nothing to take part in the programme. Anything outside the programme — for example your travel to Sarnath — is your own responsibility.

The programme pays your flight to Thailand and arranges your visa.

An early or emergency trip home is at your own cost. At the normal end, after five years, the programme arranges your return to India.

It is fully looked after. The temple has its own small hospital, and refers patients to other hospitals when needed.

The full list of what to bring will be announced in December 2026, after the team has visited the venue.

For now, please keep ready your national ID card (for example Aadhaar) — you will need it on arrival to show you are the person who registered — and, for the long-term path, your passport.

Travel to the Chinese Temple, Sarnath, by yourself, and arrive before 5 pm. After dark the gate is closed and it is hard to get in.

If your flight or train will make you late, tell us in advance. If you will arrive very late, stay in a hotel that night and come the next morning.

If you arrive at the start of the intake (about three days before the ordination), you may shave before coming, or not.

If you arrive only on the day before the ordination, you must arrive with your head and eyebrows already shaved — there will be no time, because the team is preparing the ceremony.

Applying gives you a place in the queue for your intake. It is not yet a confirmed place.

The team checks every application against the conditions. About four weeks before your intake, our WhatsApp number +66 82 195 6535 sends you a message. Tap "Yes, I will come" and your place is confirmed. Please save this number in your phone so the message reaches you.

If you do not answer within 7 days, or your application does not meet the conditions, your place goes to the next person on the reserve list.

The list of participants is on this page (Table 3).

Once an intake is full, new applications go on the reserve list, in the order they arrive.

When a place opens — someone cannot come, does not answer in time, or does not meet the conditions — the next person on the list receives a WhatsApp message offering the place, and has 7 days to accept it.

The reserve list also lets the team prepare more space, equipment and training staff. If everything can be arranged, people on the reserve list may ordain in that intake too.

Please tell us in the WhatsApp chat as soon as you can. Your place can then go to someone on the reserve list, and you are welcome to apply for a later intake.

Bring your national ID card (for example Aadhaar). We check it against your application. If the details do not match, you cannot join the programme.

No. Registering gives you a place at Sarnath. In November 2027 a committee assesses each long-term novice — conduct, keeping the precepts and the rules, living well with others, diligence in chanting and meditation, and progress in Thai.

Those found suitable go on to full ordination in Thailand in December. For those not selected, the committee decides whether they stay on at the Chinese Temple or return to lay life.

• About 4:30 am — wake up
• 5:00 — chanting and meditation
• About 6:00 — duties, including cleaning the grounds
• About 6:30 or 7:00 — morning meal
• Late morning — Dhamma talk and meditation
• Afternoon — Dhamma talk and meditation
• Evening — chanting and meditation practice
• About 9:30 pm — lights out

Times may shift a little with the number of participants.

In a shared dormitory — there are no separate rooms. If numbers overflow, tents with mosquito nets may be put up.

Yes, during breaks. During talks, meditation and all activities, no phone use at all.

No. What you take home is the practice itself, and the handbook Sweep First to keep learning at home.

Yes. Family may attend the ordination and take photographs, as long as they do not disturb the people conducting it, and they are welcome to help. They may visit during breaks.

Family may offer a meal to the novices — but only for all of them, never for one person — and must tell the team in advance, so that meals are not duplicated or wasted.

Yes, if you meet the long-term conditions and bring a passport valid for at least six more years. If you are not sure yet, register short-term and bring your passport anyway.

Over 40, you cannot join the long-term path, but you may ask to stay on as a volunteer novice helping at the Chinese Temple. The committee decides.

Short-term: yes, no problem. Long-term: your wife must agree and be able to manage while you are away. Please also tell your parents that you are ordaining long-term.

Debts: you need your creditor's written, signed agreement to defer repayment — and only if the debt is small. With a large debt, do the short-term ordination first, and come for long-term once the debt is paid or nearly paid.

Legal cases: only once the case is fully closed. If it is still going on, please settle it first.

Under the Vinaya, a person coming from another religion must first complete a four-month probation (parivāsa). To keep the path simple, the long-term programme takes registered Buddhists only. People of any religion are welcome on the short-term programme.

No. You only need to be able to communicate in English.

Nak Tham (the Thai Dhamma examinations) and Pali are available for those who enrol, along with training in the Dhamma and Vinaya, meditation, and virtue. All of it is taught in Thai — which is why you learn Thai before you go.

Yes, at your own cost, with the permission of the mentor monk who looks after you in Thailand. Whether the programme can fund a visit depends on donations at the time.

The team expects to have a vihara in India ready within the five years, before you return, and returning monks will live there.

If it is not ready yet, that is no problem: you can stay at our branch temple in Nagpur, or you may be able to get a visa to go back and live in Thailand again. This will depend on the situation at that time.

You will not be left without a place to live.

You can stop at any time — either move to another temple, or disrobe and return to lay life. Either way, the journey home is at your own cost.

A middle way. Techniques are not fixed to one method — the Buddhist tradition has many, ancient and modern — so that each person can get past the obstacles in his own practice.

Not at present. This is an ordination programme for monks, and during the ordinations there is no space to host women keeping the eight precepts overnight. If you can offer a venue free of charge for an eight-precept programme for women, please tell the team.