Khenpo Kunga was born in Tibet, and became a monk at Tergar Monastery at a young age. He completed three year retreat by the time he was 19 years old. He then went to India, and enrolled at Dsongsar monastic college near Dharamsala in Northwest India. After studying there for eleven years and receiving his Khenpo degree, he taught at Dzongsar college for three additional years. Khenpo Kunga’s primary teacher is Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, though he has studied with many other revered masters as well. In recent years, Khenpo Kunga has taught in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States as one of the main teachers for the worldwide network of Tergar monasteries, meditation centers, and meditation groups.
During a retreat he was teaching in Groton, MA, Khenpo Kunga agreed to answer questions regarding monastic life for this initiative. This interview was recorded on March 4, 2019. The interview was conducted and transcribed by Jess McNally, and translated by Holger Yeshe.
This interview was primarily intended to answer questions for those considering monastic life or already ordained.
Q. What is the advantage of being a monk or a nun along the path?
A. In brief, the main reason to become a monk or nun is to have more time to dedicate to practice. And on top of that, it is that when one takes the vows of a monastic, that one refrains from generating too many non-virtuous actions, and therefore reduce the arising of the negative emotions. The essence of being a monastic is therefore considered to be that our mind can become more peaceful because we can dedicate more time to practice, and we are more at ease and have more time. So, like the Buddha said, when you go forth it’s to reduce one’s activities and one’s objectives.
Q. What is the essential understanding or training for a monk or nun? What is the most important thing they learn or understand to be a monk or nun properly?
A. The main important practice for a monk or nun is to keep the vows. The main important part would be the discipline. There are many forms of discipline. For householders there’s a discipline you can undertake, and for novice monks or nuns, and for fully ordained monks. So it’s keeping with that discipline is the main important training. But to keep to that discipline 100 percent in these days is very, very difficult. But one should try one’s best according to one’s abilities to keep those vows.
Q. What factors should one consider when they are choosing whether to become a monastic or not? What are the different things they should reflect on, or how do they choose?
A. It’s not so much a matter of becoming a monk or a nun. The main important thing is that we have a mind that wants to engage in practicing. Within the Tibetan tradition, it became like a tradition, you just become a monk or a nun. In former times, when you became a monastic or a renunciate, it was because renunciation was born in your mind, and out of that you wanted to go forth. So therefore, it’s important to be prepared before one takes ordination, and to make sure that this mind of renunciation has been born in us. And then it’s easy to keep to the discipline. So therefore then, to keep the discipline will be easy, and you will be able to keep the discipline in the most perfect manner. If that mind of renunciation—where one is actually tired of samsara and has a kind of real revulsion of samsara—if that’s not there, then just merely by becoming a monk or a nun, that won’t do. Therefore, this mind of renunciation is so important, that when that is not really there, then it might be better to wait a little bit before one takes ordination. So one needs to understand that one can do all practices without becoming a monk or a nun. So even though it’s clearly not necessary to become a monk or a nun in order to practice the dharma, of course, if one feels one is ready to take that step, then it’s certain that this gives one more opportunity and more time to dedicate to practice. If you look at the life in a monastery, nearly all the time is dedicated to practice. But if you have a lay person’s life, where you need to look after your family, your house, and your belongings, then to have enough time to be able to dedicate to practice is more difficult.
Q. One of the questions that comes up a lot with Western monastics is there are very few communities or monasteries for them to train in. The question is how important is it to train within a monastic community, and is it possible to really be a monastic and take advantage of what monastic life is unless you have some kind of training in a community?
A. Once one has become a monk or a nun, to stay at a monastery is actually very important. So, this word that is used, which could be translated as going forth (rabjung), it means you leave behind the householder’s life and you go forth into the homeless life. But for western monks and nuns this is actually very, very difficult. There are no monasteries or dharma centers where western monastics can live, and there’s very few people who help them or allow them to live their life as a monastic. For Tibetan monks or nuns, they don’t have to worry, they will be taken care of with clothing and food. And in the same way, in the monasteries in India or Nepal, when you stay in those communities you don’t have to worry, you will be taken care of in terms of clothing, food and having a place to stay. In former times, during the time of the Buddha in India, it was a tradition that you would go out begging for alms, and you would be taken care of in that way. And because there is neither a monastic community in the West, nor is there this tradition of begging for food, therefore monastics have to look after their own sustenance. So actually, within the Tergar community, I actually talked about that, that it would be good to have something to support people who want to take this step. And on top of that, there is actually another challenge. And the challenge is in the West there is no support network, and if we want to go to the East and join a monastery there, then there is problems with visas, and being able to stay there actually for a long time. So even though it is very conducive, and it is recommended to stay in a monastery, one cannot say that it’s really, really necessary. If one is able to keep one’s vows well, if one can do that, then one can stay anywhere. Actually in Tibet itself, there’s actually quite a few monastics who actually live with their families, and they keep their vows in that context, and it works quite well.
Q. Yesterday in the retreat you spoke about renunciation and how it’s more important to have inspiration towards enlightenment than fear of samsara. I was wondering if you could speak about that again for those monastics or future monastics who might listen to (or read) this interview.
A. When we talk about this word that is translated as renunciation. It is comprised within that word is the wish and the confidence that liberation is possible. Renunciation is not the fact that we feel stuck in samsara and we feel that we are suffering in samsara, it’s not that, that’s not what we mean by renunciation. People who feel that life is hard, that samsara is difficult, that it’s just tough to live, there are many people like that. People who suffer from depression, for example, they perceive life to be really tough and essence-less and with no meaning. You have many forms where you can perceive that meaninglessness of life. When we talk about renunciation, it is not this aspect of experiencing or knowing about the difficulty, but rather knowing that it is possible to liberate yourself from these sufferings and the recognition of our ability to overcome the difficulties. So, on top of knowing that life is difficult and life is suffering, we also have confidence and trust that it is possible to be liberated from it, and having this wish to gain liberation from it.
Q. Many Western monastics don’t have the opportunity to study Vinaya in a formal way, and I know we can’t go into depth into the Vinaya right now. But what do you think is the most important thing for westerners to know about the Vinaya and how to understand it, just a very basic introduction to what the Vinaya is?
A. During the time of the Buddha, there was this tradition of Sojong where twice a month you would come together and you would confess any downfalls or any breakages of the vows. And you do that through the whole monastic community coming together and doing it in that context. So what is the best that the Buddha ever said? He never said you have to do, or you necessarily have to do this. He didn’t put out a rulebook. What he said was it was important to watch the place and the time. So these days we find ourselves in a time where it is full of so many gadgets, there’s phones, computers, television, everything is there. Therefore, it might be possible to have a Sojong ritual online, for example. For example, during the time of the Buddha when the vows were given, there were different rituals to bestow the vows. One was considered the former way of bestowing the vows, and one later. And in the former one, there was a time, actually, when one person wanted to take the full ordination vows, but he couldn’t actually see the Buddha in person, and the Buddha couldn’t see that person, and the Buddha gave the vows by writing a letter. In this day and age, the Dalai Lama actually gives vows online—not the monastic vows, but the Kalachakra initiation—and the Dalai Lama says that when people cannot attend this empowerment in person, they can attend online, and he will pray that through this transmission the empowerment will be received. And I just wanted to illustrate that example that it might be possible in this day to do the Sojong ritual online. I didn’t hear that this has happened already, but I think this might be a possibility, and I just illustrated the story of His Holiness and the tradition where the Buddha bestowed the vow to say that actually there is a source for this to happen or for this to be happening.
Q. One of the questions that comes up for people is about how to follow the monastic precepts. Like you said, a lot of them have to understood in the modern day and time, and so reading a book may be confusing about what the precept really means. Can you give some advice about how to understand the vows, if you’re reading about them, how do you figure out how to put them into practice in your own life?
A. The best would be if one would actually study the Vinaya, through reading books, but especially by going to a monastic college where the Vinaya is taught. When you look at the monastic vows, for a fully ordained monk there are 353 vows, and for a fully ordained nun there is even more than that. And actually, keeping all of them is impossible. And some of them, it might not actually be necessary to try to keep them in this day and age. But what is quite important, is that if one can, to at least keep the four root vows and the 13 main branch vows. But the main important thing that the Buddha mentioned in this regard… so when the Buddha was about to pass into parinirvana, he came up with a condensed version of the Vinaya. And then Ananda, just before the Buddha passed away, he asked the Buddha, “how should we understand the Vinaya, how should we understand the discipline, how should we structure the community, with which rules? What’s the best method to implement that?” And then the Buddha composed the text or probably taught this condensed version of the Vinaya that is very profound in meaning. And the Buddha said that in the future different situations and circumstances might arise. Whatever is conducive, or whatever might give rise to the negative emotions or afflictions. Whatever doesn’t give rise to the afflictions, there is no need to abstain from them and they can be practiced. So this is in my opinion, maybe the most important point, that whatever increases the negative emotions, we should try to abstain from that, and whatever doesn’t lead to an increase, it’s okay. So there are many different texts on the Vinaya. So I don’t think the extensive versions are necessary to study, and there’s actually no time. But there’s a text on the Three Vows, and to study that I think would be very beneficial. And there’s also a text called Kharakha (Tibatan, not sure of spelling or English translation) which goes into the explanation into the getsul vows, so that would be very useful.
Q. Is it okay to not wear your robes all the time as a Westerner, when is it okay to wear them, when okay not to wear them in our modern culture?
A. During the Buddha’s time, the monastic robes are there to differentiate yourself from other people, and to be separated from the outer robes, the yellow robes, is actually a downfall. Therefore, to wear the robes is actually quite important because it’s a support to help avert us from getting involved in negativity. But then there’s certain circumstances where it might not be such a big deal, such as if one is in one’s own home, or if one actually needs to work on something. The main important thing is whether it gives rise to the negative emotions. If not wearing the robes doesn’t become a cause of increase in the negative emotions, it’s fine not to wear them sometimes. It’s a method to help us keep the vows. If we’re able to hold the vows without wearing the robes, then it’s fine. But if one doesn’t have the vows, then there’s no benefit in wearing the robes because that’s just a fake. Because there’s not much benefit if one doesn’t hold up the vows and wears the robes. So in my case for example, when I go to India or Nepal, it wouldn’t be right at all to take my robes off, because that would also cause some people who are more traditional in their views to maybe lose faith. In my case, for example, in the West when I’m traveling I sometimes feel very strange when I’m going about in airports and people look at me very weird. So I there sometimes prefer not to wear my robes when I’m traveling.
Q. This last question is about working for money. A lot of Western monastics have been asking this question. If they can’t get the support they need then is it okay to work, and if they work what kind of work is appropriate or not?
A. Like I said before, one needs to look at the situation, and in some cases there is no other choice. When you look at a monastery in the traditional setting, there are some of the monastics who actually have jobs, they have responsibilities for the monastery, and they sometimes even do business, but it’s for the monastery. If one is by oneself, and one finds a way of not having to work to be able to make a living, of course that’s wonderful. But of course, we need to survive, we need to live, and in some circumstances there’s no other choice then to earn one’s own money. When one has a livelihood that is not in opposition to the vows one holds then that’s fine and one spends the money that one earns. The vinaya is changing according to time and place. During the time of the Buddha, people would go out every day to beg for alms. In countries like Thailand or Burma that tradition still survives to this day. In Tibet that tradition never existed, it was always that the kings of Tibet supported the monastic institution so there was never that kind of problem of having to go out and beg. And of course, from that it changed a lot. Therefore, all the monks and nuns they had everything they needed to be able to survive. But in the West, because that tradition is not there, the situation kind of necessitates that one has to work for oneself and earn one’s own money. Therefore, it’s not in opposition to the monastic discipline.
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