About This Teaching
Speaking at an ordination ceremony where two people take the anagarika and novice precepts, Ajahn Dtun explains that the wish to go forth shows renunciation (nekkhamma parami) developed in past lives. In the Buddha's time, going forth was for Nibbana, the complete end of greed, anger and suffering.
He advises the new anagarika to keep the eight precepts while studying the novice's life, and the novice to look toward the monk's training. Having set aside worldly work, they have time to put effort into walking and sitting meditation.
Precepts make body and speech peaceful; concentration makes the mind peaceful and gives rise to mindfulness and wisdom. He points to the five meditation objects given at ordination, head hair, body hair, nails, teeth and skin, to be contemplated for impermanence, not-self and unattractiveness, and to the question of whether the body and mind are one. By ordaining, he says, they help prolong the Buddha's teaching.