About This Answer
Talking with the leader of a young monastic community, Ajahn Dtun stresses setting a clear personal discipline: decide how much time goes to lay people and duties, and set aside plenty of time to be alone for meditation. Delegate building work and permits to lay people, let teaching arise naturally rather than going out looking for listeners, and accept that the monastery may develop more slowly. Many teachers take on too much, and their meditation becomes shaky.
Right effort stays within sīla, samādhi and paññā: find the right amount of food and sleep, and practise in every posture. A key hurdle is to practise when one feels lazy or low, not only when energetic. For morning drowsiness, get up and do walking meditation; if the body nods forward three times, stand up and walk, so sleepiness does not become a habit.
Newcomers should set aside their own views and follow the community's customs; letting go of opinions is itself a way of letting go of self, and this does not contradict reflecting wisely. After deep samādhi, contemplate the arising and passing of whatever moves in the mind, or one of the thirty-two parts of the body.
Every person has a different view, so a community needs a common standard in line with Dhamma that everyone follows. The leader works this out over time and decides who can live by it, trusting their own experience rather than the opinions of lay people. In difficult early years, all the more reason to be strict about returning to sitting and walking.