How to Become a Buddhist Monk: The Two Ordinations

By Tim Yu · Updated 2026-08-27

Becoming a Buddhist monk happens in two stages: first “going forth” (pabbajjā) as a novice, then, from the age of twenty, “higher ordination” (upasampadā) as a full monk (bhikkhu). A novice can be a child; full ordination has real requirements. And in much of the Buddhist world, becoming a monk is neither permanent nor irreversible.

The short answer

There is no single ceremony that turns a layperson into a fully ordained monk. The path runs in two clear steps. The first, pabbajjā (“going forth”), makes you a novice (sāmaṇera): your head is shaved, you put on the robes, you take refuge in the Three Jewels, and you undertake the Ten Precepts. This can happen young — boys ordain as novices throughout the Buddhist world. The second, upasampadā (“higher” or “full” ordination), makes you a bhikkhu — and for this you must be at least twenty years old and meet a set of real conditions. Only with full ordination do you take on the complete monastic code. This two-stage structure has shaped Buddhist monastic life for twenty-five centuries. (Unfamiliar terms are in the glossary.)

Step one: going forth (the novice)

The first step, pabbajjā, means literally “going forth” — leaving the household life for homelessness, as the Buddha himself did. Its ceremony is simple and ancient. The candidate’s hair and beard are shaved (we explain why here); he is given the robes of a monastic (on their color and meaning, see why Buddhist robes are orange); he requests and receives the Three Refuges; and he undertakes the Ten Precepts (dasa-sīla) — the five precepts that all Buddhists may keep, extended with further training rules such as not eating after midday, not using high or luxurious beds, and not handling money.

At this point he is a sāmaṇera, a novice. Crucially, there is no minimum age for this step — a young boy can become a novice, and in many Buddhist cultures children do, living and studying in a monastery under the guidance of senior monks. The novice life is itself a full and serious training; it is also the necessary apprenticeship for what may come next.

Step two: full ordination (the monk)

To become a bhikkhu — a fully ordained monk, bound by the complete monastic code — the novice undergoes upasampadā, “higher ordination.” This is a more formal act, and it carries genuine requirements. According to the Vinaya and standard references, the candidate must:

• be at least twenty years old (traditionally counted from conception);
• possess his own robes and alms bowl, the basic requisites of a monk;
• be free of certain impediments — for example, serious debt, particular diseases, outstanding obligations such as military service, and his parents’ consent;
• be a human male who is not already committed elsewhere.

The ordination itself is performed by a senior monk acting as preceptor (upajjhāya) together with a quorum of monks — standardly ten in the Buddhist heartlands, or five in outlying regions — who formally admit the candidate into the Sangha. Only now does the new monk take up the full 227 training rules of the Pāṭimokkha (a point often muddled: novices keep the Ten Precepts, not the 227).

Ordination for women

Women enter the monastic life not as monks but as nuns (bhikkhunīs), through a parallel path. Traditionally this required a dual ordination — the candidate is ordained first before the community of nuns, then confirmed before the community of monks. Because the lineage needed for this was broken in some traditions, whether full ordination for women is currently available is a genuinely contested question, which we treat carefully in our guide to the life of a Buddhist nun.

Temporary or lifelong?

One of the most surprising things for newcomers is that becoming a monk is often not a permanent decision. In much of Theravāda Southeast Asia — especially Thailand, and also Myanmar and Laos — temporary ordination is a widespread and honored custom. A man may ordain for a limited period, classically a single rains retreat of about three months, and then disrobe and return to lay life with full honor and no stigma; it is often seen as a rite of passage and a way to make merit for one’s parents. (This custom is strong across mainland Southeast Asia but notably absent in Sri Lanka.)

Elsewhere — and in most Mahāyāna and Tibetan settings — ordination is generally undertaken as a lifelong vocation, though a monastic who finds the life is not for them can still, in principle, return to lay life honorably. The door, in Buddhism, is meant to open both ways.

How it differs across traditions

The two-stage structure above is the shared Theravāda pattern, and its bones are common to all traditions. But there are differences:

• Theravāda keeps closely to the Vinaya procedure described here.
• East Asian Mahāyāna monastics take the Vinaya ordination and, in addition, the bodhisattva precepts — vows oriented toward the liberation of all beings.
• Tibetan Vajrayāna monastics likewise take the monastic vows and add bodhisattva vows and, for tantric practice, further commitments (samaya) to a teacher.

Beneath these variations the essential act is the same: a formal, communal going-forth from ordinary life into the disciplined freedom of the Sangha.

To see what the life looks like once ordained, read the life of a Buddhist monk and a day in a monastery; for the community one is joining, what the Sangha is.