THE BUDDHIST CAREER
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intention to become a monk under the auspices of a master (not necessarily the same one with whom he might have taken the Refuges). "Leaving home" was a simple ceremony. The layman went to a barber, had his head shaved, except for a patch of hair on top, and repaired to his future master's temple, where he burned some incense and kowtowed first to the Buddha image and then to the master. Thereupon the latter shaved off the remaining patch of hair in the presence of witnesses and at this moment the layman became his disciple. There are several kinds of master-disciple relationships, but when a Buddhist monk speaks simply of his "master" or shih-fu, he means his tonsure-master, or t'i-tu en-shih #1824p, that is the one who shaved his head.
By leaving home he became a novice, or sha-mi, which is the Sanscrit word sramanera (not to be confused with a sha-men, that is, the sramana, or advanced monk). Notice that he had not received the novice's ordination (as he would have at this stage in a Theravadin country), but he was already called a novice and lived as one; that is, he wore a monk's robe, ate vegetarian food, and observed all the Ten Vows. These vows are, besides the first five mentioned above, not to attend theatricals or dancing parties, not to wear perfume or adornment, not to sleep on a high or large bed, not to accept gold or silver, and not to take food after noon (this last prohibition was ignored by most monks in China on the grounds that the climate was too cold). The disciple lived with his tonsure master in the latter's small temple for a period of training that, according to the rules, lasted three years, but was often shorter in practice. He learned not only ritual and liturgy, but also what it was like to be a monk. It was a trial period, from which he could withdraw at any time without embarrassment, and some did withdraw. At the end he was taken by his master to a big public monastery, shih-fang ts'ung-lin, for ordination. If he lived in the north, he might go to the Kuang-chi Ssu in Peking. If he lived in the south, he might go to Pao-hua Shan, which is not far from Nanking. These two were very strict and he could be sure that if he were ordained there, it had been done correctly. At Pao-hua Shan four or five hundred novices would come to be ordained every autumn and in the spring another four or five hundred would come. Sometimes as many as a thousand came