one of the important changes in the order and movement in the last few years has been a change in the preparation of ordination. in the past, most people who had asked for ordination were asked to attend a series of six going for refuge retreats, for men at padmaloka, and for women at tiratanaloka. these retreats were followed by a longer ordination retreat: in the case of the men, a four month retreat at guhyaloka.

these retreats had real strengths. they were led by people who had long experience in helping people to prepare for ordination, and the material they covered was important, and taught in depth. people finished them had a very good grounding in basic dharma, ethics, and the nature of the order.

the retreats didn’t suit everyone, however. some people had family or working circumstances that didn’t make it easy for them to attend these retreats. other had approaches to spiritual practic, a focus on mediation for example,  that were not so well catered for in the going for refuge retreats. we were concerned that the preparation was becoming too specialised, and wanted to create something more flexible and more diverse.

one of the main ways we did this was to put more emphasis on the role of the private preceptor, and to increase the number of these preceptors. the private preceptor is the experienced order member who has a close kalyana mitra relationship with the person training for ordination, and who actually performs the private ordination ceremony itself. until a few years ago, the private preceptors would tend to be a member of the specialist ordination teams. in the last few years we’ve increased the number of private  preceptors, and drawn them from every corner of the order, from those who live in retreat centres and from full time family members; from the uk, india, europe, australasia and the united states.

this has obvious advantages, and makes it more possible to accomodate a diversity of charaters and approaches to spiritual training, and has been enourmously stimulating to the order and to preparation for ordination.

there has been one loss, however,. the specialist ordination teams were enormously experienced. some of them had been helping people to prepare for ordination for 10 or 15 years. the new preceptors had been ordained for at least ten years, and would have a close personal relationship with the person they had been asked to ordain. but they would have much less experience in teaching the material, and in helping people through the kind of issues that arise when someone decides to commit themselves to the spiritual life.

in the last couple of years we’ve begun to run retreats  for these for these new preceptors who would like to learn from some of the more experienced private and public preceptors . i spent the last week at padmaloka, where padmavajra was leading one of these retreats.