The Venerable Master has said, "Leaving the home-life is the most thorough form of giving." This is because a cultivator of the Way gives his own body and mind to all living beings. There is only giving and no taking. Therefore, leaving the home-life does not mean leaving living beings; rather, it means expanding the small home of personal love to a large and selfless home of the Dharma Realm. To transform narrow, small, and limited filiality to far-reaching, great, and limitless filiality is the principle of leaving the home-life to save the world.

It is people who can propagate the Way; and it is the Sangha that must transmit the Dharma. The members of the Sangha must represent the pure and clean current of proper Dharma in the great bitter sea of this turbid world; only then will they be able to serve as a great bright lamp and a great ship of salvation. Thus the Venerable Master takes Sangha education especially seriously. Children are the basis of a nation; Shramaneras (novice monks and nuns) are the roots of the Sangha (Buddhist monastic order). If the roots of a tree are strong and healthy, the branches, leaves, and fruits will naturally flourish. Therefore, the Master has devoted painstaking effort to educating the young novices with the hope that they will all become Dharma vessels in the future.

To put it simply, a "Shramanera" is a child within the Sangha, and a "Shramana" (that is, a Bhikshu) is a full-grown member of the Sangha. Shramanera is a Sanskrit word meaning "extinguishing and kindness"—that is, to extinguish all evils and practice all deeds of kindness. After a Shramanera receives the full precepts, he is then called a Shramana. Shramana means "diligent and extinguishing"—to diligently cultivate precepts, samadhi, and wisdom and to extinguish greed, anger, and stupidity. The Master wants these young Shramaneras to soon grow up, develop the wisdom of heroes, nurture the virtue of heroes, and perform heroic deeds.

With his magnanimous vision, the Venerable Master bases the young novices' training on the Three Great Principles and the Six Great Guidelines of Dharma Realm Buddhist Association. He hopes that they will develop into lofty, noble Sangha members possessed of a firm, pure integrity that refrains from exploiting conditions, begging for favors, seeking affinities, contending, being greedy, seeking, being selfish, pursuing personal advantages, and lying. Since these Shramaneras have already left the home-life to follow the Buddha and have donned the Dharma robes of the Tathagata, they should take cultivation in accordance with the teaching of the Great Vehicle as their basic responsibility, so that they can build a firm and strong foundation in the Way. The Master also supplements their training with the general education that other children their age would receive. It is hoped that they will become good vessels for propagating the Dharma, perfectly understand worldly and transcendental dharmas, remain undefiled while dwelling in defilement, practice the Bodhisattva's great work of saving the world, return to the source, and attain proper enlightenment.

"To ascend to high places, one must start from low. To travel to distant places, one must begin from close by." The daily schedule the Master has set for the Shramaneras—reciting Sutras, studying the precepts, meditation, bowing in repentance, speaking Dharma, memorizing Sutras, practicing the Forty-two Hands and Eyes, and so on, is, step-by-step, building a strong foundation for future propagation of the five main schools of Buddhism: Chan, Teaching, Vinaya, Secret, and Pure Land.

Under the Venerable Master's guidance, which emphasizes both understanding and practice, these Shramaneras have shown steady growth in all respects in the past half year. This represents the dawn of proper Dharma; Buddhism will surely be flourishing in the near future!