One of it is to know both Bhikkhu and Bhikkhunī Pātimokkha. So for this one, I have a question that does it involve being able to recite the Bhikkhunī Pātimokkha by heart? Or just read through the mūla of the Bhikkhunī rules? Or even less?
For the requirement of knowing the meditation path all the way to arahanthood, does it involve reading the Pa auk books? Or Visuddhimagga? Certainly before Visuddhimagga was composed, there’s someway for the monks to be freed from Nissaya without reading it, so is it having read most of the suttas is enough? My personal knowledge on the 16 insight knowledges is basically almost non existent.
But based on what I know from sutta it’s to have all 7 factors of the noble 8fold path, practise to get Jhānas, then see impermanence, suffering and no-self until one becomes disenchanted with 5 aggregates, 6 sense bases, then dispassionate, let go, direct the mind to Nibbāna, then repeat until attainment.
You should probably know the Abhidhamma and the classical Theravāda explanation of dependent origination. In short, you should understand what the Pa-Auk method is about. It is a practical clone of the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha and also the Visuddhimagga.
Reading the VSM would be good to do so. It is something you should do.
You also need 32,000 syllables. We went through this before (you even showed me a better website to count Pāli).
You just have to understand what to do when you reach that point.
It would be good to take a trip to Pa-Auk, Pyin Oo Lwin. Since you are in Malaysia, you can visit Ven. Dhammasubho’s place which usually has a Pa-Auk teacher. Or you can visit Dhamma Earth.
Best would be to go to Pyin Oo Lwin for vassa and learn there. Give yourself 3 months there and see if you can be successful. Observe all of the interviews you can. As a monk, that would be good. Try to understand what really goes on with the teachings of samatha, but also the teachings after that… the rūpa and the nāma and the paṭiccasamuppāda. Then the other stages as well. “40 taw”
That is quite ambitious, but I’m sorry to tell you that Dhp is only 2 bhāṇavāra from what I heard.
But maybe you have other suttas to bring you up to 32,000.
Yes, I memorized SBS chanting book using the same anki method, that’s my first deck created, which contains 23000 syllables, with 3000 of the gradual training in Pāli which I memorized extra compared to what’s actually required of the SBS students.
So DHP is about 15000 syllables (a bit less than 2 bhāṇavāra), comfortably makes the total go beyond the target, even when there’s some DHP verses in the SBS chanting book, it’s not that many.
It is actually not so bad. You will become more familiar with feminine declensions.
You will also notice some “impossible to follow” saṅghādisesa rules which will make you wonder why there was a big push to ordain in the first place.
I take that strategy in my article here. It is good to know all of these. I remember I got side-tracked for several years and stopped studying when I learned about bhikkhunī-saṅghādisesa rules.
There are also some rules that monks are supposed to follow. It will say so in the commentary though. There are not as many as I was previously told, but there are some rules to know.
Lastly, you can read Pācittiya Pāli and see that no doubt has Abhidhamma listed in the context of Abhidhamma (three baskets) as we classical Theravādins know it.