Chào bạn Hieule,
Không phải là Sư Bodhi thọ giới Tỳ kheo hai lần mà là lần đầu thọ giới Sa di với Sư Thích Giác Đức ở Hoa Kỳ và lần sau thọ giới Tỳ kheo với Hòa thượng Ananda Maitreya ở Tích Lan . Sa di (samanera/novice) là vị xuất gia tập sự làm Tỳ kheo . Còn Tỳ kheo thì mới chính thức là một Tăng sĩ Phật giáo . Cho nên Sa di chỉ thọ 10 giới thôi, còn Tỳ kheo thì thọ đủ 250 giới . Đọc trong bài phỏng vấn Tỳ kheo Bodhi ở đây:
http://www.dharma.org/ij/archives/2002b ... _bodhi.htm
How did you first find your way from Brooklyn to Sri Lanka?
My interest in Buddhism started around 1965, when I was attending Brooklyn College, with books on Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts. In 1966 I went to Claremont Graduate School in southern California to study Western philosophy. There I became acquainted with a Buddhist monk from Vietnam named Thich Giac Duc who came to stay in the same residence hall where I was living. I asked him for instructions in meditation, and he guided me in the practice of mindfulness of breathing. He also taught me the fundamentals of Buddhism – what one didn’t find in the writings of Suzuki and Watts! After several months I decided that I wanted to become a monk and asked him if he could ordain me. He agreed to do so, and thus I was ordained as a samanera [a novice] in the Vietnamese Mahayana order in May 1967.
Was this a big step for you?
Of course, viewed from the outside, it was a big step, but I never had to struggle with the decision to become a monk. One morning I simply woke up and thought, “Why don’t I ask Ven. Giac Duc if he could ordain me,” and that was that. Thereafter we lived together for three years in Claremont while we both worked on our doctorate degrees [my dissertation was on the philosophy of John Locke!]. When he returned to Vietnam, I lived with another Vietnamese monk, Thich Thien An, at a meditation center in Los Angeles. By that time I had already decided I wanted to go to Asia to receive full ordination, to study Buddhism, and to make the task of practicing and propagating Buddhism my life work. Meanwhile, I had met several Sri Lankan monks passing through the U.S., most notably Ven. Piyadassi Thera, who recommended Ven. Ananda Maitreya, a prominent Sri Lankan scholar-monk, as a teacher.
By August 1972 I had finished my obligations in the U.S. I had written to Ven. Ananda Maitreya, requesting permission to come to his monastery for ordination and training, and he wrote back saying that I was welcome. After a brief visit with my first teacher in Vietnam, I went to Sri Lanka and took ordination with Ven. Ananda Maitreya, with whom I lived for three years studying Buddhism and Pali. Later I was invited by Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, the well-known German monk, to stay at the Forest Hermitage in Kandy. I eventually spent many years there caring for him in his old age and helping with the work of the Buddhist Publication Society.