Electing to become a Buddhist monk or nun is no sure path to enlightenment. The path always falls within the individual who must eventually transcends his mortal coil and the world of birth and death. Still, the monastic sangha offers perhaps a better way for the individual to awaken because they don’t have to face the pressures of raising a family and/or earning a living.

“Full of hindrances is the household life, a path for the dust of passion. Free as the air is the life of him who has renounced all worldly things....Let me then cut off my hair and beard, let me clothe myself in the orange colored robes, and let me go forth from the household life into the homeless state” (Samaññaphala Sutta)

Regardless of what some Buddhists might believe about the monastic sangha (bhkkhu-sangha) it is not the same as the sangha found in the Triple Gem (P., ti-ratana) of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. When we take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the sangha we are taking refuge in is not the monastic sangha but, instead, the disciple or noble sangha (P., savaka-sangha; ariya-sangha). The monastic sangha and the disciple sangha are, in fact, quite different. Walpola Râhula helps to shed more light on the Triple Gem sangha:

"The Sangha of the Triple-Jewel which is called sâvaka-sangha ("the Community of Disciple"), consisting of those eight holy persons indiscriminately from all four categories of the Buddha's disciples, both lay and monastic, male and female, may be considered as the "Spiritual Sangha" (World Buddhism, Vol. XII, No. 11, July 1974, p. 330) (Bold added for emphasis.)

The fact that the distinction between the monastic sangha and the sangha of the Triple Gem is more than often a blurry distinction may owe, in part, to a monastic will-to-power, the monks having to a certain extent exaggerated the importance of their sangha's role in Buddhism. For me, at least, it is difficult to accept the fact that a change in lifestyle, all of a sudden, makes a monk or nun holy, and a layperson second rate.

So what accounts for the distinctly different sanghas? What the Pali canon tells us is that the Buddha differentiated between the ordinary person, viz., the prithagjana or in Pali, the puthujjana, and the noble disciple or arya-sravaka (P., ariya-savaka) who had entered the stream to nirvana. Because of the sharp distinction between types of individuals, one being spiritual, namely, the arya-sravaka and the other not, there arose two kinds of sanghas (the monastic sangha had both puthujjanas and noble disciples). This is critically important. Peter Masefield has pointed out with a great deal of evidence that "the categories of the savaka and the puthujjana transcend the purely social division of monk and layman and whilst no doubt many, perhaps most, laymen were puthjjanas, a good many others were not" (Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism, p. 9).

Here is an example of a passage from the Pali canon which may help the reader to get a better sense of the higher sangha which transcended monastic and lay lifestyles.

"The Lord's savakasangha is of good conduct, the Lord's savakasangha is of upright conduct, the Lord's savakasangha is of right conduct, the Lord's savakasangha is of proper conduct, that is to say the four pairs of [noble] men, the eight [noble] individuals. The lord's savakasangha is worthy of sacrifice, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of anjali it is the unsurpassed merit-field for the world" (D. iii. 227; M. i. 37; S. ii. 69).

It needs emphasizing that the disciple sangha (savakasangha) is exclusively made up of noble persons which in pali is ariya-puggala all of whom had had profound spiritual attainments. These persons alone are in possession of right view (which is supermundane or lokuttara)—only they are on the path to nirvana. And it is to them that offerings are to be made if we wish merit (punya which can mean also luck).

Of the eight kinds of noble persons who make of the disciple sangha, the highest is the Arhat who has become freed from all fetters (samyojana). The lowest is that of the disciple who has just entered the stream; who is disengaged from three of the ten fetters which chain one to the rounds of rebirths. The three fetters broken are: the view that one's own body is the self or atman (S., satkâyadristi); the fetter of doubt (S., vicikitsâ); belief in the efficacy of vows and rites (S., shîlavrataparâmarsha).

What we should learn from this is that the Triple Gem Sangha is not an organized body governed by a certain set of rules or dress. It is solely a spiritual order which admits both monastic and lay person if they are at least stream entered hence entering the supermundane path which goes to nirvana. In this modern era, we need to put more of an emphasis on the disciple sangha; putting more of our own effort into trying to enter the stream—to leave the darkness.