พระอาจารย์อธิบายว่าการกำหนดวันบวชล่วงหน้าคือการตั้งโปรแกรมอัตโนมัติให้ฝ่ายกุศลเคลียร์มลทินให้ครบตามกำหนด สึกก่อนกำหนดจึงทำให้โปรแกรมรันไม่ครบ ต่างจากการบวชให้ครบหรือเกินกำหนดซึ่งได้ผลเต็มที่กว่าPra Ajarn explains that setting an ordination period in advance sets an automatic program for the wholesome to clear impurities on that schedule; disrobing early leaves that program incomplete, unlike completing or extending the period, which yields far fuller results.
A student asked: does disrobing before the date originally intended have any effect on life?
Pra Ajarn explained that when we set the date for ordaining and disrobing in advance, side automatically sets a program: from the day of ordination until the intended date of disrobing, it will work to clear impurities according to that schedule. It functions like an agreement. So if one disrobes early, side will try to make that happen, so the program cannot run to completion. When it doesn't run fully, unresolved issues remain — like hiring a craftsman to repair something, only for him to stop midway before finishing; the item can then never be put to full use.
Conversely, disrobing later than originally planned — staying ordained beyond the intended date — works in the opposite direction. If the wholesome side has enough strength of merit, it happily continues to help. The longer one stays, the more benefit accrues. Pra Ajarn emphasized that even a single extra day still has an effect, recalling the saying that one day of diligence is worth more than a hundred years ordained without diligence.
As for cases where no fixed number of days was set in advance at all, the wholesome side works on a day-by-day basis — like a craftsman working without a fixed deadline. If one puts in full effort each day, one receives the full result of that day. Committing to ordain for life, meanwhile, is the highest declaration of the perfection of truthfulness; it causes the wholesome to set up support at full capacity for one's entire life, yielding the greatest result of any arrangement.
Pra Ajarn added that the status of being ordained receives incomparably more support than lay life. A monk giving merit the size of a fist still receives merit the size of a mountain, while a layperson giving merit the size of a mountain receives merit only the size of a thumb. For a monk who practices wholeheartedly from dawn through the evening, nibbana itself descends to overlay and refine him in an astonishing way, producing both and liberation by wisdom, freeing him continuously at every moment.