Hard decision. But a leader is someone who can make difficult decisions like this. If I may add, you can also better your karma by aiding your parents. So in the next life you’d be born into a rich family and do whatever you want. Just my imagination. The call is yours. Good luck my friend. Wish you and your family all the best. Cheers.
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Being rich in the next life has the cause of being generous.
Being rich doesn’t mean one can automatically be accepted into the order of monastics. One still has to obtain parents permission. It could be that the parents prefer the child to take over the fortune and thus block the path for renouncing. How many monks do we know come from a billionaire or multimillionaire family?
Only one I am aware of in these times.
Could be also that being rich shelter one from suffering more and thus reduces the drive to practise and renounce.
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It doesn’t sound like your parents really need you. Parents mostly take a stance against ordination for so many different reasons. One has to really recognize for oneself that it is mostly selfishness and not much more. This gives ease to ones heart and loving kindness and understanding can arise.
Nobody can make this decision for you. But if you are sure then
- live in a Monastery for a few months and look how you feel
- hold on to your money
- explain your parents that also being a monastic, you are still able to look after them once in need. It’s not a Prison.
The “worldly looking after” is one thing. The merits they receive from your through your actions is much more worth.
This reflects my opinion and experience only.
Much success and blessings of the triple Gem:pray:Follow your heart and spread the merits 
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OP said it’s a constant calling. Given this is real, he also would have this in his next life.
Is being part of a Sangha absolutely necessary? The Buddha wasn’t part of a Sangha. I think many recluses aren’t part of a Sangha either. I even think that a Sangha isn’t that important and more like kindergarten or elementary school.
Or if he’s that rich he can just steal some of his parents money and use it to change his identity and vanish. Breaking Bad anyone? It’s technically not stealing since your parents want you to inherit it all in the first place.
And then hire fake parents, assuming it’s that important to be accepted into a monastic order. I’m just saying there are many ways to achieve your goal.
At this point it doesn’t matter since your parents are filthy rich and they don’t need your help whatsoever.
Just tell them to give the money to your sister or something or adopt someone from the orphanage. Even better if they donate the money after they die. I think this is a very good way to improve your karma. Namaste.
Hi Bhante. That’s not exclusively so is it? What I mean is, are there other possible reasons for a person being rich in the next life (perhaps not even kamma related??), or do the suttas suggest that it is only through generosity in their past (lives) that people become rich?
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Sutta didn’t say exclusively, but anyway being born into a rich family I would think that is the job of kamma to direct it. If say being born into a middle-class family and the family got super rich when the kid is 3 years old, then that could be due to the parent’s hard work and smarts, and kamma.
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Things are always changing, so having a calling in this life when young, doesn’t even mean one will still have the calling when old. Many cases are like that, I have seen so many wanted to renounce when young, after getting married and kids grown up and finally free, might not want to renounce anymore.
Buddha is part of the monastic order, he is the head of the monastic order. One can be a lay hermit, but harder to find food I think.
It’s not good to encourage stealing, that doesn’t improve good kamma. Do firm up your morality and not encourage others to break their precepts. This includes no stealing, no lying. Changing identity and vanishing, getting fake parents, are all signs of lying, such a person is far from qualified from wanting to be ordained, they should train more in the basic precepts first.
Yes, one good point of being rich is not having to worry about earning money to support parents in their old age.
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