Burma’s former president Thein Sein shed his formal attire and his hair to become a Buddhist monastic.
Thein Sein’s transition took place on Monday—four days after the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi took over the government.
Photographs, which went viral on social media, show the former president with a shaved head in a saffron robe beside a fellow monk.
The ministry of information released a statement on its Facebook page on Monday saying Thein Sein will spend five days at the Dhamma Dipati Monastery outside Pyin Oo Lwin, a scenic hill town near Mandalay in central Burma.
A temporary stint of monkhood is common in the predominantly Buddhist country. Boys are expected to ordain as apprentices to monks at some point in their childhood and return later in their adulthood.
Thein Sein has not spoken publicly about his choice to temporarily become a monk but the official statement indicated that he had been considering it since January when he attended a Buddhist conference.
“Recently, the country’s most respected monk, Sitagu, urged ex-President Thein Sein to enter into the Buddhist monkhood when he attended the World Buddhist Conference. Thein Sein told Sitagu that he was busy with the duties of a president and promised that he would be ordained as soon as he finished his term as president,” the statement from the ministry of information said according to The Star.
Thein Sein, a former general, was appointed as the president for a five-year term in 2011 to head a supposedly civilian government after the end of 50 years of military rule.
In November, 2015, the country held its first free election in decades where Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won by a landslide.
Thein Sein transferred the power to the new president Htin Kyaw who was hand-picked by Suu Kyi.
