… Orphaned at an early age, he wants
to ordain, wants to get a little bit of merit, gets depressed on
seeing that the monastery where he’s living doesn’t really abide by
the Vinaya. When a forest monk comes through the area, he immediately
latches on to this opportunity. This is what the Dhamma means: There’s
something better, and here’s the …
… He speaks out of season, speaks what isn’t factual, what isn’t in accordance with the goal, the Dhamma, & the Vinaya, words that are not worth treasuring. This is how one is made impure in four ways by verbal action.…
“And how is one made pure in three ways by bodily action? There is the case where a certain person, abandoning the taking …
… There are the rules he laid down in the precepts and in the rules of
the Vinaya to give you some guidelines. But there’s an awful lot that
you have to learn how to observe on your own.
And the same applies to your breath. When you focus on different parts
of the body, you’ll find that you get different results. When …
… I’ve been alerted recently there are some people who say that the
traditions that hold to the Vinaya are suffering from pride and
conceit, which is a sign that they’re not awakened and therefore their
teachings are no good. But as the Buddha advised, you hold to the
precepts even more than you would hold to your life. Now, as long as …
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Novices
The word sāmaṇera—translated here as “novice”—literally means a young contemplative. When the Buddha discontinued the going-for-refuge as a method of admission into the Bhikkhu Saṅgha, he retained it as the method by which boys too young for Acceptance could go forth. Ven. Rāhula, the Buddha’s own son, was the first to receive the Going-forth …
… The Buddha says, “This is the
way for progress in the Vinaya of the noble ones: to recognize a
wrongdoing as a wrongdoing and to make a resolve not to repeat it in
the future.” So the king leaves. The Buddha then tells the monks, “If
the king hadn’t killed his father, he would have become a
stream-enterer listening to the talk …
… Which three?
“There is the case of the person who—regardless of whether he does or doesn’t get to see the Tathāgata {Buddha], regardless of whether he does or doesn’t get to hear the Dhamma & Vinaya [Discipline] proclaimed by the Tathāgata—will not alight on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful qualities. There is the case of the person who—regardless of …
… They kept arguing, quarreling, & disputing, stabbing one another with weapons of the mouth: “You don’t understand this Dhamma-Vinaya. I understand this Dhamma-Vinaya. How could you understand this Dhamma-Vinaya? You practice wrongly. I practice rightly. I’m consistent. You’re inconsistent. What should be said first, you said last. What should be said last, you said first. What you cogitated so …
… This is one of the reasons why the origin stories for the rules in the
Vinaya often contain a lot of humor, so that you can recognize human
foibles. The human race has not changed that much in 2,500 years. You
can see the excuses that the monks give and the strange reasoning they
go through, and you can recognize that you’ve …
… A new Vinaya
guide had just come out, and in one of the additions tacked on the end
was a translation of some passages on ascetic practices, the
dhutanga practices. And although the scholarly monks in the city who
had found the text and translated it were occasionally practicing
these practices, Ajaan Sao took them really seriously. After all, the
Buddha said, “Go into …
… In the Canon, most of the
humor is in the Vinaya, which is the section on disciplinary rules.
You wouldn’t think with discipline that there’d be a lot of humor, but
this is how they make discipline palatable. Like the story about the
monk who gets so drunk that the Buddha was inspired to comment, “Back
when he was sober, he could …
… The Vinaya-mukha provides a third interpretation, defining “not aiming at privacy” with the following illustration: A bhikkhu is sitting in a secluded place with a man and woman present, but the man gets up and leaves before the bhikkhu can stop him. In other words, the bhikkhu is not intending to sit alone in private with the woman at all, but circumstances beyond …
… If you want to get a sense of how patient the Buddha could be, read
through the Vinaya: all those monks and nuns who were misbehaving, and
he very patiently had to set out rules to stop this, stop that. He
went through all that so that it would keep the religion going, keep
his teaching alive.
One of the stories tells of a …
… After all,
Ajaan Sao and Ajaan Mun read books on the Vinaya and on the dhutanga
or ascetic practices. That’s what inspired them to go out into the
forest to begin with. In other words, they took what they read and let
that direct them.
Of course, they had to learn a lot of things that were not mentioned
in the texts, and …
… We see this often in the Vinaya. A lot of the offenses are defined by
how you perceive the object you get involved with. For instance, if
you touch a woman, you have lustful intent in doing it, and you
perceive that she is a woman, then the offense is one thing. If you
perceived her as something else—such as a man or …
… He speaks out of season, speaks what isn’t factual, what isn’t in accordance with the goal, the Dhamma, & the Vinaya, words that are not worth treasuring.
“This is how there are four sorts of un-Dhamma conduct, dissonant conduct with speech.
Unskillful Mental Action
“And how are there three sorts of un-Dhamma conduct, dissonant conduct with the mind?
“There is the …
… If the preceptor’s or teacher’s customary habits deal with areas neither forbidden nor allowed by the Vinaya, the wise policy would be to abide by those habits for the sake of communal harmony. This ruling should apply to all instances when Communities attempt to translate the protocols into modern situations.
Incoming Bhikkhus’ Protocol
A certain incoming bhikkhu, unfastening the bolt and pushing …
… In fact, when we look at how the word parimukhaṁ is used in other suttas or passages in the Vinaya, we can see that it’s highly unlikely that parimukhaṁ, in the context of meditation instructions, refers to a particular part of the body at all. This is what we find:
Parimukhaṁ appears in Cullavagga (Cv) V.27.4, a Vinaya text, where it …
… Everything we do or say comes from the heart, as stated in the Buddha’s words:
mano-pubbaṅgamā dhammā
mano-seṭṭhā mano-mayā:
‘All dhammas are preceded by the heart, dominated by the heart, made from the heart.’ The Buddha formulated the entire Dhamma and Vinaya from out of this great foundation, the heart. So when his disciples contemplate in accordance with the Dhamma …
… This is why he had
the compassion to set out the religion, to establish the Dhamma and
Vinaya, so that people thousands of years afterwards in another part
of the world could taste these benefits. This is why the experience of
the deathless is accompanied by a sense of intense gratitude for the
Buddha—for what he did to find this happiness, and what …
2 : The Practice of Restraint | Non-violence
… He speaks out of season, speaks what isn’t factual, what isn’t in accordance with the goal, the Dhamma, & the Vinaya, words that are not worth treasuring. This is how one is made impure in four ways by verbal action.… “And how is one made pure in three ways by bodily action? There is the case where a certain person, abandoning the taking …
DN 33 Saṅgīti Sutta | The Discourse for Reciting Together
… They kept arguing, quarreling, & disputing, stabbing one another with weapons of the mouth: “You don’t understand this Dhamma-Vinaya. I understand this Dhamma-Vinaya. How could you understand this Dhamma-Vinaya? You practice wrongly. I practice rightly. I’m consistent. You’re inconsistent. What should be said first, you said last. What should be said last, you said first. What you cogitated so …
