… In terms of the Vinaya, we have our duties. In terms of our practice,
in terms of the four noble truths, we have our duties. And even the
things that we do voluntarily—when you look around and see something
should be done, and there’s nobody doing it, well, you go ahead and do
it. That’s a good trait to have as …
… Even after his Awakening, he spent 45 years establishing the teaching, the Dhamma and the Vinaya. It took a lot of work. And he didn’t do it with an apathetic attitude, thinking, “I don’t care whether it works or not.” He put a lot of effort into making it a teaching that would last. He noticed that some people would take the …
… So, what he was doing in taking the Vinaya out into the woods, practicing in line with the ascetic dhutanga practices, was radical. His justification was, well, this is what the Dhamma is. The customs of Thailand, and Laos—or of any country—were the customs of people with defilements. If you want to become a noble one, you can’t practice in line …
… They
don’t want to hear the Vinaya. In that way, the pursuit of power can
actually close off the path.
So the Buddha’s basically saying you have power within you to put an
end to suffering if you understand the workings of your own mind. This
is why we meditate. You could sit here and follow your thoughts for
the hour. That …
… He describes the comprehension of sensuality clinging, view clinging, habit-&-practice clinging, and doctrine-of-self clinging.
“In a Dhamma & Vinaya of this sort, monks, it’s obvious that confidence in the teacher is rightly directed, confidence in the doctrine is rightly directed, the completion of virtues is rightly directed, and the dearness & agreeability of one’s companions is rightly directed. Why is that …
… This is the quality of a person of integrity.
“And further, a person of no integrity is learned… a master of the Vinaya… a Dhamma-speaker. He notices, ‘I am a Dhamma-speaker, but these other monks are not Dhamma-speakers. He exalts himself for being a Dhamma-speaker and disparages others. This is the quality of a person of no integrity.
“But a …
… Virtue, which in terms of where its principles are found is the Vinaya Piṭaka.
2. Concentration, which in terms of where its principles are found is the Suttanta Piṭaka.
3. Discernment, which in terms of where its principles are found is the Abhidhamma Piṭaka.
Expressed in terms of their meaning, they refer to three modes of behavior to be developed –
1. Virtue: keeping our …
… It may seem paradoxical that, on one hand, here is a tradition that
holds very strictly to the Vinaya and has a very clear idea about what
is Dhamma and what’s not Dhamma, and yet they say, “Be ingenious. Be
resourceful.” But actually, there’s no paradox at all within the
parameters of what’s skillful and what’s not. You have to …
… In the succeeding days, the Vinaya
texts say that the Buddha taught the Dhamma to the remaining four
brethren, so that they all gained the Dhamma eye. We don’t know how
many days it took. But there’s a tradition in Thailand that on the
fifth day, he gave his second recorded sermon, which we chanted just
now. We know it now as …
… I say that such a thing is an evil, greedy deed, for what can one person do for another?’—he, speaking in this way, would be a creator of obstacles for those children of good family who, coming to the Dhamma & Vinaya revealed by the Tathāgata, attain the sort of grand distinction where they attain the fruit of stream-entry, the fruit of once …
… Ajaan Mun was still a wild monk, you
might say, living in the forest, eating only one meal a day, wandering
around, and being very strict about the Vinaya. That was why people
accused him of not following Thai or Laotian customs.
He would tell them he aspired to be a noble one, and if you want to
be a noble one, you have …
… Especially now with the
Internet, you can get all kinds of suttas, read lots about the Vinaya…
Are you taking advantage of that? We’ve got all these suttas in
translation. We’ve got the works of the ajaans in translation. If
you’re going to spend some time reading—read that.
Think about it, and think about what the Buddha said: When you …
… He taught Upali, the Vinaya expert, a series of tests. In every case, it was: When you put this into practice—and that’s what those conventions are meant for, to be put into practice—what are the results?
If a teaching leads to harm, there’s something wrong. It’s not the genuine article. If it makes you burdensome on other people, if …
… If you tell yourself, “Well, I’ll just wait until my next lifetime,” he warns that the Dhamma and the Vinaya are going to deteriorate over time. The opportunities don’t get better. They get worse. So you make use of the opportunities you have now. In this case, you’re motivating yourself with a little bit of fear: the wise kind of fear …
… You see this in the legal texts, like the Vinaya. There would be many possible factors for an offense, so they’d run through all the various permutations, around the circle to show the verdict in each possible case. In this case, there are four truths and three levels of knowledge, so the sutta just goes around the list, one by one by one …
… If you tell yourself, “Well, I’ll just wait until my next lifetime,” he warns that the Dhamma and the Vinaya are going to deteriorate over time. The opportunities don’t get better. They get worse. So you make use of the opportunities you have now. In this case, you’re motivating yourself with a little bit of fear: the wise kind of fear …
… You see this in the legal texts, like the Vinaya. There would be many possible factors for an offense, so they’d run through all the various permutations, around the circle to show the verdict in each possible case. In this case, there are four truths and three levels of knowledge, so the sutta just goes around the list, one by one by one …
… Think, for instance, of how some Mahāyāna traditions dropped the Vinaya’s procedures for dealing with teacher-student sexual abuse: Was this the Dhamma wisely adapting itself to their needs?
The Buddha foresaw that people would introduce what he called “synthetic Dhamma”—and when that happened, he said, the true Dhamma would disappear (SN 16:13). He compared the process to what happens when …
… However, it
wasn’t until later that he began legislating a Pāṭimokkha, a
code of rules, that eventually became the backbone of the
Vinaya. The events leading up to the legislation of the first
rule in the Pāṭimokkha are these:
At that time, the Awakened One, the Blessed One, was dwelling
in Verañjā at the foot of Naḷeru’s nimba tree with a
large …
In the principles that the Buddha taught to his stepmother,
Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī on how to distinguish what is Dhamma and Vinaya
and what is not, there are three that have to do with how your
practice affects other people.
The first is that genuine Dhamma leads to modesty. In other words, you
don’t go bragging about your attainments or about how much you …
MN 11 Cūḷasīhanāda Sutta | The Shorter Lion’s Roar Discourse
… He describes the comprehension of sensuality clinging, view clinging, habit-&-practice clinging, and doctrine-of-self clinging. “In a Dhamma & Vinaya of this sort, monks, it’s obvious that confidence in the teacher is rightly directed, confidence in the doctrine is rightly directed, the completion of virtues is rightly directed, and the dearness & agreeability of one’s companions is rightly directed. Why is that …
Discernment | Basic Themes
… Virtue, which in terms of where its principles are found is the Vinaya Piṭaka. 2. Concentration, which in terms of where its principles are found is the Suttanta Piṭaka. 3. Discernment, which in terms of where its principles are found is the Abhidhamma Piṭaka. Expressed in terms of their meaning, they refer to three modes of behavior to be developed – 1. Virtue: keeping our …
