… In the Vinaya, the monks’ rules, there’s a very large section devoted to medical care. The Buddha recognized that some illnesses respond to medicine and others don’t. When the medicines are available, use them.
Think of that story about Ajaan Mun that Ajaan Fuang told. When there was a monk who was sick and there was no medicine, if the monk asked …
… They
stuck fast to what they knew of the Dhamma and the Vinaya, and even
that they tested.
This is a principle that Ajaan Mun trained in all of his students: one
was the confidence that they could actually do the practice and figure
out what was genuine Dhamma from what’s not, and two, that it depended
on their own truthfulness, their own …
… There’s the
humor in the origin stories for the rules in the Vinaya, and there’s
humor in some of the suttas and the tradition has been passed down.
Ajaans of the forest tradition—even the really fierce, serious ones,
like Ajaan Maha Boowa and Ajaan Mun—had very sharp senses of humor.
Ajaan Maha Boowa apparently once gave a Dhamma talk on …
… He wasn’t in a position
where he could tell us what we have to do, aside from the monks
who—once we become ordained—are committed to following the teachings,
following the Vinaya. But otherwise, there’s no imposition. But he
spoke as an expert: If you want true happiness, this is what you’ve
got to do. We follow the path voluntarily …
… He set out the Dhamma, set out
the Vinaya, the monastic rules, in such a way that his teaching has
been able to survive up until now.
When you look at his life, there are three qualities that stand out.
The first is wisdom or discernment, his ability to realize what needed
to be done, his ability to gauge what he had learned about …
… This normalcy of mind, which is maintained through the power of the discipline of mindfulness (sati-vinaya), forms the essence of virtue: firmness, steadiness, stability. And the resulting flavor or nourishment of virtue is a solitary sense of calm for the mind. When freedom of this sort arises within us, this is called the development of sīlānussati, the mindfulness of virtue. This is virtue …
… Look at the way the Buddha designed the Vinaya. When a monk ordains,
he’s supposed to treat his preceptor as a father. The preceptor is
supposed to treat the young monk as a son. And they’re supposed to
hold to this relationship as long as they’re both alive, with the same
sense of commitment that a father and son would have …
… We have the rules in the Vinaya to tell us the things that are really
wrong and really right to do, but then there are the finer shades of
things: What is the best way to clean out the sala, what is the best
way to sweep, what’s the best way to mop, what’s the best way to wipe
down a floor …
… You see
a lot of these in the Vinaya, where they explain all the different
factors that would be related to a particular offense and then combine
all the factors in lists called wheels.
It’s the same with the Buddha’s first sermon, his first Dhamma
teaching. He talks about the four noble truths and how each of the
noble truths has three …
… In the Vinaya, he does lay down the law for the
monks and nuns. Because they’ve given themselves to the practice, he
demands a higher level of commitment from them. But he never tells
anybody they have to do anything in any way. He says, if you want to
find true happiness, this is how it’s done. If you want to learn …
… He was very strict about the Vinaya, with very clear standards about what was proper and what was not proper, which made it very easy to live with him. Once you got a sense of what his standards were, you could stick by them. There were times when I would be criticized by some of the lay people for holding to Ajaan Fuang’s …
… You may categorically hold, ‘This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher’s instruction.’”
[According to the commentaries, Mahapajapati Gotami gained arahantship soon after receiving this instruction.]
Cv X.5
Sister Sona on Aging
Ten children I bore
from this physical heap.
Then weak from that, aged,
I went to a nun.
She taught me the Dhamma:
aggregates, sense spheres …
… As I said, this is where
the Vinaya is aimed. This is where the Dhamma is aimed. All the
customs around what the monks should do, all the customs around how
lay people are supposed to behave: They’re all aimed here.
As the Buddha said, the flavor of the Dhamma, no matter what, if it’s
genuine Dhamma, is like the ocean. The …
… He speaks in season, speaks what is factual, what is in accordance with the goal, the Dhamma, & the Vinaya. He speaks words worth treasuring, seasonable, reasonable, circumscribed, connected with the goal.” — AN 10:99
“Abandoning sexual misconduct, he abstains from sexual misconduct. He doesn’t get sexually involved with those who are protected by their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, their sisters, their relatives …
… I don’t know the Pali term for a sense of humor, but you see it throughout the texts, especially in the Vinaya: the ability to laugh at the foibles of human nature that led monks and nuns to do unskillful things. Many of the origin stories for the rules really are humorous. They teach you to laugh at that kind of behavior, but …
… Still, they had to study from some books to
begin with to know the Vinaya, to know the basic teachings of the
Dhamma. If they didn’t pick these things up from books, they had to
pick them up from Dhamma talks. So there’s an extent to which you have
to learn the Dhamma in the books. But then there’s a skill …
… All the duties of the Buddha—finding the path, teaching the
path, establishing the Dhamma and Vinaya—were done. His work was
complete, and he entered nibbāna, as they say, “with no fuel
remaining.”
This image is of a fire going out. On the night of his awakening, he
became a fire that had stopped burning but whose coals were still
warm. In other …
… As a result, they conclude that the passages asserting the categorical status of the four noble truths and right view found in the rest of the Canon—the Vinaya, the first four nikāyas, and other poetry in the fifth nikāya—are later interpolations.
From there, these scholars have further interpreted these passages from the Aṭṭhaka Vagga in line with traditional Western schools of thought …
… Go look in the Vinaya. A couple of the rules were actually formulated because some arahants made some mistakes. For instance, there’s the rule against monks eating stored-up food. Ven. Belatthasisa, who was an arahant, figured, “Well, I can just go for alms once a week, take the leftover rice, and dry it. That’s a nice frugal way of living, and …
… The teachings of the Dhamma, the rules of the Vinaya, are all in this context of the apprenticeship: picking up qualities of the heart, picking up a sense of values, from being around someone whose behavior is Dhamma. After all, the whole idea of putting an end to suffering is a very strong statement of values right there—that this is the important issue …
Virtue | Basic Themes
… This normalcy of mind, which is maintained through the power of the discipline of mindfulness (sati-vinaya), forms the essence of virtue: firmness, steadiness, stability. And the resulting flavor or nourishment of virtue is a solitary sense of calm for the mind. When freedom of this sort arises within us, this is called the development of sīlānussati, the mindfulness of virtue. This is virtue …
