07 Pasadika Sutta (Part 3)
Bodham dhammam sangham namassami. Okay, everyone, so welcome to the, I think the fourth installment of the Pasadika Sutta. It's a little bit dry kind of sutta, but it has, I think, quite a bit of interesting material at the same time.
And as I said last time, Ajahn Brahm really likes the sutta, has some very nice points later on that he likes to emphasise. So it's kind of nice from that point of view. So the idea in the sutta is it starts off with the Nigganta Nataputta, also known as Mahavira, the leader of the Jains having passed away.
And after he's passed away, the Niggantas, the Jains, they argue with each other. They argue what is the right teaching, what is not the right teaching, who was enlightened, who was not, who understands the Dhamma and who doesn't. And this is, I think, a very common thing in any kind of community, certainly spiritual communities, when the leader is gone, it's very hard to kind of keep that harmony.
You see that even in the present day in Buddhist communities when a charismatic teacher suddenly passes away, it very often deteriorates. And so this gives the Buddha the opportunity to talk about what is good teaching. And this is kind of how he starts off, by what is a good teaching, what is a good teacher, what is a good Dhamma, what is a good disciple.
And when the disciples kind of have reached a certain strength and power, that is when that teaching is fulfilled. And very interestingly, this sutta is one of the places where you see that you want the bhikkhus to be strong, the bhikkhunis to be strong, the laymen and the laywomen, the four parishes, the four assemblies of Buddhism. Every one of them should be strong and powerful and well-established.
And that's when the Dhamma is considered complete. And this is what it says, only then is it complete. And so this kind of reinforces this idea that the idea of bhikkhunis seems to have been there from the very beginning of the Buddha's dispensation.
It's only considered complete if you have bhikkhunis. And then he carries on with this, talking about what makes the Dhamma or the triple gems so powerful and so special in the world, why they are unique, how it compares basically to other teachings. And from that, he then goes on to talk about the idea of chanting together, sanghiti or sanghayana, which is the idea of chanting or actually singing.
Gaya is like singing as well, singing and chanting, coming together to chant, to weed out meaning with meaning, phrasing with phrasing, then meaning with meaning. It's almost as if you can see the beginning of the commentaries and the way the Dhamma here is phrased. Phrasing compared to phrasing, obviously that is the Pali, that is the canonical text.
The word Pali, by the way, as used in the commentaries, means canonical text. It doesn't mean a language, it means a canonical text. And so comparison of the suttas, in other words, you want to make sure you have the right phrasing at all times.
And then secondarily, you want to have the right meaning as well. And of course the meaning is not something that is inherent in the text. First you have the text and then you discuss afterwards, but the meaning is just like we do these days all the time.
And so the meaning is really the beginning of the commentaries, the beginning of what is called the atta katha. Atta katha literally means the discussion or the talk about meaning. Atta meaning katha is the idea of talk or discussion.
And so you can almost see that whole thing being kind of already being, what is this nice word, adumbrated. It's kind of already being proposed. It always starts at this point, then it gets developed later on, obviously over time.
So then the next question that arises is, well, when we do the chanting together or when we have discussions together, what if we don't agree? What happens then? And this is what this next section is about, reaching agreement about what the Dhamma is. And this gives us, I think, some nice hints, some nice ideas of how we should reach agreement also in the present day. So whenever we have a discussion about the Dhamma, these are kind of nice reminders of the right way to go about this.
So let's have a look at what the Buddha says about reaching agreement here in the Prasādhika Sutta. So suppose one of those spiritual companions who is training in harmony and mutual appreciation without disputing were to recite the teaching in the Sangha. So first of all, the interesting point here is that it starts off with people being in harmony.
If there is no harmony, then it is very difficult to come to any kind of agreement about what the Dhamma is. The starting point is always harmony, that we get on with each other, that we blend like milk and water, as it says so beautifully in the Suttas. So the starting point is harmony.
And then, if there is a disagreement, then this harmony, to some extent, may arise out of that. And then our job is to restore harmony again. The baseline should always be harmony.
The moving out of harmony is like an aberration of that baseline. And so you want to, starting out with harmony, then there is a chance of having a proper discussion about what the real Dhamma is. So that is a starting point.
Then it says, if someone were to recite the teaching in the Sangha, well, sometimes you have to look up the Pali, because you never know exactly what Bhante Sujato is translating. And I must admit, he tends to translate a bit more liberally, freely, than Bhikkhu Bodhi does. And so you really, it's important to look up the Pali.
So the word here, behind recite, is not Sanghiti or Sanghayati, that you might expect. The word is actually Bhaseya, where to recite. And Bhaseya really just means to speak.
And you see this in the Vinaya, and you see this sometimes in the Suttas as well, how monks will speak the Dhamma in the assembly. You speak the Dhamma if you have been chosen by the Sangha to do so. But that does not necessarily mean the same thing as recite.
And this is, I think, quite important for understanding what comes afterwards, that this is not necessarily recitation. It could also mean like a discussion. You talk about the Dhamma, which could also include then commentarial issues, explanation of the meaning, and these kind of things.
So you are speaking the Dhamma in the Sangha. This is what this really is about. So the Sangha is in harmony, you are speaking the Dhamma in the Sangha.
Then what? Now you might think this venerable misconstrues the meaning and mistakes the phrasing. So again, the idea here, mistaking the phrasing, basically means that you get the wording of the canonical text wrong. You have misremembered the canonical text.
Misunderstanding the meaning means that you are interpreting it wrongly. Meaning comes from interpretation. So there are two layers here.
The meaning then refers to commentary. It refers to discussion of what the canonical text actually means. So here we have someone who both gets the wording wrong and also misunderstands the meaning.
Now, if this person was simply reciting the Dhamma in the Sangha, you would have no idea about the meaning. It would only be the phrasing that you could comment on. Because reciting the Dhamma in the Sangha, all you would hear would be the actual phrasing of the Dhamma.
So the fact that he is talking about both the phrasing and the meaning suggests to me that this is more broadly a kind of Dhamma discussion. We are both talking about the phrasing and the meaning together. And this kind of makes a big difference.
However, there is another way of understanding this. This is also interesting if you want to look at how the Dhamma and the commentary is developed over time. And it is possible that what it refers to is an actual recitation of the Dhamma, but then a parallel recitation of the commentaries together with the Dhamma to two things being recited in parallel.
Because otherwise, how do you discuss the meaning? You have to somehow discuss these things together, especially as the commentaries start to develop and they gain a certain authority in the Sangha. And in fact, this seems to have been the case because when you look at what is happening in certain suttas, you can sometimes see that commentarial material seems to have intruded into the suttas. How would that have happened? Well, it would have happened exactly in this way.
You recite the Dhamma and the commentaries together and sometimes you would mix it up. It wouldn't be possible very hard to kind of keep it apart. And this has been pointed out by Venerable Nalaya in a number of places that both in the Pali, the Pali seems to have added things that are not found in other parallel suttas and it looks like commentarial matter and sometimes it's the other way around.
The other traditions have added things which are found in the commentaries in the Pali. So commentaries and canonical texts are not always completely separable. And this is kind of an important understanding to be able to decipher the suttas properly if you like or interpret them in the right way.
So these are kind of the two ways of thinking about what is going on here. Either it is a general Dhamma discussion where you quote the suttas and then interpret it or it is a recitation of commentaries and the suttas together. So what if you get both the meaning and the phrasing wrong? You should neither approve nor dismiss that person.
But you should say, reverend, if this is the meaning the phrasing may either be this or that which is more fitting. You kind of lead them along into a discussion in a nice way. You don't approve or dismiss, you just kind of enter in a friendly argument with the person or a friendly discussion.
And if this is the phrasing, the meaning may be either this or that which is more fitting. Suppose they reply, this phrasing fits the meaning better than that and this meaning fits the phrasing better than that. Without flattering or rebuking them you should carefully convince them by examining that meaning and that phrasing.
So this is, you should convince them obviously there are two sides to the story. So who is going to convince who depends on the circumstances. Obviously if there is a large Sangha present then there will be some kind of majority understanding of what is the real Dhamma.
So to be able to understand exactly what is going on here because it's a little bit hard to understand how you can ask both about the meaning and the phrasing at the same time referring to the meaning and phrasing. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this myself. So let's go to the next one instead where it becomes a bit more obvious.
Suppose another spiritual companion were to recite the teaching in the Sangha. Now you might think this venerable misconstrues the meaning but gets the phrasing right. So you have understood, you have the Pali text, you have the canonical text right but you have interpreted it wrongly.
The meaning is misunderstood. The Atta is unclear. You should neither approve nor dismiss them but say, Reverend, if this is the phrasing the meaning may be either this or that which is more fitting.
So here it is more clear what is going on because everyone agrees on the phrasing. So you have a baseline. You have something you can start with.
You're starting with an agreement on what the canonical text is. Then you say that this can be interpreted in different ways. Either the way that the person who is giving the interpretation is doing it or probably what you consider the appropriate way.
So you ask them which one is actually better according to their point of view. You're starting to guide them, to show them that there are alternative interpretations here. Which meaning is better? So the question here I suppose is how do we derive this meaning in the first place? There are two different people having different ideas about the meaning of the text.
How does anyone decide on these meanings? You have the Dhamma, the Suttas are clear. The phrasing in the Sutta is clear. How do we know what the meaning is supposed to be? What authorities are we supposed to use? And of course the first authority that we might use in the present day is the commentary, right? And as there may have been a commentary already starting in those days now the commentaries are very clear.
And so we might go to the commentary and say what the commentaries have to say. That is often the first port of call with these things. And we should be very careful with dismissing the commentaries.
We should always remember that the commentaries is the accumulated wisdom of a large number of very educated and maybe even enlightened people of the past. And so we should be very, very careful not to overestimate our own understanding. I've seen so many times when I have thought that I was way smarter than the commentaries.
And after a few years I realised actually no, the commentary was probably right and I got it wrong. And after a while you get a little bit more humble. I don't know if I'm probably still way too conceited as I am now, but hopefully getting a bit more humble over time.
And I've seen that not just with myself but also with other people. Sometimes with people who are really clever. And I always am more and more sceptical of this idea of going it alone and thinking that you have understood.
So using the commentaries is very useful. But sometimes the commentaries do get it wrong. And sometimes we should not follow the commentaries.
And then the way to find the meaning of a phrase in the canonical text is to understand more of the canonical texts. Understand the context for which this particular phrase is used elsewhere. Understand the broader kind of canonical, the four Nikayas, part of the Kuddhaka Nikaya.
And then you can bring out the meaning. Sometimes you will lean on someone you consider an Arya. You might lean on someone who kind of... I mean we all have teachers in this world.
Very difficult to go anywhere without teachers. So you listen to maybe to someone like Ajahn Brahm and say, what does Ajahn Brahm have to say about this? Of course, in the discussion like this, you cannot say that Ajahn Brahm is your authority because other people may not have that kind of faith that you have. So ultimately you have to come back to the teachings in the suttas.
But as a stopgap, part of it, personally you might like to lean on Ajahn Brahm in terms of his interpretations. And I would recommend that, because sometimes you need some of that guidance. We need to have some idea where the real Dhamma exists in the world.
If you have no idea where the real Dhamma exists in the world, the whole thing is really unmoored. And the ability to find and interpret things correctly actually loses its anchor. The anchoring is really gone and becomes much, much more difficult as a consequence.
So as long as there are areas in the world, we have the Dhamma here. When the areas are gone, then it becomes incredibly hard to get back to this reality. Of course, it depends on our ability to recognize the areas.
And by that mutual combination of reading the suttas carefully and observing people, I think it's possible to still get there. So this is how you then arrive at the meaning. Ultimately, by quoting the suttas more broadly and then bringing that together, that is the ultimate way of discovering the meaning of any phrase in the suttas.
And that is how a lot of Dhamma discussions will go. And then you can come to the meaning, hopefully, by doing that. Still, it is often very hard, but at least it is a very helpful way of doing things.
So then, suppose they reply, this meaning fits the phrasing better than that. Without flattering or rebuking, you should carefully convince them by examining that meaning. So again, you are assuming that both of you want to find the truth.
One of these very important things on the path of the Dhamma is a commitment to truth, not a commitment to your ego, not a commitment to winning the argument, not a commitment to not be hurt in a discussion. What this path is about is about truth. And that should be the main commitment.
And if that means having to let go of some of your prior ideas, well then, good. That is what we should be aiming for. And it's far too common in the Buddhist world, you get the feeling all the time, that people argue because of the sense of self rather than the real search for truth.
They are holding on to things. And as soon as you see that, well, actually there is not much point in arguing anymore because you know you can't win that argument, at least not at that time. You let it be.
Maybe you come back to the argument later on. And this commitment to truth is an incredibly important part of this. Being open at all times, never being too sure of yourself, is extraordinarily important.
So this is the idea here. The connection between the commentaries, if you like, the meaning and the phrasing is coming out. And both are important in the suttas.
So, yeah. Okay. Anyone want to say anything about that? We have been going for quite a while there.
I don't know what to tell him. You are talking about the commentaries, but at that time did they really have commentaries? Didn't it just... They had this kind of thing where somebody recites the text, and then they recite it, and then they said that Buddha meant this with this text. Yeah.
So you are talking about commentaries, but it was actually this kind of discussion, what you are doing, or this kind of teaching, isn't it? Yeah. But that tends to become commentaries after a while, right? After a while that becomes... Because they become an authoritative way of interpreting the thing. And so some of the very early texts, like the Nidesa, for example, are very early commentaries that we find, that have become canonical later on.
And I would argue that the Abhidhamma is a kind of commentary on the suttas, a certain kind of commentary. I mean, it is more than a commentary, because it expands as well, but it is a kind of commentary on the suttas. And so I think it wouldn't have taken long.
Let's say the Venerable Sariputta, you actually see that in the suttas. He is commenting on the Four Noble Truths. This is the longest sentence of the elephant's footprint.
He is basically making commentary right there. So some of the suttas that he is making are almost like commentaries already found inside the suttas. And so it would have taken long before this kind of literature, probably within the lifetime of the Buddha, already a commentarial kind of authoritative oral tradition would have existed already, I would say.
But there is no special word for that. They just meant this kind of teaching, as you are doing now. I think atta is the meaning here.
You put meaning against meaning. You put phrasing with phrasing and meaning with meaning. I would say that atta is precisely that discussion like we are having now, or it could have been more formalized already because it came from certain teachers.
It is basically what we are doing here. You are saying this and then I ask, are you sure? Yes, similar to this. But more authoritative than this.
Because they would have monks who would take it as real authorities. Am I allowed to ask a question? Yes, of course. Two questions.
The first one actually was the same with Romulo, but this is a silly question, but who is speaking? Is it the Buddha knowing that there will be commentaries to his teachings later on? Is this the Buddha speaking or is it the disciples? Yes, this is the Buddha speaking. Because there were commentaries already. As I said, it is not commentarism quite as we have them today.
But there would have been comments on the suttas. As I said, there would have been interpretations. Interpretation would have been required from the very beginning.
And that is why you have like Venerable Sariputta expanding many of the teachings of the Majjhima Nikaya, for example, in great detail. Those would have been like early comments or early expansions on the core teachings of the Buddha. This would have started almost straight away.
So the Buddha, of course, would have known about that. And second question, this discussion that the Buddha is, I guess, encouraging people, is this for people who are Aryans or the other ones? For anyone. Because you know how Ajahn Brahm, whenever I ask a question, he always says, and in the talks, he encourages to be really skilled in samadhi and jhanas and not to engage in questions because it is eating the menu and not tasting the food.
So I am just wondering what the Buddha's instructions were because it doesn't want us all to engage in discussion while we're not tasting. It's about balance, right? It's about discussing when it is necessary and not discussing too much, but also asking when it is required. And especially if you are practicing and your meditation is going in a certain way and you want to find your way.
You wonder, why am I blocked? Why isn't meditation going further? That is the right time to ask. Why isn't it moving yet? What are the foundations that are required? What am I getting wrong? This is what you find in the Upakalesa Sutta, very beautifully, where the Buddha asks the three kind of ideal monks Anuruddha, Kimbala and Nandiya. And he asks them, how are you going? And they say, oh, we're having this problem.
And then he expounds how to overcome that problem. So that is the right time to ask very often. And often, I think, we probably discuss too much.
In this monastery, we don't discuss all that much Dhamma, to be honest, so it's not a big problem here. But sometimes you have to ask yourself, is this going to be useful or not? And I think Ajahn Brahm, he wants an easy life as well. He doesn't want to have too many questions.
That's part of the issue, I think. So knowing the right time is important. Okay, anyone else? I can barely see what's happening.
It's so dark out there. How could we have more Dhamma discussion, Ajahn? One perspective could be the suttas apply to a Sotapanna, in most cases. So unless you've got right view, or you can trust that you're getting the teaching from a Sotapanna.
So to use your example, Sariputta was probably an anagami or an arahant at the time. So that gave him credence. That gave him reputation.
And there are suttas where he goes to the Buddha and the Buddha says, no, that person wasn't an arahant. You said he went around with people with bad reputation, but that person told you an arahant, and I can prove that was the case. So would it be fair to say this sutta that we're going through now doesn't apply to us unless we're Sotapannas? No, I think it applies because you never know exactly who are the Sotapannas in the world.
It's always uncertain. So it still applies. We still do our best to read the suttas.
We can gather a lot without being a Sotapanna. You're not going to be completely off the market, usually. And I think we have good corrections within the monastery if we go too far off the market.
And so I think, no, it has to be for everyone because you can never make that distinction clearly between arias and non-arias. And so it has to apply to everyone. So we just have to do our best.
That's what I think. Should we have more dhamma discussions? Well, it's really up to us what we want to make out of this thing. I mean, usually during the rains retreat we have more sutta-based discussions.
We could maybe have more here as well. I don't know. It's really up to the sangha to decide those kind of things.
I don't really have any strong meaning one way or the other. But I find it's quite nice to make these occasions when I'm here to make it more discussion oriented. I quite like to have the people have a chance to voice their opinions and their views of things.
I think it's quite nice to have that opportunity. So let's go on to the opposite case. So here we are.
Suppose another spiritual companion were to recite the teaching in the sangha. Now you might think this venerable construes the meaning correctly but mistakes the phrasing. You should neither approve nor dismiss them but say, Reverend, if this is the meaning the phrasing may be either this or that, which is more fitting.
So this is another kind of classical thing that you may agree on the meaning of something. You can read the text but sometimes even today there are different versions of a Pali text or of a canonical text. The reading is sometimes uncertain.
Sometimes you compare it to readings in the Chinese and you understand the Pali might have got corrupted. There's all of these kind of things going on. So then how do you decide what is the proper Pali or the proper canonical reading if it seems to be corrupted, if there are many alternatives, if the Chinese version is different, what do you do? And then what you have to do is you have to go to the overall meaning of the Dhamma.
That overall meaning of the Dhamma, what the Dhamma means, that should guide also the phrasing. So it gets a bit circular here because the meaning is understood through the phrasing and then the phrasing is understood through the meaning. And that's why it is useful to have an overview of the Dhamma overall because that tends to solidify both the phrasing and the meaning.
And so you use your general understanding of the Dhamma to discuss or to understand phrasings that are uncertain. And this becomes very important especially when we're talking about very kind of obscure parts of the suttas. And sometimes you discuss kind of very obscure phrases that are sometimes where nibbāna becomes misconstrued.
And these of course are very serious wrong views because if you misconstrue nibbāna very likely you will not make it to the end of the path. And so phrases like viññāna and anidassana viññāna which occurs twice in the suttas is a classic example of that. You construe that the phrasing in those suttas according to the larger meaning, the larger understanding of what the Dhamma is about hopefully based on the...
Aryan view of what this is and not the other way around finding some kind of weird exception within those very rare phrasing. And this is very beautiful saying that Ajahn Brahm came back from Sri Lanka with us from the Anapotnikatera in Sri Lanka, who was at that time the head of the Buddhist publication Society in Tandy. And he said to Ajahn Brahm you should always interpret the rare phrases in accordance with the large majority of sutas rather than the other way around, rather than the construing the large majority according to the rare ones.
And that is a very very powerful thing because it is so often forgotten. I just see the discussions on the discourse, the sutas central platform discourse, they very often revolve around these very rare phrases, and very often people have very strong opinions about it, yeah, and not really kind of in my opinion anyway taking on board enough the kind of broader understanding of the sutas,simple things that then tend to reinterpret those broader understandings more in light with those lesser ones.
That is how it looks to me anyway when I see some of these discussions. And so it is kind of a, you can see how tricky it gets. And of course the more corrupted the sutas are, the more corrupted the canonical texts are, the more that argument doesn't work anymore, because the corruptions get too many and there will come a point in the history of Buddhism when the sutas are too corrupted to really be able to fully understand what is going on. And at that point that's when the dumbbell gets lost and when there are no areas in the world well then there is no way back anymore and then you kind of have lost Buddhism is going to be on the way out.
So the two things working together in this way. So again if the phrasing is correct you then present the person with the meaning is correct with different possible phrasings and you say which is more fitting and they reply this phrasing fits the meaning better than that. And without fluttering or rebuking you should carefully convince them by examining that phrasing. So it is very interesting how much effort the Buddha goes into to ensure that the texts are stable, the texts are kept intact exactly the way they are from the very beginning here. And I discussed this last time but I think this is a really really important point because very often you read kind of scholarly articles about the Dhamma and they say there is no way that you can tell what is the original teaching because many monks came in there and they kind of remembered wrongly and they kind of messed it all up and it's only after the commentary that we know what the sutas are and all of these kind of things.
But what they are forgetting is that all the evidence points to the Buddhism or the Dhamma or the Buddha or the Sangha being incredibly conservative from the very beginning here. People don't seem to understand that if you think your teacher is enlightened you are going to think those words of the teacher being incredibly important. You are going to throw that out of the window or say it doesn't matter. If you think your teacher is the Buddha just hearing the word Buddha. Did you say Buddha? I said Buddha. I said Buddha. I said Buddha. This is Anata Tindigas meeting with the Buddha.
It's kind of this very powerful moment. If you think you have the Buddha are you going to just easily rearrange the words and say no no. He didn't really mean that. He meant this. This is what he probably meant. Of course not because that's madness. If you think you have enlightened teacher someone who has thought very carefully and that's what he says in the sutas thought very carefully how to present this in a holistic and a beautiful way then of course you are going to be conservative. You are going to try to keep these things intact for future generations for the happiness and for the well being of the future.
This is exactly what the Buddha says in this particular sutas. You should hold on to these things for the happiness and for the well being of future generations. He puts in a lot of effort here at the Buddha to show how this is done because this is what this is all about. This is why I think it is not very surprising if we have support. If we have kept the word of the Buddha pretty much intact over 2,500 years.
I think there is a lot of evidence that points in that direction. So this is where it all comes from this conservative ethos of the early Sangha. Anyway, suppose another spiritual companion were to recite the teaching in the Sangha. Now you might think this vendable construes the meaning correctly and gets the phrasing right. Saying good, you should express approval and appreciation of that mendic statement and they say to them, we are fortunate reverend, so very fortunate to see a vendable such as yourself, so well-wurst in the meaning and the phrasing as one of our spiritual companions.
We are fortunate, so very fortunate to see a vendable such as yourself. It is this beautiful expression of the metta in the Sangha where you really rejoice in having good spiritual companions in the Sangha. It is a very, I don't know, if we can all think like that about each other all the time. It would be kind of great, how fortunate we are to have such wonderful companions in the spiritual life. It sets the bar very high, but it is a very beautiful idea and I think it is something we should all strive for.
And then we are going to have a, I think, a really, we have a pretty good community already, but we can make it even better if we are able to think in this way of every one of us. Everyone here, everyone in the Sangha, as far as I can tell, is trying really hard to do the right thing. Everyone is aspiring in the right way, everyone is intending in the right way here. And thinking about that in the right way kind of leads you towards this. Wow, how fortunate I am to be a monk, to be part of the Sangha, to be part of a monastic community, to be part of lots of good lay people.
What a wonderful thing that is. And this is, I don't know, this is the way Anuruddha Kimbalandandandha were thinking in the Pakilesa Sutra. And that is how they were able to live together in harmony in a beautiful way. And I think, you know, something we should all strive for when we see these marvelous examples in the Sutra.Okay. So, let us go on to the next section here. So, now we have kind of laid down how the Dama is to be kept alive for future generations, how to make sure it doesn't deteriorate, how to resolve this agreement and arguments about the actual meaning and the actual phrasing.
And now we are actually moving on to the practical use of that Dama, how the Dama is applied in our lives basically here. And this is also, in a sense, quite interesting. It starts with some fairly basic things here. And this is the reasons for allowing the requisites. So, Chanda, I do not teach you. Actually, let me stop there and see if there are any comments, because I am probably going a little bit too fast here. So, are there any further comments on what I've said so far? Is everyone happy?Sorry, I don't know.
Did you intend to circle back to the first one with the both convening and the forgetting?
I'm not entirely sure how to interpret that one. So, I was just going to leave it out. So, I think it is probably some kind of combination of the two, but it's not, I'm not sure, because he asks about if this is the meaning, or is this the meaning, but he has just given the wrong meanings. I'm not sure exactly how that works. So, it's kind of unclear to me here. So, yeah. So, I guess it just, yeah, it's some kind of combination of the two in some way. Okay, so let's have a look at the reasons for allowing the requisite. So, this is the four requisites that are monastics. We're going to have a look at it.
And this is what it says. Chanda, I do not teach you solely for restraining the filaments that affect this life, nor do I teach solely for protecting against the filaments that affect lives to come. So, again, I'm not entirely sure what is going on here, why the Buddha is saying this. And if some of you have some ideas, I'd be happy to hear from you before that. We can maybe make some guesses as to what is going on. So, the Buddha here, one possibility is that he is, maybe he's talking about people who only have like a one life idea of the world that everything stops at death.
And so, because of that, they will only be concerned about the filaments in this life, maybe, as one possibility. Or maybe the other one could be teaching that where you kind of like you believe in a creator God and you're not so worried about how you live this life, but because you have your faith in a creator God, then when you die, you will kind of go to heaven anyway. So, those are kind of being concerned about the filaments in this life, but not future lives, or not worry about this life, but worry about the filaments in future life.
It could be something like that. But of course, for the Buddha, the purpose is that any kind of defilements should be reduced. So, you want to reduce the defilements in this life. And if you make an end of your lives here and now, then of course, the defilements in the future life will be completely gone, so that you have resolved the defilements in the future life. And if you don't end the defilements in this life, well then you have created a good foundation for restraining the defilements in the future more.
So, in Buddhism, these things go together. They're not separate. It's not like you don't, you know, you kind of do various practices that have no kind of particular effect.
You just meditate a lot, but it doesn't reduce the defilements, and it will still have an effect for the future. No, the way that you know that you're heading in the right direction is because the defilements are going down in this life. That's kind of the measuring stick for knowing that things are going in the right way here. And so, the Buddha is all about reducing defilements, this life, future lives, whenever you have. So, how then are these defilements reduced? And here, this is talked about in a very simple way.
So, this is kind of how it is talked about here. That's why I have allowed robes for you that suffice only for the sake of warding off cold and heat, for warding off the touch of flies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, and reptiles, and for covering up the private parts. I have allowed arms for you that suffice only to sustain this body, to avoid harm and to support the spiritual practice. So, that you will put an end to all discomfort and not give rise to new discomfort, and will keep on living blamelessly, and it is. I'll have lodgings for you that suffice only for the sake of warding off cold and heat, for warding off the touch of flies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, and reptiles, to shelter from harsh weather, and to enjoy retreat.
I have allowed medicine and supplies for the sake for you that suffice only for the sake of warding off the pains of illness, and to promote good health. So, here it's almost like the entire path up to Samadhi is talked about in terms of the four requisites.And these four requisites are in the Sabasa Vasuta. The usage of the four requisites is called the Asavas, or the defarmments that are to be eliminated through using.You use in the requisites. This is how you eliminate these defarmments. And the way to do that, of course, is to use them in the right way. It's not about just using them, but using them in appropriate way.
And when you use them in an appropriate way, in a sense, you are fulfilling both the virtues in general, because that is how you use this in the right way. But also, you are also reducing the defarmments of the mind, because your attitude to these requisites is also right.So, it is kind of the right effort at the same time. So, I'm not going to spend too much time on this, because it's kind of a little bit of a side issue. But the way that you use a robe is only for these reasons. Very simple. Not to be comfortable, basically, to get rid of all the discomforts. The flies, the mosquitoes, the sun, the reptiles here are actually more like creepy crawlies.
So, this could mean any kind of creepy crawlies, like centipedes and what have you. So, basically, this to be at ease. It's that middle way. You don't indulge in your robes, but nor do you kind of lead a life where you actually have pain as a result of not having good enough robes. So, it's the middle way where the robes kind of neutralizes the sensory world. The sensory world is no longer important to you. Not neither do we indulge in it, nor do you find the pain that comes to the sensory world. This is coming back to the idea of the middle way, which would have sets out in the very first discourse. That is the right way of kind of dealing with the robes.
And it is surprising in the world how sometimes monastics get the wrong end of the stick when it comes to robes, where robes become, you know, you have to have the certain qualities, you have to be in a certain way. It has to be sown in a certain way according to the latest fashion. And there are fashion. This is the weird thing. There are fashions in the world of monastic robes. This is the really crazy thing here. I remember I had monks in this monastery in my lifetime. This is a long time ago now who were really having really nice robes.
Silt robes, for example. And they were almost like asked for those robes. That's what they wanted. You can see they were very pleased when they got the right kind of robes. And so right now I don't think that we have any monks quite like that. But these things happen so easily. And I think if you travel overseas and you travel to where there are many more Buddhists and there is in Australia, you will see this quite commonly in the Buddhist world. So this is not something which is kind of out of the ordinary at all. So that instead of, to me, is really weird because this is the kind of stuff that you should really do in lay life. In lay life that makes a lot of sense. It doesn't really make sense to be concerned about robes in monastic life.
At least for me, I can't understand why people, yeah, I honestly can't understand why people get into that. I find it kind of strange. And then we have the idea of Amaz food, which is again a similar kind of thing. It's a middle way where you don't indulge, but you have just right amount to support the practice. You get rid of the old discomfort of hunger and you don't rise to new discomfort of overeating or whatever.
And so you live a blameless life. You have a lodging. Again, you have a lodging that is just enough to ward off the cold and heat.
ward off the animals and all of these kind of things and to shelter from the harsh weather. And again, yeah, actually the cutest that we have in this monastery to my mind are really, really, really great. They are quite small, simple cutes, but they have the really important things like your beautiful walking path outside. You come out in the evening when it's nice and cool and walking on those walking paths. And now to me, it's really, really important to have that walking path attached to the cutie. It makes a massive difference.
Without that, you're basically stuck in your cutie. You cannot, of course, walk outside, but it's much more difficult because of the elements and the sun and all of these kinds of things. So to my mind, we have some of the best cuties in the world right here in this monastery here. You may not be aware of that, but once you start traveling, you will see that it's actually quite special, the kind of things that we have over here. Even in Newbury, you don't have proper walking paths. Yeah.
So, yeah. And of course, very importantly, the cuties are for enjoying retreat. So the location, the way they are used, all of that is for retreat purposes, to withdraw from the world. Yeah, withdrawing especially from that world of the five senses. And so this is kind of why these matters so much. Again, you can see how things point that middle way again.And lastly, you have the medicines or medicinal supplies for the sake that, again, is just for warning of pains and illnesses and to promote good health.
And that is a good thing to remember because the medicines we have in this monastery are sometimes quite sumptuous. They include snakes and they include all kinds of chocolate and they include all kinds of things. And sometimes it is okay to eat though, especially if you have a bit of lack of energy or whatever, but it is very easy to kind of go too far. Actually, these days, there isn't much so much indulgence in those things that there used to be in the old days in this monastery.
So things have changed a little bit. And it is kind of nice to see the ups and downs, the waves in the monastery, how things change. And yeah, so right now it is actually quite nice. But again, keep these things in mind. So those are the four requisites. I am not going to spend too much more time on that, but is there any questions about these four requisites from anyone there? I mean, yeah. You have to orient first on that before we can ask about the requisites. So I was wondering, has this sort of tenet chunk around it? It didn't really have a coherent theme. I talked about the discussion and then something else in the requisition.
I was wondering if you check the canal he was mentioning, I have a month, like the parallel version. This is the deganica, there is no power unfortunately. And the deganica is not parallel? Yeah, there is a parallel, but not in the magima. It is the magima. Yeah, there may be a parallel, I haven't actually looked it up to the honest to you. But you write the dust chunk around quite a bit and it would be very useful to look at the parallel versions. But I haven't done that. But I, you know, maybe for next time I will look it up. So, yeah. Good book. I don't know. Is there not a connection here to do with the kind of longevity of the sasthenate?
Because the restraint of the faunce with this life and impugent lives. I don't know. A couple of the reasons for the land balance of the finail. Yeah, I think it is. I think that there is a connection there for that. And so I think they go together. It also comes together. If you look at the whole suit, I think it kind of has a nice circle from the pattern to it as well. You start off with a Buddha being enlightened. That's what I've done, my special. And then you show the dhamma comes from that enlightened mind.
Then why you should look after the dhamma because it is special.
Then how to look after it. And then the result of practicing the dhamma, bringing it back to enlightenment again, is almost like it goes full circle, in that sense as well. I do think there is some connection there. I would agree with you. It looks like it is jumping, but it is not. Yeah, so it looks a little bit jumpy, but I think maybe there isn't. And that is kind of us why we should. On the other hand, it is very easy to read meaning into things when there is no meaning. So it is always good to double check. I should have checked the parallel if there is one available.
So using the kuji for our retreats, what do you think that is this? Do you think, do you know the pali there? The pali for that?I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I am salaam now. Oh, is it? It is pakti salaam now, Ramatam.Is it? Pakti salaam now, for the purpose of the retreat, pakti salaam now, okay. Yeah. It is pakti salaam now, Ramatam. I am enjoying it. Yeah. Okay. I should have said best of what it is there. Is it purpose of you? Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy using it. Yeah. Pakti salaam now, Ramatam.
Pakti. Yeah.Okay. Yeah. So the purpose of enjoying retreat. Yeah. It is. Yeah.I'm enjoying it. Most of the suit is at least one person who has right view. Yeah. But there are monks who have kind of fallen away from the practice and probably are practicing well enough. So if we were to know whether children was a seau to panel or was declining, then this would make a lot of sense saying, well, I gave you, the sassana gave you the four requisites because if you're not a seau to panel, you're taking a big rest with karma as to where you will be reborn.
If you're only a seau to panel, you still have a lot of work to do to become a narrow
hand. Hence his phraseology at the start, which is, defines in this lifetime or future lifetimes. If you don't get out of seau to panel in this lifetime. Yeah.Yeah. I think that usually when the Buddha phrases the aesthetic, I think there's more people there, one under was there in Shunter. Probably there was a Sangha around there.
I suspect that he is talking to the Sangha as a whole and as a general teacher as well.
I would have to read rather to be specific to Shunter. Sometimes they do have specific teachings to specific monks, but that is very often theywill come to the Buddha and they will ask a question or something like that. Sometimes the Buddha will tell monks off of it, that's true. But even those monks who come individually to him very hugely, he wants to give a general teaching to them that.Usually, like teaching you find a clock on elsewhere there. So I tend to read this as a general teaching, rather something specific to Shunter. Yeah.
Actually, just a quick suggestion out of that passage you had a Buddha says, the first
Buddha says the farmers in this life are not like, I thought it might refer back to the genes that were mentioned at the start because they usually focus on the next five billion days. That's true.That's true because they are basically about approaching itself in this life so that they get liberation in the future life. Yeah. And so you're not so focused on, yeah. I mean, they would overcome some departments as opposed to by being virtuous.
But it was maybe not so much the same kind of degree of overcoming medical departments, maybe. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure. Reminds me if you sit down in the unclean shower and there is a gene who sort of says, you can get rid of ignorance and then you'll still be reborn if you haven't worn away or come in so many words he says. Okay. It's not a sign that's in anyway. Yes. Okay.Yeah.I mean, quite likely because usually it does, you know, that's the way the suit, I set up so very often it would actually refer to those things. Yeah.
But you can also imagine that it can refer, it can refer to, you know, variety of religions
where you don't, what this life is not really where you purify yourself. You just kind of do the other things and kind of the, the grammatical teachings may be similar to the rituals, you know, in this life and that kind of leads to some kind of good future. Yeah. Okay. Anything else anyone? No. Okay.
Next one come to indulgence and pleasure. That sounds nice, doesn't it? Snakes. Snakes. Yeah. So this is actually a very important part of the sutra is this idea of indulgence and pleasure. And this of course is where why Adam Brown likes the sutra so much because of what it has to say about indulgence and pleasure in there. So rather than start that now, I've been going for pretty much an hour already. I think we should leave that for next time, whenever that is, otherwise we might just overdo things a little bit there. So any last comments from anyone?
Any last issues? No, everyone okay? All right.So let's go. Let's approve this time of teaching by saying sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do sada do