“My friend, although I have seen properly with right discernment, as it actually is present, that ‘The cessation of becoming is Unbinding,’ still I am not an arahant whose fermentations are ended. It’s as if there were a well along a road in a desert, with neither rope nor water bucket. A man would come along overcome by heat, oppressed by the heat, exhausted, dehydrated, & thirsty. He would look into the well and would have knowledge of ‘water,’ but he would not dwell touching it with his body. In the same way, although I have seen properly with right discernment, as it actually is present, that ‘The cessation of becoming is Unbinding,’ still I am not an arahant whose fermentations are ended.”
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That’s what we’re discussing, no? An apparently cosmic law that says that you have to live in a special building (vihara) and wear special clothes (robes) before you can get enlightened.
I don’t recall the suttas ever saying that.
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An arahant might be unordained, but I don’t think they would continue to use money, have a bank account, own a home or pay rent etc. They would become a homeless wanderer, and if not a monastic, they wouldn’t really care that they might be perceived by others as just another bum, thought to be mentally ill or addicted to drugs. With the destruction of craving, they would wander peacefully.
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So far I got the impression that you follow B.Bodhi in his understanding that lays can aspire to non-return only?
Why do you think that? When desire, attraction and aversion are gone, why would arahants have a ‘need’ or the ‘compulsion’ to start wandering around? Just think of stories of monastic arahants who then live in a cave for 30 years, or become abbots in monasteries. They certainly have a ‘home’ and don’t just walk around aimlessly, wouldn’t you say so? Why not live on in the apartment peacefully instead of a cave?
I still don’t understand why when total freedom happens one peaceful way of living has to be replaced by an Indian ascetic one.
As far as I know, Bhikkhu Bodhi has never said this.
In his footnote for MN 68, he says that the Nikayas recognize the possibility of lay persons attaining arahantship, but in all such instances, it’s either near death or after ordaining. This doesn’t mean that a lay person can only aspire to be a non-returner.
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At some stage in your personal development (i.e. letting go of greed, aversion & delusion) you’ll be able to stay in a relationship without sexual activities. Having possessions is not an issue in itself, it is how you relate to them that matters; and this is true for the monastics as well even if they have little possessions, they still have some.
Please note that the so called higher fetters is a late addition so not part of the EBTs.
Spot on.
I would like to understand what exactly people want to get from the texts.
Is it the case people want textual support to claim attainment of awakening without having to change lifestyle first place?
We need to differentiate between what represents a mean and what represents an end.
EBTs offer us a very consistent model in which a livelihood based on renunciation and restraint, involving giving up social obligations related to family, wealth and possessions, eventuates / brings about the perfect conditions for right effort, right mindfulness and right stillness to take place. These three things complete the eight factors required for liberating insight to take place.
To me, it is purely delusional to try to use EBTs to support a model of liberating insight which does not require the level of renunciation and restraint the taking up of robes symbolize.
If there are people who are able to achieve the level of renunciation and restraint without taking up the robes, these represent at best an exception to the rule. It is not reasonable to expect the Buddha would have framed his teachings on the basis of this minority…
If there are people who take up the robes without making any effort towards renunciation and restraint,well, that is indeed a sad possibility.
And the origin stories found in the Vinaya are there only to confirm that even in the time of the Buddha these kind of individuals were already found around. And I wonder to what extent I am not one of those who back then missed the liberation bus and are now stuck to still wander around in samsara. 
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That’s not necessary. When the householders of Bamboo Gate appealed to the Buddha about a similar issue, he didn’t tell them to renounce sex and aspire for arahantship. Instead, he taught an “explanation of the Dhamma that’s relevant to oneself” comprised of seven principles and four factors of stream entry (SN 55.7).
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It could slip off to that side, yes. Or rather, people do it anyway and don’t need textual support - look at ‘Buddha at the gaspump’ for example. Theravada is compared to contemporary Spirituality only a tiny piece of the cake.
Personally, my interest is to put aside labels and see the lived reality. Monastic life today isn’t what the 1st and 2nd generation monastics experienced. In the majority monastics aren’t meditating and are in good cases memorizers of texts (see the various religious degrees and ranks).
Monasteries are not necessarily the best environments for spiritual seekers. They have their own busi-ness, projects, worldly and social duties - they are part of a religion, with all that comes with it. It’s often enough about money, donations, securing patronage and influential friends, etc. It’s not primarily a place of renunciation!
And lay life is also not what it was 2500 years ago. Especially in urban centers and in the West you can live a life largely independent from family, family duties and societal norms. (Not that I’m a huge fan of all aspects, but this is a good one). I would argue that exactly in lay life one can practice the renunciation and restraint one sees beneficial for one’s development. In a sad way there are many people who don’t leave their apartments for weeks - I think I can be as ascetic as a lay person as I like. Livelihood in itself is not evil. It’s rather easy to keep it at a humble minimum if you have education.
Yes, there are great monastic teachers out there. But really, how much do you think a monk under A.Brahm gets to see him and inspired by him in daily life? If there are good teachers chances are not just I want to be around them but hundreds or thousands of other people as well. With youtube and mp3 I have access to them enough - not the same, but again, as a monk I couldn’t just have access to them as I wished either.
So what really are the indispensable qualities a lay person can not have today that monastics do that would prevent them from enlightenment?
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When framed as an Critical Path Analysis, the most important milestone for a Buddhist is to attain stream-entry along the Noble Path to Liberation. One is safe from repeating endless cycles of rebirth and will not regress upon reaching stream-entry, joining the company of the aryan-sangha. Breaking the three lower fetters is the most important immediate goal. From this point on, it is a moot point whether as a householder one should go forth or enter parinibbana immediately upon reaching arahantship. It is just a matter of finite time.
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I once knew an Abbot of a small Sri Lankan temple in the US. After a lengthy meeting with lay community supporters of the temple he pulled me aside and confided “If you want to know the hell realms, become a head monk”.
This I feel is an important point. Life in a extended family/clan based culture is very different from modern western culture even today. I once worked with a very successful software engineer from India. We were talking one day about our interests and he said more than anything he would like to have a small farm in India – he knew exactly where he wanted to have it. He easily could have cashed out and gone back to India to do this so I asked why he didn’t – he (in his mid 40’s) said his parents and family would never allow it. I had a friend from Central America and she asked me how big my family was and I answered 5. I asked her the size of her family and after a lengthy pause responded with ‘about 300’. In the west we have no idea the depth of roles and responsibilities in these cultures. And I think ancient India must have been even more restrictive (from a western perspective). Becoming a monastic may have been the only way out of those responsibilities.
So I think when we look at the suttas we have to keep this in mind. In Buddha’s time, for a person to simply drop the responsibilities to their family and live a simple life without the protection the sangha provided would have been very difficult. Today western culture is much more open to people following their own calling. It is pretty easy to live a simple contemplative life if one is willing to give up some conveniences that only 100 years ago weren’t even the stuff of dreams. And it isn’t that hard to find others following such life styles which can provide the sense of a virtual community.
My take on the suttas is that they are saying a householder – being burdened with all these responsibilities – will find it very difficult to escape them. But a person who adopts a life style free from those responsibilities can – and back in those days the easiest way was ordaining.
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Interestingly, I have been and stayed in a handful of forest hermitages in Thailand where I am certain anyone embracing the renunciation and restraint prescribed by the Buddha - wearing robes or not - can definitely make progress.
And to me what make those places specially conducive to the goal is exactly the balanced exposure to laity’s generosity, wilderness and seclusion.
In those places, robes are more about defining a gentle boundary than anything.
It is not taken to make anyone holy but instead to inspire those wearing it to deserving wearing it vis-a-vis the challenge of cultivating the path.
And note that this boundary the robe represents is not rigid. In those hermitages you often see a mix of individuals wearing the robes for decades and individuals ordaining only for a couple of months.
In this sort of environment, protocols are there to establish expected roles and tasks in the maintenance of the overall cleanliness and organisation of the place.
There is no interest in rituals and any incense or candle burning is only done in occasions of formal acts by the Sangha and visiting laity - with everyone taking very lightly the acts themselves.
I strongly recommend you consider visiting places like those. And I can tell you that what I see in those places is very consistent with I see in places like Bodhinyana, Dhammasara here in Australia .
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I am sure that there is a lot of exposure, not only to Ajahn Brahm but to all other experienced members of the community.
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I suppose they wouldn’t necessarily have a need to wander around if they continued to receive alms in one area. The suttas suggest though that an arahant would not bother storing anything up for themselves. And there are good reasons to wander and not become anchored to one place.
When he gets food and clothes,
he avoids storing them up.Having severed all bonds,
fetters large and small,
wherever he goes,
he goes without concern. - SuttaCentral
“Mendicants, there are these five drawbacks of overstaying. What five? You have a lot of stuff and store it up. You have a lot of medicine and store it up. You have a lot of duties and responsibilities, and become an expert in whatever needs to be done. You mix closely with laypeople and renunciates, socializing inappropriately like a layperson. And when you leave that monastery, you miss it. These are the five drawbacks of overstaying.
There are these five benefits of staying for a reasonable length of time. What five? You don’t have a lot of stuff and store it up. You don’t have a lot of medicine and store it up. You don’t have a lot of duties and responsibilities, and become an expert in whatever needs to be done. You don’t mix closely with laypeople and renunciates, socializing inappropriately like a layperson. And when you leave that monastery, you don’t miss it. These are the five benefits of staying for a reasonable length of time.” - SuttaCentral
A mendicant with defilements ended can’t deliberately take the life of a living creature, take something with the intention to steal, have sex, tell a deliberate lie, or store up goods for their own enjoyment like they did as a lay person. - SuttaCentral
I don’t think a mendicant has to be officially ordained. It’s enough to be a beggar. Hence the early “ordinations” simply consisted in the Buddha saying “ehi bhikkhu,” “come beggar.”
Certainly storing money would antithetical to the detachment of the arahant, considering that even storing food or medicine Is considered to be something they would not do.
For those who have no stores,
those who comprehend food aright,
like the birds in the sky,
their footprint is hard to find. - SuttaCentral
“I ask the Kinsman of the Sun, the Great Seer,
about seclusion & the state of peace.
Seeing in what way is a monk unbound,
clinging to nothing in the world?” …When gaining food & drink,
staples & cloth,
he should not make a hoard.
Nor should he be upset
when receiving no gains. - Sn 4:14 Quickly
https://suttacentral.net/an5.80/en/thanissaro
I know that a lot of these suttas explicitly mention bhikkhus, but I still think they go to show that in early Buddhism the possibility of living a lay life, in the sense of owning a home or renting, storing up money and food, while being an arahant, was not even considered. I think the complete freedom of arahantship means that those who’ve severed all bonds live a simple life, getting everything they need day to day on the generosity of others, or they don’t and they die unconcerned.
I don’t think a few suttas talking very generally about lay people realizing the deathless is convincing evidence that the Buddha or early Buddhists thought lay people living at home could realize the complete and utter destruction of craving. But I also don’t think I’ve provided anything like a mathematical proof to the contrary. Nevertheless, on the preponderance of evidence I think the idea back in the day was that a completely awakened being is homeless even if they stay in one place for decades. They aren’t going to bother signing leases and such, they’d sooner go find a tree somewhere.
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I’m glad to see more refined positions!
Regarding medicine, food, money - I guess we agree the differences are in the mental states, not in the amount. If one doesn’t hoard money or desire it, why not use it simply? I remember a story about Dipa Ma who had money under her mattress, seemingly unconcerned and unworried. Apart from that money is not a magical sinful substance - it’s exactly what we make of it, like sea-shells, fur, or whatever people used to trade.
I’m not trying to excuse false lay arahants, but still I don’t see why a lay arahant would care about money at all apart from the necessities. Also, you are aware that monasteries have money, right? It’s just administered by lay people. So it’s convenient to say “I don’t have money, people’s generosity will buy me a new mac-book” when I know that my needs are conveniently covered.
Speaking of currency, as a non-arahant I would be ashamed if people threw themselves into the dust in front of me. That is hardcore social currency right there.
Also, it’s not exactly ‘generosity’ that in many cases keeps money and the luxurious food flowing - it’s an investment in the afterlife, actually objectifying the monastics. I’m not sure this is so kosher from the standpoint of humble renunciates.
My point is, choosing the ordained life I choose all these realities as well. Which is okay, but I don’t see why all arahants-to-be would choose that.
In the suttas we learn that back in the Buddha days contemplatives from all different paths would be offered by kings and vouchers or tokens that allowed them to get requisites from warehouses.
I think that is comparable to what we see nowadays in Thailand, in which lone tudong monks sometimes are given small amounts in baht which allows them to buy soap, medicine and clean water along their pilgrimage.
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Without committing to such a position, I’ll say I would probably be quicker to argue that the EBT perspective on how an arahant would live may be in conflict with the lifestyles of almost all contemporary monks than I would argue that the EBTs are compatible with the idea of an arahant living an ultra minimalist lay life that still includes holding down a job, keeping some meager amount of money, etc.
And I personally think that holding onto money and some enduring shelter represents a perhaps sometimes subtle but still very real attachment to material security. And I want to further say that I think there would be a great freedom in being totally unconcerned with such things and having no property or home you have to take care of that ties you into some system of obligations. But a counter argument might be that even arahants go on alms and at least look for trees to shelter under, so a complete lack of concern is not actually there. But I still see a significant difference between the life of a lay-minimalist and the life of an austere outdoor dwelling mendicant.
If we look at some lay non-returners in the suttas some don’t even use money.
I don’t know if you’ll admit a Majjhima Nikaya Jataka into evidence but it does show that at a relatively early period in Buddhism a totally minimalist lay life was not equated with arahantship.
‘Great king, there is a market town named Vebhaliṅga, where there’s a potter named Ghaṭīkāra. He is my chief attendant. Now, great king, you thought, “The Buddha does not accept my invitation to reside for the rains in Benares,” and you became sad and upset. But Ghaṭīkāra doesn’t get upset, nor will he. Ghaṭīkāra has gone for refuge to the Buddha, the teaching, and the Saṅgha. He doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit sexual misconduct, lie, or take alcoholic drinks that cause negligence. He has experiential confidence in the Buddha, the teaching, and the Saṅgha, and has the ethics loved by the noble ones. He is free of doubt regarding suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation. He eats in one part of the day; he’s celibate, ethical, and of good character. He has set aside gems and gold, and rejected gold and money. He’s put down the shovel and doesn’t dig the earth with his own hands. He takes what has crumbled off by a riverbank or been dug up by mice, and brings it back in a carrier. When he has made a pot, he says: “Anyone may leave bagged sesame, mung beans, or chick peas here and take what they wish.” He looks after his blind old parents. And since he has ended the five lower fetters, Ghaṭīkāra will be reborn spontaneously and will become extinguished there, not liable to return from that world. - SuttaCentral
Maybe I’ll find more references later.
But hunting down EBTs is perhaps besides the point that you’re making. Ultimately we have to use our own wisdom to see whether how we are living is conducive to reducing and/or eradicating passion, aversion, and confusion. And it may well be that unless or even if one has the material resources necessary to go flying around the world, hunting down the best monastery to spend one’s first 5-10 years and thereafter being ever vigilant to not get involved in sangha business, they may be better off in their practice moving somewhere suitable for seclusion and making some meager living as a lay person.
And sure, having people bow before you and being revered as some great spiritual being could for some people be a greater temptation to corruption of mind than great wealth or other things.
At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, when I’ve comprehended the mind of a certain person, I understand: ‘This venerable would not tell a deliberate lie even for the sake of a gold coin.’ … ‘… for the sake of a hundred gold coins.’ … ‘… for the sake of a gold doubloon.’ … ‘… for the sake of a hundred gold doubloons.’ … ‘… for the sake of the whole earth full of gold.’ … ‘… for any kind of material reward.’ … ‘… for the sake of life.’ … ‘… for the sake of the finest lady in the land.’ But some time later I see them tell a deliberate lie because their mind is overcome and overwhelmed by possessions, honor, and popularity. So brutal are possessions, honor, and popularity. …” - SuttaCentral
I still don’t see arahants living the lay life, even a minimalist one, in the EBTs though.
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What is your opinion on the following sutta?
“These seven things lead to the decline of a lay follower. What seven? They stop seeing the mendicants. They neglect listening to the true teaching. They don’t train in higher ethical conduct. They’re very suspicious about mendicants, whether senior, junior, or middle. They listen to the teaching with a hostile, fault-finding mind. They seek outside of the Buddhist community for teachers worthy of offerings. And they serve them first. These seven things lead to the decline of a lay follower.
These seven things don’t lead to the decline of a lay follower. What seven? They don’t stop seeing the mendicants. They don’t neglect listening to the true teaching. They train in higher ethical conduct. They’re very confident about mendicants, whether senior, junior, or middle. They don’t listen to the teaching with a hostile, fault-finding mind. They don’t seek outside of the Buddhist community for teachers worthy of offerings. And they serve the Buddhist community first. These seven things don’t lead to the decline of a lay follower.” That is what the Buddha said. Then the Holy One, the Teacher, went on to say:
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It seems Venerable Ananda had the same concerns as yours:
“Sir, how could a mendicant live comfortably while staying in a Saṅgha community?” “It’s when a mendicant is accomplished in their own ethical conduct, but they don’t motivate others to be ethical. That’s how a mendicant could live comfortably while staying in a Saṅgha community.”
“But sir, could there be another way for a mendicant to live comfortably while staying in an Order?” “There could, Ānanda. It’s when a mendicant is accomplished in their own ethical conduct, but they don’t motivate others to be ethical. And they watch themselves, but don’t watch others. That’s how a mendicant could live comfortably while staying in a Saṅgha community.”
“But sir, could there be another way for a mendicant to live comfortably while staying in an Order?” “There could, Ānanda. It’s when a mendicant is accomplished in their own ethical conduct, but they don’t motivate others to be ethical. And they watch themselves, but don’t watch others. And they’re not well-known, but aren’t bothered by that. That’s how a mendicant could live comfortably while staying in a Saṅgha community.”
“But sir, could there be another way for a mendicant to live comfortably while staying in an Order?” “There could, Ānanda. It’s when a mendicant is accomplished in their own ethical conduct, but they don’t motivate others to be ethical. And they watch themselves, but don’t watch others. And they’re not well-known, but aren’t bothered by that. And they get the four absorptions—blissful meditations in the present life that belong to the higher mind—when they want, without trouble or difficulty. That’s how a mendicant could live comfortably while staying in a Saṅgha community.”
“But sir, might there be another way for a mendicant to live comfortably while staying in an Order?” “There could, Ānanda. It’s when a mendicant is accomplished in their own ethical conduct, but they don’t motivate others to be ethical. And they watch themselves, but don’t watch others. And they’re not well-known, but aren’t bothered by that. And they get the four absorptions—blissful meditations in the present life that belong to the higher mind—when they want, without trouble or difficulty. And they realize the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements. That’s how a mendicant could live comfortably while staying in a Saṅgha community.
And I say that there is no better or finer way of living comfortably than this.”
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