AN 3.84 seems to indicate that the Buddha at least sometimes had a more pragmatic approach to the Vinaya. When a young monk complains to the Buddha about the 150 training rules (if only he knew that another 77 were on the way!), the Buddha directs him to another way of training himself – in the higher virtue, the higher mind, and the higher wisdom. Maybe this indicates that, to the Buddha, the spirit of the Vinaya was more important than the letter.
I remember, when I first read this sutta, being surprised that this monk would tell the Buddha that he couldn’t train in these rules. I thought the Buddha might say something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxuMQGkzTW8
But it turns out he took a more compassionate and pragmatic approach, and the young monk may well have become an arahant (the end of the sutta is a little vague on this).
to me it seems that the need for the Vinaya emerged when the Sangha started to be manned by many casual people who didn’t necessarily join for the right reasons and therefore being in robes kept their worldly ways, when a person renounces the world to live the Dhamma they are able to manage without the minute Vinaya rules being guided by the 10 precepts alone and a dozen other principles
Good point. I remember once reading or hearing a monk saying that the outline of moral discipline found in DN2 is a very example of such point of reference for one’s life as a contemplative: https://suttacentral.net/en/dn2#m13
I think the role of the lay people is extraordinarily important.
Without us there is no Sangha.
If we don’t ACTIVELY, regularly and frequently support our fellow Dhamma practitioners when they feel a deep pull towards a lifestyle of such utter renunciation…then we are foolish to complain about the lack of a well practising Sangha.
If the Sangha in your area is finding it difficult to keep rules, perhaps it’s time the lay people around them had a conversation, with them, about what they need by way of proper support in order to do this.
The lay people need to be large and motivated and a real presence surrounding the Sangha.
Oooh! Excellent question! You’ve sent me right back down my traditionalist rabbit warren hole considering that!
Now I am leaning towards, as @Aminah and @Vstakan have said, an intention to follow the spirit of the Vinaya. While we maintain the Vinaya as it is, each monk and nun must establish their unique relationship with it, and each layperson must observe and evaluate their monastics according to their individual standards. And of course, as @anon29387788 and others have said - supporting them![quote=“DKervick, post:32, topic:4307”]
What is the point of supporting a monastic community if they are not embodying the dhamma and providing a shining example of the holy life?
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Oh, sorry. I may need to clarify my statement here. What I meant was that perhaps the Vinaya needed re-working to incorporate issues more pertinent to our modern sangha. I still most certainly believe in the goodness of having the Sangha, and don’t think they need to keep Vinaya perfectly to be good. But perhaps it’s the relationship to the Vinaya itself that is failing some monastics. While I considered that having some kind of Vinaya rejuvenation could be beneficial, after considering the siladhara case, I have somewhat changed my mind. As one does!
I hear what you are saying - thank you for your candid and honest answer. I realise it is very much down to lay people to ensure there is support for the spiritual life to be lived in the spirit of the Vinaya. If there is no proper mutual support - the relationship is ineffective if not broken. Thank you for your reminder on this important issue.
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Thank you for your answer. I saw your [censured] response. When I referred to ‘mutual support’, apologies as I should have clarified. I was referring to: Iti 107
“Bhikkhus, brahmins and householders are very helpful to you. They provide you with the requisites of robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicine in time of sickness. And you, bhikkhus, are very helpful to brahmins and householders, as you teach them the Dhamma that is good at the outset, good in the middle, and good at the end, with its correct meaning and wording, and you proclaim the holy life in its fulfilment and complete purity. Thus, bhikkhus, this holy life is lived with mutual support for the purpose of crossing the flood and making a complete end of suffering.”
I do what I can according to my circumstances, although this is limited, bearing in mind I am not in a Buddhist land and I don’t have a Sangha near my home.
I guess for many Buddhist monks, especially in traditional Buddhist countries, Buddhism is what (for example) Catholicism is for many priests - just a “job” (or a way of living) instead of a calling. Maybe it started with a calling but they drifted very far away.
My aunt worked for a priest - if his parishioners would know how he talked about them to a handful of intimates - well, they would be shocked.
Or just think of the sexual abuse that was rampant -not just a few exceptions- in the Catholic church.
For me too, it is beyond comprehension that people can pretend to be living the holy life while they are not.
After all, for whom are they leading the holy life?
In Christianity or Islam you could answer that question with “for god”, but in Buddhism one leads the holy life especially for himself, ultimately to attain Nibbana.
I think that makes it so unreal for you and me, that there are so many Buddhist monks not observing the Vinaya.
But, at the end of the day, we can only take care of ourselves, be our own refuge. Looking at others doesn’t get us any further on the Path:
Verse 50 Dhammapada: One should not consider the faults of others, nor their doing or not doing good or bad deeds. One should consider only whether one has done or not done good or bad deeds.
To do yet a bit more clarifying work (), I come from a slightly more nuanced position. I feel that specifically because of the purpose (or spirit) of the Vinaya, it is important to uphold it: the reasons behind it is why living by it matters. Within that, however, especially as we are talking about training rules (which very much points to the imperfection of the rule subscriber) I feel there is some room for flexibility so long as the ‘bend points’ remain in alignment with the spirit of the Vinaya.
Thank you for your perceptive reply. I think you have hit the nail on the head with verse 50. It reminds me of a fortune cookie I once opened many years ago which I stuck on my wall. It read: “Do not compare yourself with others, for there is nothing really to compare.”
In a way, this can be applied to practice in general and also in the sense of, as you say, being our own refuge.
Yes and no.
As bhante Sujato wrote earlier, a monk using money to get a bus ticket to give a meditation course - I would be flexible on that.
On the other hand, breaking rules often involves a gliding scale. For an example, take the practice of euthanasia, here in the Netherlands and Belgium. Already before euthanasia laws came into practice, many religious people and institutes warned against the danger of of the gliding scale: always more questionable cases of euthanasia would occur, and, indeed they did occur. For example, a lady that made a will saying she wanted euthanasia when suffering from Alzheimer, and got “euthanasia” while she was suffering from it, albeit against her will.
It shows that there is an inherent danger in breaking rules.
Would I therefore take a stance against euthanasia, no, of course not, let’s not be rigid to the point where it can really hurt people - in this case preventing the terminally ill from having a peaceful death. Only, I would have preferred it if it would have stayed within criminal law: punishable but excused when there is a valid reason, to be judged by a court on a case by case basis.
In a similar way I believe we should navigate between overly rigidity of a rule and too much flexibility by the people who have to, or are willing to follow a rule:
First of all, let’s uphold the rule, but also let’s not forget: necessity knows no law - though I would rather replace “necessity” by “emergency”.
@PaulB
As for money: Of course we as lay followers can exercise our influence:
When we see monks not abiding the Vinaya, we can decide not to support those monks and their monastery.
Yes, again, I feel that upholding the Vinaya is wonderfully important. I’m not massively concerned about the punitive element of enforcing the code as I think such an interest might be predicated on a misconception of what the code is for (there is no greater ‘punishment’ than continued samsaric existence). Nevertheless, the flexibility I had in mind looks to accord very well with the direction you’ve taken it, that is to say flexibility in application and the handling of transgressions, rather than treating the rules themselves with flexibility (ie. altering them).
Having said that, there are two details that have from time to time caused me a deal of brain-twistedness:
Even through just a cursory examination of the evidence, it seems inconceivable to me that all of the Vinaya was laid down by the Buddha - I’m not necessarily convinced by the worth of adhering to the additional constructions of leaders of an institution concerned with whatever preoccupations they grappled with at a particular time, but all the same more or less feel we have to just accept the package as a whole.
A key aspect of the teaching centres round the contingency of all things, and as already mentioned above the rules pragmatically emerged out of given circumstances. There are many rules, in my opinion, that are timeless, but there’s no getting away from the fact that these rules are tailored to a particular historical culture that doesn’t perfectly match our own times.
Casually entertaining the thought experiment “would the Buddha lay down exactly the same rules for today?”, I very much suspect not, but rather that rules would be crafted around the particular conditions and questions over conduct we face. From one perspective it seems a bit baffling that we should not engage with the changing nature of all conditioned phenomena with regards to this issue, but to reiterate, I do find myself responding to this in a fairly conservative way, feeling that despite any ill-fitting points the ‘package’ we have received is that valuable that it should be taken just as it is and upheld as best as possible. With, as I say, room for flexibility (as per the above) and the Dhamma being the arch-leader in all.
In my previous wriggles with this issue, I’ve found the Buddha’s note that a “dispute about livelihood or about the Pātimokkha would be trifling” (MN104) quite anchoring.
Probably that is inevitable when laying down specific rules - even if all of the Vinaya rules come directly from the Buddha.
For us lay followers, what matters most are the Teachings themselves and they are wonderfully timeless, this in contrast with most theistic religions.
I fully agree.
It should not be “a bit baffling that we should not engage with the changing nature of all conditioned phenomena with regards to this issue”: Certainly, change is one of the 3 characteristics of existence and as the Buddha explained, it will cause his Teachings to disappear too, one day. Though as Buddhists we should clearly see that nature of all things, it does not mean we have to actively bring along change - we only must clearly see that change does happen and that we even cannot prevent the Buddha’s Teachings from decaying.
Absolutely, but it’s not so much a question of wilfully changing anything, but rather recognising that things have changed and that it might be good to have guidelines more suited to conditions we are wrestling with. Eg. I recall listening to a talk from Bhante Sujato in which (if I remember correctly) he implied the modern day invention of visas makes the sima rules especially tricky (the next bit is my own addition) probably to the point that was never remotely intended in the rule. I think it’s quire fair to wonder if there is any point where the application of a rule belonging to entirely different conditions doesn’t quite make sense, especially when the changed circumstances means the intention of the rule isn’t served.
But, yet once more, despite sometimes taking up these what I feel are legitimate reflections, I do favour conservatism around this issue.
Could you explain that further? I don’t know the Vinaya that well to know what exactly you are talking about.
Certainly. When a rule is not serving any purpose anymore, there is no sense in keeping that rule. Only we should not assume that too quickly - so me too, I favour conservatism around this issue - that’s why we adhere to theravada
I went back to the source in question: a talk on sīmā (community boundary) construction as set out in Khandhaka 2.
At one part in the text it states:
Then it occurred to the monks: “A (formal) act of Observance for all together is allowed by the Lord. Now, how far does ‘being all together’ (go)? As far as one residence, or the whole earth?” They told this matter to the Lord.
In answer to the monks, Bhante merely quips: “Monks, plane tickets are expensive, visas are hard to obtain for one gone forth” and then moves on with the rest of the explanation, so it looks like here my memory didn’t come up with the best example, apologies.
Hmmm, I’m afraid I suffer from a particularly virulent form of institutionaphobia and to-date have only every been able to describe myself as Theravada-adjacent.
I remember from an Ajahn Brahm talk a long time ago, he talked about the early days when he was getting established in Australia. At the time, he was staying in a residential house. One time, the lay people forgot to come over to offer the food from the refrigerator, so as it got closer to noon time, he kept glancing over at the fridge, thinking, “the food is there, all i need to do is open it and take it out…”, but he didn’t want to break vinaya so he went without eating that day.
I love it when monastics are willing to die to stay true to their beliefs, but I can totally emphasize with Bhante G driving a lawn mower or monks who use money for travelling to give a dhamma talk because their local sangha doesn’t have the resources, manpower in kappiyas to offer transportation, etc.
I wish there was a provisional set of vinaya for monastics traveling to or living in areas where the local sangha is undersupported or nonexisting, so there would never have to be breaking of vinaya for survival.
As one does!
), I come from a slightly more nuanced position. I feel that specifically because of the purpose (or spirit) of the Vinaya, it is important to uphold it: the reasons behind it is why living by it matters. Within that, however, especially as we are talking about training rules (which very much points to the imperfection of the rule subscriber) I feel there is some room for flexibility so long as the ‘bend points’ remain in alignment with the spirit of the Vinaya.
