Question about Bhikkhu Vinaya Paccittiya 8

Q & A
1

I was recently mulling on an incident where I heard a very senior Thai monk seemingly talking about his past-lives to a lay audience. This surprised me (since I have heard from monks I respect that this senior Thai monk is fully enlightened), so I went to read up on Paccitiya 8.

I got even more confused.

While the origin story came about because monks were

… talk(ing) up one another’s superhuman qualities to the householders: 1.1.12‘That monk has the first absorption, that monk the second absorption…

the final ruling and its permutations does not seem to address the original offensive behaviour (i.e. talking up one another’s superhuman qualities), but seems to focus on individual monks talking about their own superhuman qualities:

‘If a monk truthfully tells a person who is not fully ordained of a superhuman quality, he commits an offense entailing confession.’ SuttaCentral

So is it also an offence for monks to talk about other monks’ superhuman qualities to lay persons, or not? I’m a bit confused, since the origin story seems to contradict the final ruling and permutations.

If Ajahn @brahmali is free, I’d be really grateful if you could kindly shed some light on this point, please, Ajahn!

With much metta,
PJ

PS: I understand from Ajahn Brahm that it’s not an offence if laypersons infer for themselves about a particular monk’s superhuman qualities, as it’s not an explicit declaration by said-monk. In the case of the senior Thai monk, it really does seem that he made a declaration (at least in the recording I heard…), which would go against the final ruling for this rule.

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Hi PJ!

So, in brief, you cannot rely on the origin stories in interpreting the rules. These stories were added after the fact. The rules and the origin stories are sometimes a poor match. This means you need to focus on the actual rule, which in this case says that there is a pācittiya offense for truthfully declaring your own super-normal qualities/attainments to non-monastic. So there is no offence in talking about someone else’s super-normal qualities.

:slight_smile:

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oh, thanks for the clarification and explanation Ajahn! :pray: I didn’t realise until now that the origin stories came after the rules.

Thank you! i hope vassa is going well for you! :pray::blush:

With much metta
PJ

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Oh gosh, I thought I can use the origin story of Nissaggiya rule 5 to deduce that the analysis of Pacittiya rule 40 is overly restrictive. Ven Uppalavana probably received the cooked meat from some distance (not within arm’s reach, I assume) because the head bandit purposely took a different path and offered the cooked meat by announcement.

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5

Well, of course traditionally people have always believed that the origin stories were in fact the story of the origin of the rule. Thinking otherwise is a modern thing.

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6

An easy solution is that the rule Pc 40 isn’t set up yet by that time.

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