So, welcome everybody, this is the 10th lecture in my course on the Arahant and the For Truth
in Early Buddhist Discourse.
I start again with a blog, excuse me.
Last time we had a look at this detailed exposition of the For Noble Truth and in the
blog there was some discussion on the, there is no sound.
Okay, because as far as I can see from here, I should be having sound, good, then I, I'm
sorry Mark, perhaps something on your computer is not working.
Yeah, so I was on the For Noble Truth and on the First Noble Truth there was a question
about the nature of the five aggregates.
Let me just see there's several other people saying something.
It seems everybody except Mark can hear me so I'll just continue, yeah, good.
And Wayne Shaw had asked me to briefly explain the idea of Sankaras, this is the fourth.
Minghao also no sound, so there's two people without sound.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I can do something about that from here because as far as I can see
I am producing sound and it's also been registered.
Well I think what I'll do is I'll just go out once and come back in so maybe that will
solve the problem.
I just get off and start one more time.
Or maybe as most of you can hear me, maybe those who can't hear me if you log on again,
yeah that is the best who go, yeah that's what we do.
Okay I am with the truth of suffering, suffering due to technical problems and suffering due
to various other things and maybe we can turn the suffering just into two kernel, unsatisfactoriness
of computers and equipments.
So I'm back to the nature of the five aggregates.
The original point of the five aggregates as far as I can see in early Buddhist discourse
was to point out those particular aspects of ourselves that are most prone to be latched
on by identification and reification even.
With the later tradition then there comes slightly different usage of the five aggregates
in the sense that they should comprise everything.
And then obviously the problem arises that there are certain mental factors, qualities
etc mentioned somewhere in the discourse and all of these have to be put somewhere.
And the tendency then is to use the fourth aggregate, the aggregate of Sankara as a kind
of header, kind of nice big cover where you can put everything that doesn't fit the others.
And so in later tradition the actual meaning of the Sankara aggregate becomes a little
bit obscure, it's kind of anything that is not feeling perception and consciousness.
And it is not completely wrong to put them all there because Sankara basically just means
together making or that which is together made Sankara.
And so the idea is anything that is conditioned.
But in the original scheme the point was mainly to highlight our volitional reactions to things,
the way how we react to this technical stuff not working properly or this monk telling
us things that we don't want to hear or we find boring, these kind of reactions.
And obviously these reactions influence our mental makeup.
If I keep on reacting with anger to technical problems, next time a technical problem comes
chances are I will get even more angry.
And so I'm actually forming a habit, a habit of getting upset about technical problems.
And this then becomes a conditioning that is also an aspect of Sankara and this is in
particular relevant for Sankara in the context of dependent arising of Dukkha as the second
in the twelve links that we have there in the traditional presentation of this teaching.
Where there is kind of ignorance and then the conditioned, the ignorant conditionings
and ignorant reactions come together kind of in one is what leads on to future rebirth
and even in the present life to experience of Dukkha.
The two contexts are slightly different.
The Sankara as the second link, independent arising, is eradicated, overcome and done
with by the Adahant.
But the Adahant still has volitional reactions.
He or she is still able to react and take decisions.
And then there is another sense of the term Sankara that has nothing to do with what we
have been looking at now which is just very general anything condition even the books
you see at the background, the computer I use, the glasses I wear, anything is a Sankara.
But this has nothing to do with the aggregates.
And then there was a lot of discussion and I thought that was a very important point
also on the fifth aggregate, the aggregate of consciousness.
The aggregate of consciousness is more simply to explain just this basic being aware of
things, being conscious of things, can be by way of the six sense doors or in the context
of the aggregate it's like the more passive part of the aggregates if passive in quotation
marks that which receives the information that has been processed by the other parts
of the mind that has been felt by feeling perceived and labeled by perception and seen
in its potential or even reacted to by Sankara's by volition, volitional formations.
From the perspective now coming back to this basic sense of the five aggregates as let
me call them patterns of identification.
This is the most tricky one, the toughest one.
It's the most difficult one to see for the fact that it is conditioned, for the fact
that it is not permanent.
There was a very beautiful comment by Linda Grace on the blog that I wanted to share with
you on this.
She says the faculty of knowing can seem so continuous ever present, so much part of me
and thus sometimes not easy to see that it too is impermanent and conditioned.
Even some of the practices we have learned and in fact just the process of reflection
itself can unconsciously encourage this, e.g. being a witness to what is happening in our
inner world so to speak.
So as to be able to take a step back and not just be swept along and entangled can if not
understood with right view, further the idea that while everything else is changing the
part that knows can be seen as something separate, permanent or substantial in some subtle or
not so subtle way.
I think that really puts it very succinctly and right away hits the nail on the head.
This is a problem even in Buddhist traditions.
There are several eminent Buddhist teachers and Buddhist traditions who in some way or
another propose that which knows or the lucid spaciousness of the mind and similar ideas
as something permanent.
They might not explicitly say it is permanent but they will go so far as to say that it
does not change.
And this then again has its meaning and value within the respective traditions but here
we are concerned with the perspective of early Buddhism.
So from the perspective of early Buddhism this has no foundation.
This is not in accord with as far as the textual scriptures we have at our disposition allow
us to judge with what was thought of the nature of consciousness in early Buddhism.
This clearly is something that also changes and that is conditioned.
And this is something I think very important to keep in mind so before I move on to the
next topic I invite any kind of question or comment on this.
The statement in the Surangama Sutra Rodolfo has no basis not only in the Pali Canon but
not in the entire early Buddhist teaching.
The Surangama Sutra is very late discourse and the Chinese version that you are probably
referring to is Rekhand Apocryphal, a text that was compiled in China as far as we know
using the title of a work that as Juliana told me is known in Sanskrit, Kottanese and
Tibetan.
So this reflects a rather late level of thought in the Buddhist tradition and it has no, it
is definitely different from early Buddhism.
I don't like to speak of the Pali Canon, I really like us to speak of like early Buddhism
because that is academically and historically more correct.
As I think I have been trying to say I am not speaking from the Theravada position here,
I am speaking as an academic and trying to show what is early Buddhism which is relevant
to all traditions.
As I said as far as I know the Chinese work that you are probably referring to is Apocryphal
in the sense that it is not an Indic text but a text composed in China.
So Rodolfo says okay he is asking if it is Apocryphal and it is fine and Hugo de Dios
says is there any link in early Buddhism between the deathless and the knower.
There are some scholars who attempt to construct such an idea which I personally find not particularly
convincing but it is not an entirely straight forward topic but as far as consciousness
is concerned it is very clear that teachings of early Buddhism in general clearly make
it clear that consciousness is always a condition and an impermanent entity is even wrong.
It is always impermanent and conditioned and the experience of the deathless is referred
to as the cessation of consciousness.
Good then I continue to there were some comments on the putting the forward truth into action.
This is Juliana and I thought that was really putting it very succinctly this something
that I like to emphasize very much in as a practical thing this working with mindfulness
and clear comprehension.
Mindfulness the ability to be aware of what is happening by staying receptive and then
clear comprehension that input of clear recognition understanding what is happening and she says
that these are not only expressions of right view but also precursors of right view and
wholesomeness they kind of circle around it and I thought it was really nice and succinctly
on the practical side.
Then there was Mark which I am not sure he is there I hope he can hear me now I thought
that was really nice he gave some practical experience he describes his work with the
for noble truth so I said after some practice the stuff that seemed like short term pleasure
long term trouble isn't so appealing anymore used to be I had to remind myself of the consequences
now mostly the harmful but pleasurable stuff just doesn't appear I think in part it is
from looking more closely at how I actually feel while indulging in it being more mindful
I find the times when I miss that sensitivity and do the over indulging is when I am going
too fast that's it caught up in some frenetic feeling and letting it carry me along so slowing
down and paying attention or when necessary paying attention is best I can at a faster
pace when life dictates those types of circumstances seems to do the trick yeah Mark great to know
you are back there with sound and thank you for this excellent comment this going too
fast is really the thing this is where we get caught up and where we start creating
trouble very clearly excellent and Ronaldo on the same topic and after that we have time
for question Ronaldo when you go fast there's a tendency of following old habits that lack all
those insights and it is then where you have to remind yourself or make a conscious effort it is
like when skiing down here you tend to go over the existing trails very nice image it takes time to
change habits that are ingrained combine the mindfulness with the slowing down and you have
full power isn't that the practice after all excellent also thank you for the beautiful
picture of this skiing down here I really like that yeah very nice contributions for practice
Oh Ronaldo Rodolfo oh gosh Rodolfo I'm so sorry excuse me somebody has been doing things a little
bit too quickly I think on this screen Rodolfo while back in the USA I see Americans are terribly
overscheduled mark says well we just saw that our lecturer he is also a little bit overscheduled
he's not even able to type names properly you see don't have to go all the way to the US for that
Rodolfo says that the downhill expression was used by the Dalai Lama and Lizzo says the planet is
overscheduled yeah it's actually true everything is going too fast even me right back to our
discourse now there's a nice observation by Linda Grace again on Magyama Agama 31 she notes that in
particular with the Magyama Agama 31 description of right intention right effort by mindfulness
and right concentration just a description of the mental state seems would not be sufficient if
these factors weren't already understood more in terms of what they are I thought that was an
excellent observation it shows it supports my suggestion that the Pali version seems slightly
earlier than the Magyama Agama and the Magyama Agama gives us this impression of this what I
would call incipient Abhidharma kind of thought yeah this concludes Magyama Agama 31 and if there
are no questions I would go on to Magyama Agama 32 I start with a comment by Olga it's on that
on those birth miracles in Magyama 32 we read about all those miracle events that took place
in connection with the birth of the bodhisattva to be honest with you I find it hard to believe
all these miraculous stories we come across in the suttas and even though I understand that it
does not make much difference if I believe it or not for that is of course not essential but I
question myself why are those stories there at all are they true are they not if not then maybe
not only those stories are doubtful so as you see unfortunately instead of inspiration doubt the
rises in my mind so what I usually do with these stories I just drop them off yeah I just wanted
to say that I had precisely the same attitude as Olga in fact this Magyama Agama 32 or much more
precisely Magyamanika 123 I in my earlier days as a monk I used to do recitation of the Magyamanika
and I just skipped that one I just went pop yeah and it was only when I came to study it from
academic side and I made discoveries that I believe have really helped my own and hopefully
also the understanding of others about the development of early Magyana that I began to
understand the significance of this discourse but I had the same thing I can't I find it difficult
to believe in in these miracles I find them tasteless and the problem of engaging with them
was precisely what August says if these are true I'm not really at home in this story and if these
are not true then what about the rest there's another comment also by Olga she says I wish I
had more faith but never mind I'll be happy with the pragmatic mind I have I do believe in the
vulnerable truth and that I think is of much more importance believe something that has been tested
and proved to be true from one's own experience and I think there Olga has already given an
excellent reply also to this problem I think it is as from an early Buddhist perspective it's
perfectly fine to be to not believe everything that is in the scriptures and to have that
pragmatic attitude and there's even encouragement of this type of faith that is based on reason that
is based on investigation just as saying look this vulnerable truth I try this out it works so this
is something I have faith in this whole issue of faith is a very complex one and while I was in the
States two weeks ago I had a longer discussion on that with Sharon Salzberg and I wanted to
recommend a book she gave me one of her books I don't know if you can see it just I just finished
it faith trusting your own deepest experience and she has this saying that there's a common
understanding of faith that is synonymous with religious adherence and instead she proposes
that the essence of faith lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truth on which
we can rely and I thought that that that that that put it very nicely in perspective on her book
I quickly went through is like the story of her own faith and the thing about faith is you see in
an Asian context that faith in the Buddha and in supernatural beings is not simply like a little
bit of nice cream on top of the dessert that these people like and we don't need it because we don't
take sugar but it is also something that strengthens people and interestingly particularly in a
meditative context in fact that was how we came to discuss this topic with Sharon you see in we
have this is not much being talked about but in meditation practice there is always the danger
of getting into accidents meditation is not always a hundred percent beneficial some people suffer
after they get into meditation and in such situations if you have nothing to rely on it's
very difficult to deal with such problems there are several situations I experienced as a meditation
teacher in Asia where problems could be solved simply by reminding people to take refuge in the
Buddha you see for Asians the Buddha is something that however much they might say he's yes he passed
away he is something very alive in his relics in the statues in the recitations wherever it's
something that is somehow there and that's something you can relate to and there's one situation I had
it was a young girl meditating and she had this sudden thing that there was some external power
that's the way she experienced that that was pushing her over so from the sitting posture she
just went and she was flat on the ground and terrified and crying and she couldn't get up
anymore and my attendant went there I couldn't go because that's the female section and just
whispered into her ear in singles the Buddha is your refuge to whom she went up just that
recollection of the Buddha I have taken refuge the Buddha is there literally brought her up into
normal sitting position again obviously we can't do that with a Westerner and it's also not saying
that a Westerner needs to develop that type of faith that you have to take refuge you have to
believe in all these flavors otherwise please don't many did not a dog but the thing is faith
sada or confidence I prefer confidence is one of the five spiritual faculties India's and it is
needed to counterbalance wisdom so if somebody develops wisdom through insight meditations
particularly this intensive vipassana type of practices he or she has to find some counterweight
some some power some way of accessing this confidence faith area that will be a support
when the wisdom becomes too much it won't be believing that the Buddha was born with earthquakes
and lights and all this it's not there but I just wanted to point out this area of faith which many
coming to Buddhist from maybe a religion where faith was experienced as something that is being
imposed on you and now you can reject beliefs a Buddhism without beliefs and you have this
freedom the freedom is definitely there but each of you each of us has to find some way of integrating
this confidence faith issue in in your personal life it's one can't just drop it off so there are
few comments here Rosa grow if it can't be seen it ought not be believed yeah that that if one if
one when one need not believe something that goes beyond one's ability to verify but one also need
not reject something simply because one has no empirical empirical evidence for it one can just
set these things aside and say for the time being I don't know and this applies even to to to I mean
to to things like like modern physics discovery of the nature of subtle particles and quarks
it's something I can't see and I also appreciate your last comment on faith but I think there are
stages in the practice yeah definitely there are so I'm fully Rosa I fully agree with your your
basic attitude I'm just pointing out this question of faith and confidence as a mental quality that
is part of those five interiors that according to the early Buddhist teachings are required for
making long-term progress in meditation practice and that each has to find his or own her own way
of developing that quality obviously not by getting into earthquakes and seeing lights and
all these things but just being aware that there is a there's a need that the path to mental freedom
in early Buddhist thought is not one of only wisdom that there is an emotional transformation
that has to take place concomitantly and this involves also cultivating a quality that I prefer
to use the translation confidence but the traditional word is actually faith Juliana
Martini with miracles etc I think that as Westerners we may have a certain intellectual
conceit that our rational and scientific mindset through which we come to Buddhism is perceived
better than the traditional mindset that believes but it's also just a matter of which cultural
context mediates our experience here Juliana exactly so I am not I'm not advocating miracles
but I wanted to precisely make the point that you are making much much clearer than me know that
that wait no everything is moving here that that conceit to question that that conceit that that
was precisely what what I wanted to wanted to say at the conference there's that was one of the
participants he asked about relics and then Mathieu Ricard was quite strong on on this point whereas
I would just have dismissed it I really see no point in it but the point is really that we should
not we have the perfect each of us has the perfect freedom to decide for ourselves what ideas and
what images we wish to integrate in our own thought world but we should be very careful on
evaluations where those images and ideas in our thought world are felt to be intrinsically better
more rational and more meaningful than those other people may be choosing yeah I think I got the point
thank you Juliana Rodolfo I find the marvelous science related to some determinism that is
contrary to the rest of the teaching the future is uncertain like a Buddha comes to this world he
reaches Buddhahood in this world yeah Rodolfo there are in fact you're correct there are some
and I pointed that out in my book on the genesis of the Bodhisattva ideal there are some aspects
where there's a of this this developing notion of he is certain to become a Buddha that do not fit
very well with the rest of the teaching and this is precisely what I have used in my book to show
the different historical layers Rodolfo again why did you say faith gives support when wisdom is too
much this is a basic teaching of the five faculties faith or confidence and wisdom is the first and
the fifth faculty and they need to be balanced with each other Rosa confidence is okay good Juliana I
mean excessive reliance on science or empiricism can be another extreme science is just a paradigm
paradigm shifts to me it doesn't mean much if the Dhamma seems to match contemporary physics or not
just personally the type of knowledge the Dhamma is about seems to me to be of a different kind yeah
in fact and there's this much the people that are heading in natural science like Francisco Varela
are really looking at the contemplative science at meditation practices for an answer to question
they can no longer find within their field whereas those who are professionally engaged
with the study of Buddhism like in Buddhist studies or endology we completely dismiss anything
that has to do with meditation as entirely subjective and not relevant to the type of study
we make so there's very interesting within two sciences of which the one natural science biology
physics chemistry has perhaps a very strong appeal to being very scientific is actually coming much
closer to subjective type of worldview that in Buddhist studies endology is still being felt as
something that is not academic not acceptable anyhow yeah this is in subjectivity is scientific this
is the common ground yeah this is in fact was precisely Francisco Varela was very much also
pointing out and what is becoming more commonly understood in natural sciences that there is not
really this objective observer out there but there's always an element of subjectivity involved anyhow
I think I continue at this point because there's still something this is by Rodolfo not Rona
I have faith that meditation can give me insight because of small samples I obtained so I have faith
in that we have faith but of a different kind and Buddhism with its flexibility can accommodate us
well I thought that was again very putting it very nicely and that is that is that is reasonable that
is a party they called a karavati sadha reasonable faith a confidence gained from experience I tried
it worked so I I have faith and Buddhism early Buddhism can can accommodate that as much as the
traditional Buddhist who believes there was indeed an earthquake and the devas came received the Buddha
etc there's one more comment by Mark and then there would be again time for questions he says
if we are skeptical we have be true to ourselves but also respect the faith of our fellow believing
Buddhist if that is part of their path very beautiful and I think even for modern people if we can
temporarily set aside our rational objections and just enjoy a good story we can find great symbolic
meaning in these stories and that is also a very good point so one everybody has the right to to be
skeptical but we also as Juliana already pointed out we shouldn't be condescending towards those who
have a different approach and if we if we do not like in my own experience but at the point when I
set aside my objections against Majjhima Nikaya 123 the parallel to the story of the Buddha's
birth I started to enjoy and understand the story and I made a major discovery I really it really
paid off and I think if I am now I'm always reading the Agamas and not the Pali but if I
would be starting to read the Majjhima Nikaya again this time I would be able to read the entire
collection I would no longer feel I have to jump this part time for questions
no questions hmm I have no faith in that good then we hit the Majjhima Agama 33 and
as you may have already been suspecting on seeing the screen I'm not going to say much about this
discourse I'll just present it briefly to you this discourse does not have any parallel and it seems
to be putting together of different pieces that are related to Ananda this is an interesting
tendency in several discourses of the Majjhima Agama where we find what I think are the beginning
stages of literature that later came to under the Avadana type of literature where we first
there's this interest in the Buddha and this history of the Buddha that we get in the Mahaparin
nirvana sutta and its parallels and then there begins to be an interest as time passes by in
having some history of his chief disciples and so they are these discourses which collect different
pieces on a particular disciple and at the beginning of a kind of a history as we get later
on in the commentaries and in Avadana literature so the Majjhima Agama 33 I just give you a brief
overview about the main points in the discourse the Buddha tells that he is old and he needs an
attendant and then there are different monks that volunteer and the Buddha does not accept them
mostly because they are also as old as he is and then Mahamogalana realizes that the Buddha wants
Ananda as his attendant so Mahamogalanda approaches Ananda and Hananda at first hesitates and then
eventually he agrees to become the Buddha's attendant under the condition that he will not
be getting any special privileges from this position and then the next part of the discourse
the Buddha declares several ways how Ananda is looking after him in a very skillful and appropriate
way and then it comes another section it's very clear that these are different textual pieces where
Ananda declares himself what his outstanding qualities you remember we are in the chapter on
marvels and wonders and then there's an interesting feature that we are going to come to in the next
discourse which we will discuss in more detail where every time Ananda says something where he is
good at then the reciders repeat that repeat the same quality then comes another section where the
Buddha teaches Ananda about the proper way of lying down on the right side the lion's posture
the idea of a lion who sleeps on his right side then comes another passage on the Buddha's passing
away and Ananda is preparing a place for him under the twin salad trees and then there's this
touching scene where Ananda is standing outside weeping because the Buddha is about to pass away
and he realizes who I still have so much work to do and the teacher is now going not going to be
there to help me and to cheer him up then the Buddha extols several of his qualities and compares
them in the Magyama Agama to the qualities of a real turning king real turning king as a universal
emperor and then comes an episode after the Buddha has passed away and there's another monk by the
name of Vajiputta and he realizes that Ananda is not yet an Arahant so he speaks a few poetic
stanzas to stir him up that would I think be sangvega the term we were discussing with Venerable
Akhincana and when Ananda is about to lie down on his bed he becomes an Arahant and this story of Ananda
becoming an Arahant when he's just about to lie down to sleep to take a rest we also have that in
the terrible tradition the Vinaya where this is said to have happened just before the first council
Sanghiti or communal recitation where according to tradition the scriptures were rehearsed yeah that
is my brief rundown of Magyama Agama 33 you see if there's any question to that who go any comments
about what I read from Ajahn Brahm on the translation of Magyama Shruti Nikaya 141 having put away
covetous and grief for the world yeah who I think Churyana very clearly replied to that and I can
only endorse that I have also stated that in my Satipatana book and I think we also discussed it
last year once again it is not possible to assume that the five hindrances need to be overcome before
Satipatana practice because Satipatana practice includes awareness of the presence of the hindrances
but this is a topic that has not really so much to do with the present lecture and I would prefer
if we can stay with the topics that are somewhat related to what we are discussing now
if there's no comments or question on this my short rundown of the
collected stories on Aranda I would go into Magyama Agama 34 which is the discourse that is the main
topic for our meeting today and where I have already earlier announced that in the first part
of this series we have been looking at Satiputta as an exemplification of the early Buddhist
Arahant ideal and in this discourse we get what I think is a somewhat different Arahant ideal and I
think this is what I would like us to particularly look at now so the setting of the discourse is
that there's this monk called Bakula and there's an old friend of his who is practicing in a
non-buddhist tradition and he comes to visit him just a second there's one
question by Juliana is there a canonical basis for the story that he attended Arahant just before
the first council Juliana it's in the Vinaya it's in the Vinaya account of the first council
also
so yeah I think I read the first part and then I want to make you notice certain features of this
discourse and I will read the whole one and then we look at these qualities
excuse me the non-buddhist practitioner asked friend Bakula how long have you been
practicing the path in this true teaching and discipline the Venerable Bakula answered
practitioner of another school I have been practicing the path in this true teaching and
discipline for 80 years already the non-buddhist practitioner asked further friend Bakula
during your 80 years of practicing the path in this true teaching and discipline do your recall
ever having had sexual intercourse the Venerable Bakula answered the non-buddhist practitioner
you should not ask such a question instead you should ask a different question friend Bakula
doing your 80 years of practicing the path in this true teaching and discipline do your recall
ever having given rise to any thought of sexual desire this practitioner of another school is the
question you should ask then the non-buddhist practitioner said this I now ask a different
question friend Bakula doing your 80 years of practicing the path in this true teaching and
discipline do your recall ever having given rise to any thought of sexual desire and this because
the non-buddhist practitioner asked the question the Venerable Bakula said to the monks Venerable
friends I have been practicing the path in this true teaching and discipline for 80 years
but that for this reason conceit should arise in me this is not the case
that the Venerable Bakula was able to make this declaration this is said to be an extraordinary
quality of the Venerable Bakula again the Venerable Bakula declared Venerable friends during my 80
years of practicing the path in this true teaching and discipline I have never had any thought of
sexual desire that the Venerable Bakula was able to make this declaration this is said to be an
extraordinary quality of the Venerable Bakula so now we look at the Pali version there is the same
thing also the same exchange that happened before and then our Bakula states I do not recall any
perception of sexual desire to have ever arisen in me and we get this comment by the reciters
that in the 80 years since he went forth the Venerable Bakula did not recall any
perception of sexual desire to have ever arisen in him this we remember as a wonderful and marvelous
quality of the Venerable Bakula and then it continues like this with always these repetitions
and I'm just giving you his basic statements he also then states in the 80 years since I went
forth I do not recall any perception of ill will to have ever arisen in me and in the 80 years since
I went forth I do not recall any perception of cruelty to have ever arisen in me and then again
we get this for just the same type of thought essential thought ill will thought of ill will
and thought of cruelty now the first thing I would like us to notice is this this type of
acclamations that we get in both versions like this that in the 80 years he did not this is a
wonderful and marvelous quality this is something relatively unusual in the early discourses
collected in the Chinese Agamas and Pali Nikayas usually the reciters those who put the discourse
into its final shape for oral transmission and eventually writing down they will give locations
they say like the Buddha was staying here or they will say so and so said this part and give us the
name of the speakers they sometimes give a little narration to connect pieces that have been
there's there's something happening between like they say so and so got up and so and so came
but normally they do not make this explicit approval they do not express the explicit
approval in this way and as far as I have been able to research this so far I have found these
kind of approvals always in discourses that have later features and at the point of these
approvals is not only that it could be a sign of lateness but also it shows that from the
perspective of the reciters this baccala is really exemplary he his his marvels are really really
very important to be to be kept in mind and and to be emphasized and then another point that
comes from the statement that he has gone forth for 80 years already is that obviously this
discourse could not have happened at the time when the Buddha was still alive that is leaving
aside now our academic perspective and uncertainty how far the discourses report actually what
happened even taken the discourse at its surface level and just going by what it says when it says
80 years since I went forth then it is not possible that the Buddha could still be alive because our
baccala could only have become gone forth as a Buddhist monk after the Buddha had become awakened
and that means that after 45 years the Buddha passed away getting up to 80 years it means
that this statement could have been made at its earliest 35 years after the Buddha had already
passed away that also means that it is impossible for this discourse to have been recited at this
first communal recitation or council the first Sangeeti in fact the commentary the Pali
committee recognizes that and it says yes this discourse was included in the canonical
collections only at the second council so what I wanted to draw our attention to here is that now
as we are going through these qualities that what we have here is first of all clearly a discourse
that itself identifies as being later than other discourses and that it is some discourse that
shows us qualities that the reciders apparently found extremely inspiring Robert I wonder how
baccala could be so far on the path no sensual desire from the very first moment of going forth
for most people the tendency to craving ignorance decreases over the period of the practice
well I hope I'm not being too naughty against good baccala now but according to the commentaries
and I believe I also found that information in the commentary preserved in Chinese on a
baccala was already 80 when he went forth so he was already an old man and by the time of this
discourse then he was 160 and also but we have a similar statement also for Ananda that he can also
claim that he never had any perception of sensual desire and so it seems that some people are less
disposed towards sensual desire I myself know some lay people who have never had engaged in
any sex because it simply didn't interest them from the outset and these these people if you
meet them they're all practicing Buddhist those I know they make a very pure impression on you
so I think it's just a question of what we bring with us when we start the practice but for most
of us certainly myself included I cannot make any such claim to the contrary I really had to
struggle when I became a monk Sylvester can it be that baccala was an alien
Sylvester I'm not sure what you mean by him being an alien
he was definitely a Buddhist monk
yeah maybe if you say something more I'm sorry I didn't get that point and Rosa understands
Anul then at 160 yeah indeed Juliana why does the non-Buddhist practitioner word the question
terms of this true teaching and discipline of another teacher is it normal just referring to
the way the Dhamma Vinaya of the Buddha was known is he adopting the Buddhist expression for the
sake of discussing with the Buddhist practitioner or is it asleep in the transmission well true
teaching translates sadh dharma so I would think that maybe the original expression he might just
have used dharma vinaya as the expression dharma vinaya is being used regularly also
outside Buddhist circles and by Buddhists to refer to non-Buddhist traditions and then this
became sadh dharma vinaya let me just check the party if there's also sadh dharma maybe there's
no dharma vinaya yeah there's nothing there yeah so there's no dharma no vinaya in the
pie version at all so I don't think this is a problem this is just an expression that came to
be part of the Madhyama Agama version doing oral transmission I suppose Rosa says they are joking
Sylvester Shriga not a human being why Sylvester you think he would not be a human being
I as far as we are able to tell Sylvester this is just a very normal story that is meant to describe
a marvelous monk just as other marvelous monk we will we met before Ananda and we will be meeting
some marvelous lay people next time Rosa no seriously in my opinion this is highly hyperbolic
literary nothing to do with faith or no faith yeah I think I'm losing the thread a little bit
of the different comments Juliana says that he could not have ordained if he wasn't a human
being anyway and John Emma says does go forth always mean as a Buddhist or can one go forth
as an ascetic and later become a Buddhist I'm thinking of a story in the book we use for the
Dhamma school here about the ascetic Asita and his nephew Nalaka at Gautama's birth he asks his
nephew to retire from worldly life and become a monk for the sake of the future Buddha
but I know this book uses many things from later periods in the development of Theravada
you're going forth in general and just refers to to to anyone not necessarily as a Buddhist
but the context here makes it obvious that Bakula is a Buddhist monk
there's a paper on going forth by Freiberger where he discusses that and there's a few
passages where I found that somebody who had already gone forth as a non-Buddhist
I do not recall now I think it's more often in Chinese Agamas than in Pali versions
that then he gets a gets a talk by the Buddha and he gets faith and then he says let me become a
lady disciple and there I argue that this this makes not much sense that either he
he is not convinced by what the Buddha teaches or if he's convinced he'll become a Buddhist monk
I'm sure that Bakula is really an unbelievable story
yeah but that is a little bit I mean this whole chapter on miracles now what we are looking at is
not so much whether this is believable or not but we are trying to see tendencies in Buddhist
thought and these tendencies have had an influence far beyond the Bakula story and there is a
shift I believe in the conception of what makes an Arahant praiseworthy which informs modern
understandings particularly in the Theravada tradition much beyond this Bakula story and
this is what I'm trying to get at now
so we are continuing I am listing these qualities I'm numbering them according to how the discourse
presents them the Madhyama Agama often puts several qualities together and then only gives this
statement by the reciters that it's a one-on-one marvelous quality the Pali
cuts them up in smaller pieces excuse me a second
I have been wearing rag robes for 80 years but that for this reason conceit should arise in me
this is not the case I have been wearing rag robes for 80 years I do not recall ever having
accepted a robe from a lay filler having cut up cloth to make a robe having had other monks make
a robe for me or having sewn a robe or bag with a needle not even a single thread I have been
begging food for 80 years but that for this reason conceit should arise in me this is not the case
in my 80 years of begging food I do not recall ever having accepted an invitation from a lay
follower excuse me ever having gone beyond the right time for begging food ever having bagged
food from a big household so as to get clean got very fine and luxurious food to eat save and digest
this coming back to his conceit is something peculiar to the Madhyama Agama version
the Pali version and I'm cutting this up to make it a little bit hopefully less boring into like
topics on the topic of robes it gives us the following marvelous qualities of Bakula
so he does not recall ever having accepted a robe from a householder having worn a robe given by a
householder having cut a robe with a cutter having sewn a robe with a needle having colored a robe
with dye having sewn a robe at the kartina time having worked on making robes for my companions
in the holy life oh there's the meal also having accepted an invitation to a meal having given
rise to the thought oh may someone invite me to a meal having sat down inside a house and having
eaten inside a house so we get all this austere conduct in the two versions related to robes and
food two quite central topics for monks let me see what Mark has
if the commentaries were wrong about him already being 80 years old when he became a monk then
the story is quite believable the discourse itself makes no such claim that he went forth when already
80 yeah Mark that is true but as I said this commentary explanation I found it again and I
do not recall often now where but I could look it up and I believe it is in the in a in a partial
commentary preserved in Chinese on the Ekotarika Agama where we also told that he was 80 years old
when he ordained or we are told that he was 160 he became 160 years old which is a little unbelievable
here and as you rightly point out we do not get any statement in the canonical versions be this
the manjimani kaya or the manyama agama that he was 160 that he went forth only at 80 so this is
only a later point and I was just mentioning this to give some background uh smilingly perhaps
on the fact that he is presented as having had no sensual perceptions
now we get into women how is he dealing with women
our bakula manyama agama I never looked at a woman's face I do not recall ever having entered
a nunnery I do not recall ever having exchanged greetings with a nun or even having spoken to
a nun on the road during my 80 years of practicing the part in this true teaching and discipline I
do not recall ever having trained a novice nor do I recall ever having taught the dharma to a lay
follower not even a verse of four lines I'm obviously leaving aside all these repetitions
and acclamations so his conduct with women and with other monks and lay people let us see what
the Pali version says I do not recall ever having grasped the science and features of a woman
having taught the dharma to a woman even as much as a four line stencer having on to the bhikkhunis
quarters having taught the dharma to bhikkhunis having taught the dharma to a female probationer
having taught the dharma to a female novice having given the going forth having given the full
admission having given dependence having had a novice wait on me a female probationer is a
specific stage in training for becoming a bhikkhuni going forth as for becoming a male or female novice
full admission is then for becoming a bhikkhu and one lives in dependence on a teacher so these are
all terms related to the monastic training in early buddhism let me see there
oh I thought there were some more questions something was moving there but nothing has come
oh there mark Asians like to embellish age long life like as wisdom but being among for 80 years
is quite possible and also the strict practice remarkable but possible yeah Rosa is joking
yeah Juliana as in the meantime as she always very good at finding the reference so it's in
the commentary on the kotarika agama the fan beer kongdulun no no problem about multitasking
thank you very much for for supporting I suppose if you had found that said something
wrong you would not have poisoned it no
yes Rosa that is in fact the full point that I'm wanting to go for after I've read through is are
all these things that deserve admiration that is the big question that I have you hit the nail
on the head for me let's let's let's go through the whole thing and and then discuss but I fully
agree with you Lisa says it's more the point around seclusion no hmm let let me get to the end
but that is a question I also had and eventually I I was not so sure about that let's let's go for
the for the rest and then but I think yeah in fact as Rosa says nonash is not so good and
the topic about seclusion is we I would like to comment on that well let me comment on it right
away to to clarify things actually maybe that's better so the thing is you are correct and I will
be hopefully not repeating myself when I say that again later on if he would have been somebody who
lives entirely in seclusion that would be understandable but everything we know about him
is he's living right in the middle of the monastery at the time of a chance meeting with a non-bodice
practitioner he starts to address the other monks it means he was in the middle of the monastery
and at the end we get another passage where he passes away again he's in the midst of the
monastery so as far as we are able to tell the picture of Bakula that we are getting depicted
in this text is not one of somebody who is simply in seclusion by himself and that is precisely
why I fully agree with Rosa are all these things that deserve admiration question mark question
mark question mark any let us let me let me go for the rest it's not so much more I think
doing my 80 years of practicing the path and this true teaching and discipline I've never been ill
not even having a headache for a moment I do not recall ever having taken medicine not even a
single piece of Mirabalan in my 80 years of practicing city meditation in the crosstalk
posture I have never leaned against a wall or a tree now we get the Majimani Kaya version on his
what we call it body care I do not recall ever having bathed in a bath house having bathed with
bath powder having undertaken the word of massaging the limbs of my companions in the holy life
that's actually a question reply to a question asked one or two lectures earlier if monks are
allowed to massage each other excuse me continue having had an affliction arising me for as long
as it takes to milk a cow it's a very short time having taken medicine even as much as a piece of
gall nut having used a bolster having made up a bed having ended upon residence for the rains
and resting place inside a village
poor who is asking if bakwala was too old to remember things correctly
poor how you are naughty
so me continue with Robert I find points 21ff even discriminating
21ff now I have to go back to see what he means
yeah in fact I do too in any case the Buddha did not make a difference between male and female
forest in fact I also find them discriminating
so I keep reading the Magyama Agama
within three days and nights I attained the three-fold realization
I will attain final nirvana in the cross-legged sitting posture
then the Venmer bakwala attained final nirvana in the cross-legged sitting posture
that the Venmer bakwala attained final nirvana in the cross-legged sitting posture
this is said to be an extraordinary quality of the Venmer bakwala
and the Pali version for seven days after going forth I ate the country's arms forward
as a debtor on the eighth day final knowledge arose then on a later occasion the Venmer bakwala
took a key and went from cell to cell saying come forth Venmer sirs come forth Venmer sirs today
I shall attain final nirvana then seated in the midst of the song of monks the Venmer bakwala
attained final nirvana this is small by the side thing this taking of a key I have always been
puzzled why they have to take a key to go to the places of others there's a very very nice study
by professor von Hinuebel of material aspects of monastic life and so he explains that these
ancient type huts they had a kind of lock that you could only open and close from inside
so like suppose I go into my little hut then I have like something that enables me to close
the door which will prevent wild animals and snakes from coming in but if somebody wants to
close it from outside even when I go begging or somebody else wants to give me a message
they have to have a little metal hook kind of there's like a hole you put that hook in and that
enables you to pull up the wooden part that is closing the door so in order not to disturb those
who are meditating they have this key this bakwala takes this key so he's able to go into all these
huts and say I have a message for you and then tells them to come that's just a little little
material thing because that has always been puzzling me a lot and professor von Hinuebel's
explanation solved that puzzle for me John Emmer didn't you mention your paper on bakwala that he
didn't teach males either yeah yeah he also doesn't teach novices and shamanias we're going to come to
that now but that he makes a special point of being proud that he never speaks to women that
he never even greets a nun I find that discriminating so now we have a look at the different topics
first there is this issue of the perceptions he has and there's this recurrent emphasis in the
maryama that he has no conceit and I simply question if the fact that
he is has to this has to be stated explicitly there could have been some criticism
I just wonder could there have been some criticism about the fact that he is saying I have this this
this this and as we can see also there's a typical way how things expand I think the original would
have just been that he had no essential perception and then the party version this this expands no
ill will no cruelty and then you have three types perception then you also get the three types of
thought it kind of becomes more voluminous here we have the topic of robes
let me just see the comments here John Emmett says I took it as evidence of his lack of interest
in sexuality yeah but John if I am if I know where to teach only males I would make it a condition
for this course that no females are allowed to come and listen to this would you feel that this
is an expression of my lack of interest in sexuality sorry for being a little provocative
but I I find in fact that precisely because I am I have really worked on my sexual design
I've really diminished it I feel extremely comfortable teaching women and I find this is
this is very important it shows a level of maturity to me it seems and besides as Rosa said
if you don't teach that's a lack of compassion
and Lisa says ignoring other's bikinis and looking at a woman's face if you're a biko could be
cruelty yeah I mean if if if if I have a problem with sexual desire it is meaningful not to keep
too much close look at women because men are used to latch on to certain parts of a female
and then develop sexual fantasies but somebody who has been among for so long and boasting of that
John says no but since he didn't teach males either and given the context of the initial
question I thought he was just elaborating on his lack of interest in women
I still feel that the emphasis given here fits with the general tendency towards some
what misogynist attitude in the Buddhist tradition and the fact that these qualities
are then being emphasized as something very praiseworthy of somebody who is an Arahant
this this this monk according to what he says himself has been an Arahant
since a few days after he ordained so for an Arahant who could not have had any sexual desire
to completely cut off women and bikinis from the picture is tough to believe tough to understand
what makes this coming back to Rosa how can this be praiseworthy there's a story of uh Ananda and
he was not an Aran he was just a streamendra and the Buddha sent him to give teachings to the harm
of the king now the harm of the king these are the most beautiful women you had at that time
and being there surrounded by this pretty woman and Ananda was just a streamendra so if that was
felt to be appropriate then how can an Arahant monk pray be praiseworthy for the fact that he
does not even speak to a bikuni i i i just i just find this uh this depiction of a different
Arahant ideal from what we have been meeting so far with Venerable Sariputta and that this uh
this this this this this shows this is precisely the importance what i was saying before towards
Sylvester that this discourse shows tendencies the beginning of certain tendencies that have been
very influential and it is very important to recognize these tendencies i believe and this is
why i i have nothing against poor bakula and i i don't have anything against the the discourse
as such i'm just trying to pinpoint certain tendencies which i think are problematic not only
evaluated from a modern western perspective of gender equality etc but also just placing
them within the context of other early discourses Rosa says for misogyny please read the jataka's
yeah the jataka's are but the jataka's are not originally buddhist many of them are from a
general indian background and have been incorporated in buddhist literature so juliana said aside that
he's an arahant generally speaking it may as well be a sign of aversion due to fear that
his desire of women it would be juliana if he would not be an arahant
yeah as rosa said that would actually be a sign that he has a lot of desire
john emma says it's a good point rosa grower asks if that's repression juliana there's even
in modern context a lot of rhetoric about miscellaneous behavior taken as a son of
asceticism that is precisely juliana what i'm pointing to that is precisely what i what what
i want to get at this this the ideal we sometimes get in some parts of the terrawire tradition of
the arahant who just displays outer asceticism and i believe it has its roots in this type of
uh issue this type of description lisa says there's a distinct reverence for lack of engagement in
his community generally here which is perplexing in fact yes aside from the general issue it is
so we look at the robes
there's a problem here that it's difficult to see how he could have been wearing robes
because he doesn't he doesn't take robes that are given to him he also doesn't want to saw them
and he never according to magi manika he never even died them
it's a little difficult to understand and there's a it's a cute story in the party commentary
it says that his relatives they would uh they would make rag robes and die them and then whenever
he went to take a bath they would sneak in take away his old and put in the new ones
and this is how he could keep on wearing robes without having to accept them and without having
to make them yeah it's a it's a sweet one of these commentaries trying to make sense out of
somewhat difficult description in the suttas i think it strictly speaking would still be a case
of accepting a robe from a householder since even though they just put them there they were made by
them and it means also if he puts them on after bathing that means that he accepts them
anyway he what however he got his robes together it is clear that he got them in a way without
collaborating and certainly without collaborating for others to get robes and this is a way of
conduct this and other aspects of his conduct but i always think like if all monks would have
been acting like this the order of bikus would have died out very quickly let me see some of
the comments here mark maybe was a naked ascetic rosa says something is very wrong with this text
yeah in fact it is but i i want us to understand the tendencies behind that
the problem is not the text itself the problem is that these qualities are perceived as praiseworthy
and you have come with me all this way through this other chapter where we met saree puta how
he is described the type of qualities he symbolizes and now you meet this and you see the difference
robert the fact that he did not teach lay follows novices bikunis indicates that the authors of the
sutta want to strengthen an ingroup something like a group of male elite monks
yeah but robert even to be male elite monks maybe this is the next topic no this topic of invitation
let me just quickly go on i just jumped the others just to reply to robert
you see at least according to the Pali version he also did not collaborate in maintaining the male
monastic order he never you see to become a biko you need to give somebody has to give you the
going forth to become a novice and somebody has to give you the full ordination and you also need
to take dependence so for him these things somebody else must have done but at least
according to the Pali version he never reciprocated even on that aspect
the we don't have these qualities in the madhyama agama though
anyhow let me
there's the topic of invitations that he always went to take arms to beg for arms which is
i think it's a praiseworthy quality but here the topic that most of you have already commented on
his attitude towards women never looked at the woman's face never entered a nunnery never greeted
a nun never taught females this is precisely this this this idea that it is praiseworthy that
say i am if i want to like okay let me let me start as a Buddhist monk i obviously depend on
the offerings of laity and i have to it's part of my job as a monk to behave in a proper way
and now if the general idea of proper behavior is that i shun women that i have to avoid women as
much as i can then if i do not behave like this i become a not praiseworthy monk so this these
ideas are very important because they show us the beginning of certain tendencies that
are a problem still nowadays it is correct that as a young and newly ordained monk i should not
be mixing with women obviously and as a young and newly ordained nun i should not be mixing with males
there's much of wisdom in that and we get instructions by the Buddha that one should not
be getting close to women and if you speak to women be very careful be mindful of what you do
but it is a different question when this is becomes praiseworthy qualities of an arahant
see the Buddha he freely dealt with women he had this this Amba Pali she was a prostitute and he
accepted her gift of a park he went to her house for meals he had no problem with that
that is the point that when this becomes associated not with a stage of training for
one who is still fighting sensual desire but as a mark of the one who is perfected
there it becomes problematic i think let me see the comments
Rosa it goes to external aspects only as it happens in all regions when they become corrupted
yeah it does that is another very keen observation Rosa it is really the whole thing is on external
aspects of conduct this we don't hear about his mindfulness his concentration his wisdom whatever
all this is a display of faultless ascetic conduct considered praiseworthy
lisa was he a buddhist or just a random ascetic who came and showed off at the monastery on the
day of his nibbana well he's obviously been presented as a buddhist monk for 80 years
juliana where the Dhamma in this discourse is there any left in spite of the ideological
development and the tendencies we see was it was the what is the core teaching perhaps
besides the exaggeration there's a genuine intention to state and encourage that there
are ahrens in this world and rosa says if there is an ahren i will not be a buddhist
yeah so i have already touched on the teaching he has the taking care he never got sick
is the only thing that we and he never took medicine and he never leaned against the support
this is actually yeah i think i've gone through most of my topics the interesting thing is that
in the list of outstanding disciples bakula is foremost in health it's also very curious we have
this listing of outstanding disciples in and there we get who is foremost in mindfulness
in wisdom in all this and he's foremost in health this is kind of a quality that has nothing really
to do with him being a buddhist or a practitioner and there's a very cute story that comes in the
divya vadana ashoka vadana it's a little later work of the moonla savasthivada tradition
and it's a story about king ashoka and so king ashoka is taken to a tour
where he can see stupas of different outstanding disciples and so he gets the stupa of maka
kashyapa and mama galan and sari puta and ananda and each time he makes a very substantial donation
big big bag of gold pieces and then there's also stupa of bakula and ashoka is told that
bakula was outstanding for his health and for never having given any teachings and so ashoka
just gives one small coin to the stupa and those around him are surprised and he says i find this
monk not at all inspiring he didn't teach anybody and i i i i mean one thing is i i i i i i i i i i i
read some humor in this description and i find it interesting not only that king ashoka is not
inspired by bakula but also the fact that he's mentioned at all is interesting because the other
monks mentioned are very famous disciples but bakula only comes up this one time
and so by the time this story came into being it seems that bakula was better well known than in
early buddhism and this is precisely what i think is the the case that what rosa already pointed out
that we get here a praise of externals of ascetic conduct without emphasis on the inner qualities
with very little emphasis on inner qualities and this apparently is and and i i propose that we
see here the beginning of a shift in the arahan conception that what we saw in the first chapter
that we read doing earlier lectures of this course is a very different arahan ideal there is somebody
very warm caring open engaging struggling with being wrongly accused going all out of his way
to visit a layperson just to give him a teaching and this around here is one that's a quite a
different arahan ideal so the main point we can get from this discourse i think is a is a shift
in the arahan ideal and to understand for us that this arahan ideal has been important in tradition
and it sometimes informs even modern day conceptions of what an ideal monk should be or behave like
rosa gra ask uh would you read it as a parody i i i think the discourse is meant to be taken
serious i don't think it is meant as a parody i think the king ashoka story that could be
humor and uh but uh the story the the discourse itself uh the the things that
uh convey to me a sense of humor in early discourse are different
if king lisa if king ashoka only gave a coin it almost supports the theory that
it is to be taken as a parody yeah the ashoka story does not mention the bakula sutra it just
has this bare fact that uh he he he was very healthy and he didn't teach anybody
so the ashoka thing i think there's humor in there but the bakula sutra i am not sure
if we can put if we can see humor in there i as far as i can see especially this repetition by
the reciters always keep saying this is a marvelous quality this is a marvelous quality
and also the context before they come the marvels of the buddha the mouths of ananda
um yeah i doubt
oroza it is clearly making fun of moans yeah the ashoka story who was if we are able to date the
creation of this discourse well um we can only say that there is internal evidence obvious
evidence that he's 80 years that this must be later but it must still be relatively early as
we have parallel versions that show that even though there are a number of difference there
is a common core there so i would uh yeah putting dates is a little difficult but i would say
maybe two centuries maximum after the buddhist passing away
oroza says sorry but i do not fully agree with you on this one banten well then please state
where there's disagreement we have come gone already beyond time but uh i think the discussion
is important so i mean as long as you want to continue and those who are getting tired can
switch off juliana usually in the discourses there are parodies of some gods outside ascetics
but not really of insiders
yes there's a small story where i think even insiders are being paranoid but it's not
important now john emmer but is there any evidence of irony in other suttas i find even modern
indians and shulankans to be lacking in a sense of irony compared to what i'm used in america
i think there are instances of irony and i've written on that in some of my articles
i can i can send them to you i just note it down
usually irony and humor come in the context of stories from the past
so i think there's there's a whole current of scholars arguing that stories like the creation
of the world in agañasuta the motive of the universal ruler the chakravati etc are
are there's there's some irony and there's some humor in there i think they are right
i think they are right i have written on that in relation to the chakravati and also in relation
to chakra saka the god of the 33 listen do you see this as a major turning point in the ideal
followed by later discourse that develop this ideal further yes i do see this as a major turning
point in the arahant ideal i do i think this is quite different and it is this idea what then also
by other later tradition is being criticized the hina yannis the self-centered arahant and as long
as they talk about the bakula type of art they actually write this is a person who is if he would
not be an arahant we would have to say he is self-centered just caring about himself and all the
ideal of perfection is being reduced to an outer display of ascetic conduct but it is a it is a
mistake to think that this type of uh presentation is representative of the arahant ideal in early
buddhism in general a major misunderstanding and i hope you would agree with me on that having gone
with me through the sari puta descriptions rosa but this may be just an exception the canon
it is exceptional in the canon and it is surprising as hugo said to to find it at this early stage
usually within the early discourses we find only the first traces of developments that become more
explicit later on robert the important point i take from this is the shift of the ideal of an
arahant the fact that ajambaram got into trouble for attaining the ordination of bhikkhonis i don't
know the details shows that these views have an influence on buddhism still today
and the problem in this particular issue is somewhat more complex
because ajambaram was part of a particular monastic tradition who had decided not to have
that so it would have been he would have needed the permission as a representative of their group
to do that it's a little bit like if you are say part of a certain group of tai chi students
officially recognized as representing a particular teacher and then you do something that has not
been agreed against what the whole group wants to do then the whole group says you're no longer
part of us so even though i i think it's wonderful that he did it the fact that he was excluded from
the group from their perspective is understandable but this is a different topic but the problem of
bhikkhoni order is reordination is also somewhat complex and we cannot reduce it to this but one
of the aspects is uh definitely uh the in german we call the peruangst the fear of contact with
females that sometimes goes with the ideal of the good monastic
akinjana if bakala was among for 80 years the sudha must be after buddha pa'iya we said
that before it definitely must have been come into being
rudit salina i have heard that only thing what motivates aran to live is to teach dharma
yeah i i think teaching dharma is a very important aspect of the conduct of an arahant and some arahants
may do this less they may live a secluded life but an arahant who stays in the middle of the
monastic community would have chances to do that anyhow we are almost 10 minutes over time
so i'm i'm glad for this very uh enlivening exchange we had and i hope that uh nothing i said
in the course of presenting my views on this discourse has been experienced by anybody as
a denigration or aggressive kind of teaching i'm because i am very much with my heart in this kind
of thing i might have said things a little bit too strong in that case i apologize and i look
forward to seeing you again