Buddhism without rules

When the subject of monastic rules is brought up which comprise Dhamma-vinaya (i.e., Dharma training) it is assumed that the so-called patimokkha, or rules of the Samgha, is of one kind.  When added up these rules amount to 227 rules for monks and 331 rules for nuns.  Yet, as Sukumar Dutt points out we would be wrong in assuming that the patimokkha is, without question, a monastic code. (I have put into italics the most important points that Dutt makes.) 

“The original Pâtimokkha of the Bhikkhus [monks] is described in the Mahapadâna Suttanta (Digha Nikaya 13 [sic] {14 in Walshe’s trans.}).  It is not the recital of a code of offences against the rule and regimen of monastic life, but a congregational chanting by assembled Bhikkhus of a confession of faith; it is not a regularized forthnightly function, but a rite held only once in six years.  The confession of faith itself is a summing-up of the fundamental Sâsana (Injunctions) of the religion.  In this formulation from it must have been current among the Bhikkhus since the early days of the Samgha, for it occurs among the verses of the Dhammapada” (Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India, 66).

Taking a look at the particular Dhammapada verse which Dutt mentions we can see for ourselves that it contains no mention of rules.

“Forbearing patience is the highest austerity;

Nibbana [nirvana] is supreme, the Awakened Ones say.

One who has gone forth is not one who hurts another,

No harasser of others is a recluse (184).

Refraining from all that is detrimental,

The Attainment of what is wholesome,

The purification of one’s mind,

This is the instruction of Awakened Ones” (183). 

(Compare this with D. ii. 49–50.  They are fundamentally the same, but there is an additional verse in the Digha-Nikaya patimokkha.)

It is obvious that the patimokkha found in the Dhammapada and the Digha-Nikaya, is one altogether different from the later, more common patimokkha which is a system of rules and appropriate punishments.  

Looking back at its history, the patimokkha was not first inaugurated by the Buddha, according to Dutt, but by Vipassi Buddha “the first of his [Gautama the Buddha’s] mythical predecessors” who “is said to have sent his disciples in batches on preaching missions, enjoining them to return to and reassemble at Bandhumati every six years to hold a ‘patimokkha’” (67).  

Even in the commentarial literature (atthakatha) the patimokkha is not treated as being simply synonymous with regula.  It takes on a broader significance in the context of those fallen into suffering and their subsequent liberation from it.  In the Udana Commentary (Udanaatthakatha) translated from the Pali by Peter Masefield, we submit the following commentary on patimokkha.

“It is the Patimokkha since it is this faller (patinam) that it frees (mokkheti) from the dukkha [suffering] of samsara.  For it is due to the release (vimokkhena) of the mind (cittassa—or consciousness) that a being is spoken of as “liberated” (vimutto).  For there is said:  “It is through cleansing the mind (citta) that beings are purified (S iii 151) and “(Just when your) mind (cittam) became released (mutto) from the âsavas without clinging” (Ud 24)” (PTS edition, p. 576).

The above represents but a small section of a more extensive treatment of patimokkha in the Udana commentary—but by no stretch of the imagination can one construe patimokkha to be about rules or a code of monastic conduct and punishment.  The commentary, in so many words, is telling us that patimokkha is about freeing ourselves from samsara.  

Turning to the later system of rules given under patimokkha it is difficult to make a winnable case that obeying rules frees the so-called faller from the suffering of samsara.  Such rules might work well to keep the monastic Samgha orderly but we should not conclude that an order of obedient monks and nuns draweth one closer to nirvana!  As both the older patimokkha and the commentary point out, purification of mind is key.  There is no liberation without such purification and thus no nirvana.

Comments

[bhiksuni Ratana]

Please mention that the Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist communities live by different sets of vinaya/pratimoksha, equally belonging to the Small Vehicle (there is no Great Vehicle vinanay). The Himalayas live bij the Mula-sarvastivada vinaya, the Chinese are ordained by the Dharmapupta-vinaya. The Dharmagupta-pratimokhsa has 338 rules and is completed with some 40 - 48 socalled Bodhisattva-rules, some of which are identical to the novice-rules of the Theravada.