BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

Buddhist Monastic Code 1you would, at the break-up of the body, after death, fall into deprivation, the baddestination, the abyss, hell... Bhikkhus, in this world with its devas, māras, andbrahmās, its generations with brahmans and contemplatives, princes and men, thisis the ultimate great thief: he who claims an unfactual, non-existent superior humanstate. Why is that? You have consumed the nation's almsfood through theft."The full offense under this rule has four factors.1) Object: a superior human state.2) Perception: One perceives it as not present in oneself.3) Effort: One addresses a human being, mentioning that state in connectionwith oneself — either the state as within oneself, or oneself as in the state —4) Intention: with the intent to misrepresent the truth, motivated by an evildesire.The commentaries add a fifth factor — result — saying that one's listener mustunderstand what one is saying for there to be the full offense, but as we will seebelow, this factor appears to be based on a misreading of the Vibhaṅga.Object. The Vibhaṅga lists many superior human states, defining them as follows: meditative absorption (jhāna): the four jhānas; emancipation (vimokkha): the emptiness (suññatā) emancipation, the themeless(animitta) emancipation, and the non-directed (appaṇihita) emancipation; concentration (samādhi): the emptiness concentration, the theme-lessconcentration, and the non-directed concentration; meditative attainments (samāpatti): the emptiness attainment, the theme-lessattainment, and the non-directed attainment; knowledge-and-vision (ñāṇa-dassanā): knowledge of past lives, knowledge ofthe passing away and arising of beings, and knowledge of the ending ofmental effluents (āsava); path-development (magga-bhāvanā): the 37 Wings to Awakening(bodhipakkhiya-dhamma) — the four establishings of mindfulness, the fourright exertions, the four bases of power, the five faculties, the five strengths,the seven factors for Awakening, and the noble eightfold path; the realization of the noble fruits (phala-sacchikiriya): the fruit of stream-entry,the fruit of once-returning, the fruit of non-returning, and the fruit ofarahantship; the abandoning of defilements (kilesappahāna): the abandoning of passion,aversion, and delusion;62