by the flow of his all-encompassing Dhamma, radiating forth in
every direction. He began by paying tribute to the 1,250 Arahants
who had come together spontaneously on this full moon day in
the time of the Buddha.
“On this day 1,250 Arahants assembled spontaneously at
the Lord Buddha’s residence without prior arrangement. They
were all individuals of the utmost purity, completely free of kile-
sas. The Lord Buddha himself delivered the Pãåimokkha exhorta-
tion^11 that day, making the occasion a visuddhi uposatha; that is,
an uposatha observed among monks who are all absolutely pure.
Compare that assembly with the one gathered here today. You
listen to the Pãåimokkha being recited among monks who are all
absolutely tainted – not one of you is completely free of kilesas.
It is dismaying to think that, having ordained as a monk, each
of you is a son of the same Buddha as those Arahant disciples.^12
Yet, in your case it is just an empty claim lacking any real sub-
stance; like a person having the name ‘Goodman’ who, on the
contrary, is so weighed down under his own evil doings he can
hardly move. In the Buddha’s day, monks practiced the Dhamma
truly and so became true monks with a true understanding which
concealed nothing false. Today, the fame and celebrity of some
monks is so great that they rival the sun and the moon, yet their
actions sink to the depths of avïci. Where will they ever find
virtue, truth, and purity? They merely accumulate a mass of kile-
sas and create the evil kamma that goes with them. Since monks
today are not engaged in uprooting the kilesas from their hearts,
how can visuddhi uposatha possibly arise? Once ordained, they
are satisfied with their exalted status as Buddhist monks, taking
for granted that this makes them models of virtue. But they have
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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