While it obviously makes sense that the monks have to agree to the rules of the sangha and live by them, I’m confused as to why there are not exceptions to the rule for people who have broken the rules before being ordained. Are they not allowed to be ordained because they are simply liable to break the rules again, or are they not ordained because they’ve accumulated too much bad karma to set them on the path to nirvana and buddhahood? Is it necessary for them to live out more rebirths until they are ready to be ordained in a different life?
The four unbreakable rules are that one should not engage in sexual behaviors, steal, kill a living being, or lie about spiritual attainments.
In “Making Monks into Men” the ordaining monks ask “Have you not committed one or another of the four offences which require expulsion?... If he says ‘such an …show more content…
283).
Lopez writes in his preface to the chapter “A Murderer Becomes a Monk” that the Buddha stopped allowing people who had committed these infractions to be ordained after he welcomed a murderer, Angulimala, into the sangha. He writes “The disapproval that resulted from the ordination of Angulimala led the Buddha to make a rule forbidding criminals from becoming monks or nuns” (p. 253).
The point that allowing criminals into the sangha is conflicting with the teachings of the dharma is on one hand sensible, but on another somewhat hypocritical. Why can one not decide to renounce their old way of life, just as the monks of the sangha had to do at some point or another to become ordained, and follow the Buddha? These four acts are just too
The four unbreakable rules are that one should not engage in sexual behaviors, steal, kill a living being, or lie about spiritual attainments.
In “Making Monks into Men” the ordaining monks ask “Have you not committed one or another of the four offences which require expulsion?... If he says ‘such an …show more content…
283).
Lopez writes in his preface to the chapter “A Murderer Becomes a Monk” that the Buddha stopped allowing people who had committed these infractions to be ordained after he welcomed a murderer, Angulimala, into the sangha. He writes “The disapproval that resulted from the ordination of Angulimala led the Buddha to make a rule forbidding criminals from becoming monks or nuns” (p. 253).
The point that allowing criminals into the sangha is conflicting with the teachings of the dharma is on one hand sensible, but on another somewhat hypocritical. Why can one not decide to renounce their old way of life, just as the monks of the sangha had to do at some point or another to become ordained, and follow the Buddha? These four acts are just too