9.5 The Story about a Bhikkhu Unrestrained with the Requisites

9.5 The Story about a Bhikkhu Unrestrained with the Requisites
Asaññataparikkhārabhikkhuvatthu

Dhp 121

Burlingame: The Monk Who Failed to Keep His Requisites in Order

A bhikkhu refused to look after his requisites, thinking them not worth the trouble; the Buddha told him he should not think in that way and admonished him with a verse.

Keywords: Requisites, Discipline

“One should not despise wickedness,” {3.15} this Dhamma teaching was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Jetavana with reference to a bhikkhu who failed to keep his requisites in order.

It seems that this bhikkhu would leave out of doors whatever requisites, such as beds and chairs, he used out of doors. His requisites, thus exposed to the ravages of rain and sun and white ants, soon went to pieces. His brother bhikkhus used to say to him: “Friend, ought you not to put away your requisites?” The bhikkhu would reply: “I have committed only a slight fault, friends; it is not worth wasting thought or bile over.” Then he would do the same thing over again.

The bhikkhus informed the Teacher of his doings. The Teacher sent for him and said to him: “Bhikkhu, is the report true that you are doing thus and so?” But even when the Teacher asked him, the bhikkhu replied: “Fortunate One, I committed only a slight fault; it is not worth wasting thought or bile over.” Thus did he reply to the Teacher, expressing slight concern over what he had done.

Then said the Teacher: “Bhikkhus should never act on this principle. One should never regard a wicked deed as a small matter, saying: ‘It is a mere trifle.’ For when a water-vessel stands with mouth uncovered in the open {3.16} and the rain descends, it is not, to be sure, filled by a single drop of rain; but when it rains again and again, it is filled to the brim. Even so, little by little, the man who commits wrong accumulates a huge pile of wrong.” So saying, he joined the connection, and teaching the Dhamma, pronounced the following verse:

121. Māppamaññetha pāpassa: na maṁ taṁ āgamissati,
udabindunipātena udakumbho pi pūrati,
bālo pūrati pāpassa, thokaṁ thokam-pi ācinaṁ.

One should not despise wickedness
thinking: it will not come to me,
through the falling of water drops
even the water-pot is filled,
the fool is filled with wickedness,
accumulating bit by bit. [29.272]

At the end of the teaching many reached the fruition of Stream-entry and so on. Then the Teacher promulgated the following precept: “Whoever fails to remove a bed he has spread in the open air is guilty of wrong.” AJ: Vin Pāc 14-15.