Recollection of Virtue

One of the things that defiles the mind is gaṇa-palibodha: concern over the group. You’re entangled with the group, or with the individuals in the group. This is called gaṇa-palibodha. Your mind isn’t at peace, and when the mind isn’t at peace, it gains no happiness or ease. It’s not conducive for sitting in concentration.

The things that make concentration difficult are of two sorts:

The obstacles that prevent us from walking in line with the path can arise from our lack of knowledge—and they can cause harm. This is why we have to study and practice in a way that’s circumspect. And this is why we have Dhamma talks every day, so that we can do away with this lack of knowledge and give rise to knowledge in its place. In this way, we can practice correctly. The heart will tend toward stillness.

There are two areas that have to be dealt with. The first is what I mentioned just now: We know that something is an enemy, but we can’t withstand it. Sometimes we know, sometimes we forget, sometimes we have a lapse of mindfulness through the pressure of defilements. This is one sort of thing that can prevent the paths and fruitions.

The second area concerns the things we don’t know at all. We don’t know that they’re wrong; we don’t know when we do something wrong. This can give rise to defilement.

Most of the areas where we don’t know have to do with our precepts and virtue. When we know that something’s wrong or that it creates a disturbance in the mind—we don’t want it to happen, we’re aware, but we can’t resist it—that’s usually an affair of concentration. When our virtues are defiled, our concentration gets defiled, and that in turn becomes a magg’āvaraṇa, an obstacle to following the path and gaining results.

When this is the case, you don’t have any path to follow. And that means that you’re walking all over the place. You’re guided just by your feet and knees, which simply go wherever they like. You keep on wading through the jungle, going uphill and down, sometimes through clearings, sometimes through the bush, stepping on thorns and stumps. Sometimes you step into mud and get all splattered, like a person with no path to follow.

But still you don’t die. You can keep going and you don’t die, but it irritates people who know the path. It’s hard to travel with someone who doesn’t know the path. It’s like traveling together with a blind person. When you tell a blind person, “Come here, come here,” it’s hard. Even though you point with your hands, the blind person doesn’t understand. If the blind person is deaf too, that’s it. It’s really difficult. It’s really hard to travel together with the deaf and the blind. So what can you do? You don’t have to travel together. You first have to find medicine to put into their eyes so that they can at least see something. That’s all there is to it. And you have to cure their ears. When their eyes and ears start to recover, then you can travel together.

To cure your ears means taking an interest in instructions and criticism, the teachings that point out the path of defilement and tell you that that’s a way you shouldn’t follow. If you take an interest, then your deafness will gradually disappear, bit by bit. If you don’t take an interest, you’ll keep on being deaf.

The same with your eyes: You have to put drops in them. It’s too much to ask others to put drops in your eyes for you. You have to learn how to help yourself. How do you help yourself? You have to observe and take note of things. Whether other people explain things or not, you have to observe and take note: When they act in that way, what are they getting at? When they use this sort of behavior, what are they getting at? That’s when you can understand what’s going on. When you understand in this way, it means that you can put drops in your own eyes.

With some people, even if you use a stick to pry open their eyelids, they still won’t open. That’s when they’re impossible. But if your eyes aren’t very dark, you don’t have to look at a lot of things. You see something once, and that’s all you need. You can take it as a standard that you can keep putting into practice. You don’t need lots of examples. Otherwise, you won’t be able to set yourself up in business. If you’re not intelligent, you won’t be able to set yourself up in business at all. Think of shoemakers or tailors: They need only one example, and they can make hundreds of shoes or pieces of clothing. They can succeed in setting themselves up in business.

It’s the same with people of discernment. Even if you see only one example, you can take it as a warning to train yourself and to keep on practicing. When this is the case, it lightens the task of making your eyes better.

The same with cleaning out your ears: Most of us want other people to put drops in our ears, but we have to treat our own ears. The duty of the teacher is simply to give you the medicine that you then put in your ears yourself. What this means is that when you’re criticized, you don’t throw it away or shrug it off. You take it to contemplate the reason behind it. Don’t abandon your responsibility.

Wherever you go: Even when the teacher says something only once, you can put it to use for the rest of your life. That’s what it means to have good ears.

The same with good eyes: You see an example only once and you can take it as a standard by which you keep on practicing. When this is the case, you begin to recover. With some people, though, the teacher can set hundreds and thousands of examples, but they can’t master even one of them. They can’t look after themselves. They can’t depend on themselves. It’s hard for them to give rise to purity.

So if we’re not circumspect in both of these areas, our virtue gets defiled. This is called having virtue that’s not pure. Virtue that’s not pure is a magg’āvaraṇa. The results that would arise from purity of virtue can’t arise. The mind isn’t at peace; it has no concentration. When your virtue isn’t pure, practicing concentration is hard.

So now I’d like to talk about virtue so as to improve the situation, so that you’ll have knowledge and understanding. That way you can practice cleansing your virtue to make it pure. As it’s explained in the texts on the 40 topics of meditation, recollection of virtue is one of the topics for tranquility meditation. There are two ways of recollecting and reflecting on your virtue.

You have to look at both sides. If you look and see that you have some suspicions that your virtue isn’t pure, try to make up the lack and make it more pure. Don’t let yourself have any worries about your behavior or your precepts. That’s when your precepts will lead to stillness of mind—in line with the fact that recollection of virtue counts as a theme for tranquility meditation.

Only when you reflect on your virtue and your mind can come to stillness, does it count as recollection of virtue. If, when you reflect, you see that your virtue isn’t pure, how will the mind come to stillness? When you reflect on the purity of your virtue and can see it clearly, the mind lets go of the matter. It’s like taking an inventory of things in your house: This isn’t missing; that isn’t missing. When nothing’s missing, you can fall asleep easily. But if you take an inventory and find that something’s missing, you can’t get any sleep at all.

When you examine your precepts and see that they’re pure and impeccable in every way, then the mind can immediately grow calm and still. This purity leads to stillness of the heart. For this reason, don’t be heedless or careless. The training of the mind involves your manners and behavior. It involves your virtue and precepts. So don’t be heedless and careless. Don’t see virtue and the precepts as minor matters or low. We have to make the mind into Dhamma, and it’s hard to make it Dhamma when there’s no virtue. As long as the mind isn’t steady, it’s not Dhamma. And when the mind isn’t Dhamma, it’s defiled. Its virtue isn’t pure.

So now I’ll explain virtue for you.

When virtue is divided into precepts, in terms of its expressions, there are the five precepts, the eight, the ten, and the 227 precepts. This is called counting virtue in words and expression. When we talk in terms of its meaning—in other words, we don’t focus on the words, we focus on the levels of its quality—as in the phrase, “sātthaṁ sabyañjanaṁ kevala-paripuṇṇaṁ, entirely perfect in its expression and meaning”: This means that we shouldn’t think that genuine virtue is restricted to the precepts. Aside from the precepts, there’s more and it’s difficult. For that reason, there are different ways to analyze the quality of virtue.

For example, ordinary virtue means following the precepts in an ordinary way. Noble virtue means following them by bringing in the Dhamma as well. These are different levels of quality.

As for our duties, there are two kinds.

These are the two kinds of duties. No matter which set of precepts you follow, they fall under just these two kinds of duties.

The duty to abandon, in brief, applies to the gross forms of unskillful behavior that we have to give up. For example, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t engage in sexual misconduct, don’t tell lies, and don’t take intoxicants. These crude forms of behavior fall under the duty to abandon. You have to give them up absolutely. These things—which are termed ādi-brahmacariyā, the basics of the holy life—are things we have to abandon as a first step. The next step, abhisamācāra, or higher conduct—falls under the duty to develop. We have to give rise to this. Don’t shirk your duties.

Each of us has these two kinds of duties. The duties expressed in the words of the precepts are called the basics of the holy life. Those that deal with the manners of people who are virtuous—the types of behavior that are external signs of virtue—are called higher conduct.

What are the external signs of people who are virtuous? The external signs, called higher conduct, have three characteristics.

All three of these characteristics are signs of a person of pure virtue. All three of these things fall under the duty to develop.

Here I’d like to add some extra explanations. They’re things we’ve all met with, because after all, we aren’t children. We’ve all learned these things and practiced these things, but we may not know the training rules behind them, so we’ve been right in some ways and wrong in others. Some duties we follow and others we shirk—because we don’t think that what we’re doing will cause any harm. So I’d like to focus on this point a little more.

The cleanliness connected with higher conduct isn’t like the cleanliness connected with the basics of the holy life. With the basics of the holy life—such as not killing—our physical actions are clean in one way. With higher conduct, it’s different. You don’t have to kill animals to be unclean in higher conduct. For example, you don’t sweep the area where you sit. You don’t wipe it clean. This is called being a dirty person, and it’s a breach of your virtue. Where you sleep is messy. You don’t put things away. Whatever you should put away, whatever you should use, is piled all over the place. This is called being unclean. Don’t think that it doesn’t harm your virtue.

Even when you’re just standing around: Take the example of Ven. Sāriputta. He was going to go for his almsround, but he didn’t have enough hands. One hand was holding his robe, another hand was rolling it up over his shoulder, so with his foot he brushed away the leaves on the path for his almsround. He didn’t have enough hands. He went that far to maintain the cleanliness of where he was standing.

The same with the place where you’re sitting: We’re taught to open our eyes wide to look around us. Is there something in the place where you want to sit? And is it a place where it’s appropriate for you to sit or not? Is it too close to the elder monks or to your teacher? Contemplate first. “Is this a place where I should stand? Is it a place where I should sit? Is it in line with my position in the community?”

In addition, is the place where we want to sit messy? And when we sit there and happen to make a mess, then when get up and leave, we have to clean it up well. Otherwise, someone else will have to clean it up, and we’ll feel ashamed.

Like people in the old days: If someone they hated came to sit in their house, then when that person left they would immediately splash water on the place where that person had sat, because they felt that it had become dirty. We don’t go that far. All I ask is that if you leave footprints in a place, sweep them away. If dust or dirt from your sitting cloth gets on the floor, then clean it away when you get up. Don’t make other people clean it away. Otherwise, your virtue won’t be pure.

When the place where you sit is clean, it’s a sign of a person of pure virtue. When the place where you stand is clean, it’s a sign of a person of pure virtue. When the place where you walk is clean, it’s a sign of a person of pure virtue. The paths that you use, whether you use them alone or in common with other people: Open your eyes wide to see what condition they’re in. If there’s something wrong, is it something that can’t be helped? Or is it something you can help fix? Can you maintain it in good shape or make it better? Whether it’s of use to you or to whomever, contemplate it and fix what you can. Do some goodness for the place. Whether it’s a path that you use or that other people use, whether it’s your own personal path—where you do walking meditation—or it’s a public path: If it doesn’t look clean to the eye and it’s something you can take care of, take it on as your duty. Only if it’s more than you can fix should you let it go.

Then there’s the issue of your own personal filth. For example: spitting on the path. For monks, it’s an offense of wrongdoing. It’s a breach of higher conduct. If you throw away cigarette ashes, the remains of betel nut, or the remains of your food on a path, it’s an offense. For monks, it’s an offense of wrongdoing; for laypeople, a breach of higher conduct. It’s a sign of a person lacking in virtue.

And it’s forbidden in the Vinaya, in the meal protocols. Just now I didn’t give a full explanation. The Vinaya says that when a monk makes use of the four requisites—cloth, almsfood, medicine, and lodgings: In the area of food, it says that if you bring it back to eat but you don’t eat it all, you should take care of it well. Don’t just throw it anywhere at all where people will see it. Otherwise, they’ll lose faith. It’s a sign that you’re shirking your duties. If it’s something that you can still use tomorrow—like salt—put it in a salt container. If it’s sugar, put it in a sugar container and close it well. Have a place where you can keep these things, called a kappiya-kuṭi.

As for leftovers, take care of them well. Pour them out of your bowl—if there’s a spittoon, pour them into the spittoon with respect—and clean everything out of the bowl. Don’t scatter things around the place. If there’s a layperson, have him dig a deep hole and then pour the leftovers down the hole. Don’t be messy. Don’t let there be the smell of leftover food. Whatever shouldn’t be saved for a later day, bury it. If you can’t bury it, cover it with dirt. Whatever can be saved for a later day, store it carefully.

This is what’s said in the meal protocols. There are a lot of things said in the meal protocols.

So keep the place where you stay clean. This is a sign of a person whose virtue is pure.

The same principle applies to where you walk, where you stand, where you sit, where you lie down.

Don’t make a mess of the place where you sleep. Keep the place clean. You can’t lie there all night long. You have to walk here and there, and so your feet may get dusty and your skin sweaty, all of which will stain the place where you sleep. So keep it clean of anything that will cause harm, as with things that carry germs. For example, if you don’t keep your sleeping place clean, things like bedbugs and fleas will bring germs along with them. So keep the place clean. The world calls this “sanitation.” When you see that the places where you sit, sleep, stand, and walk are clean, your eyes light up. Your heart feels at ease. If you look at the road and see pig shit or dog shit, your heart shrinks and you want to run away. These things are signs of virtue that’s not pure.

Don’t see that the issues of manners are too lowly for you to be concerned with them. They can damage your virtue.

These are issues concerning the place. The next level deals with issues around things. The way you treat your things is a sign of your virtue. What kinds of things? The four requisites. These things have to be kept clean. And what are the four requisites? The first is food—anything that we swallow into the body.

The second is clothing. The Pāli word, cīvara, doesn’t refer only to ochre robes—or yellow robes or red robes or whatever. Any piece of cloth, whatever the color, whether it’s a shirt or a blouse, a woman’s skirt or a man’s trousers, all comes under cīvara, simply that that’s not how we generally use the word. Cīvara simply means “cloth.” Whether it’s woven of flax, silk, or cotton, once it’s a piece of cloth it counts as cīvara. It’s the second requisite.

The third is senāsana, which means lodging or dwelling place. It doesn’t mean only a monk’s hut or a monastery hall. A layperson’s home or shack is also called senāsana, just that we don’t generally use the word that way. We’ve borrowed the Pāli word only in the area of the religion, but it means the same sort of thing for laypeople, too. This is the third requisite.

The fourth requisite is gilāna-bhesajja: medicine for curing disease. In the Vinaya, this is divided into four sorts, all of which come under our phrase, “medicine for curing disease.” For the monks, the Vinaya sets rules that don’t apply to laypeople. It divides medicine into four types that are important to know, so I’d like to go into some detail here. The things that we eat and swallow come under these four headings: yāva-kālika, to be eaten in the right time; yāma-kālika, to be eaten that day; sattāha-kālika, to be eaten within seven days; and yāva-jīvika, to be eaten as long as one’s life.

The food that comes under yāva-kālika: Starting with the eight precepts, you can’t eat that food after noon at all. You can eat it only from the dawn of that day until noon. This is the lifespan of food for people who observe these precepts. In simple terms, it covers the food that we eat.

The second type, yāma-kālika, is what you can drink only for the span of that day. This covers juice drinks. When fresh juice is made in the morning, you can drink it only until dawn of the next day. You can drink it from this morning through this night. When the sky lightens again, you can’t drink it any more. When a monk has received it to his hand, he can drink it only for this period. Once it’s made from the fruit and has come to his hand—even if it hasn’t come to his hand on that day, he can’t eat it the next day, because it tends to spoil. It’ll make him sick. This is called yāma-kālika, the juice drinks that are appropriate for contemplatives.

Sattāha-kālika, seven-day medicine: This covers ghee, butter, oil, honey, and sugar. Once a monk has received any of these, he has to eat them within seven days. Past seven days, he has to throw them away, or if he doesn’t throw them away, he has to give them to a layperson…

Yāva-jīvika: Medicine that comes under this category, once it’s been handed to a monk, is something he should store well, and he can keep on taking it until it’s gone—no matter how many days it takes. Once there’s no more left, that’s the end of its lifespan. If there’s still some left, you can keep on taking it. For example, things like quinine, aspirin, root medicines that are not mixed with any food.

Foods and medicines, taken together, all fall under these four categories, because they’re all things to be consumed.

So whether these categories apply directly to us in the way we practice as monks, or whether they apply only indirectly to us as laypeople—in terms of the things we prepare to give to monks—we have to be clean. If we’re not clean, it carries a blemish—a blemish for those who prepare it, a blemish for those who consume it. All of this comes under the area of higher conduct.

In short, what this means is that (1) you search for these things in purity, with a right and fair intention, in a way that harms no one. You search in ways that are appropriate for your station—monks can search for things in one way; their supporters can search in other ways—but they all come under the principle of searching with purity. For example, monks can describe the virtue of generosity to laypeople, but whether the laypeople will give donations or not, we don’t try to force them even in gentle ways.

For a monk to search in purity means that, in the morning, after he wakes up, he leaves his hut, carrying his bowl, wearing his robe, including his outer robe, and—restrained in his manners—goes out like royalty. What does it mean to go out like royalty? “If they give a lot, I’m happy. If they give just a little, I’m happy. If they don’t give anything at all, I come back laughing until my cheeks hurt.” You don’t show any desire. You don’t show any greed. You simply go out in line with your duty. This is really skillful and meritorious. Whether you get anything or not is none of your business. You don’t have any power to determine whether you receive anything. It’s your duty as a contemplative to go, so you go in line with your duty.

This is called searching for things in the right way, without any greed sneaking in. If greed sneaks in, there hardly seems to be anyone to put food in your bowl; if they do put food in your bowl, it doesn’t taste good.

This is why, when you go searching for food, you have to follow all the steps carefully, starting with the way you wear your robes, the way you walk, the way you’re composed in your behavior, the way you leave the monastery, and the way you return. Once you return, you stay composed in your behavior to the end of the meal. Make sure that you’re pure and impeccable, clean in every way.

This covers the area of searching. Once you’ve searched for and received food or medicine, the next step is (2) knowing how to consume it.

There are many ways of consuming food and medicine, depending on their lifespan. With some things, you have to sit down while you consume them. With others, you don’t. With some things, you can consume them lying down. With others, you can eat them while you’re sitting but not while you’re standing. With others, you can eat them sitting, walking, or lying down. With some things, you can consume them when not fully dressed. For example, if you’re going to eat your food in your own room, you don’t have to wear your upper robe. But if you eat your food out in the open without wearing your upper robe, it’s an offense of wrongdoing. With some things—like betel nut—you can consume them while you’re walking, but with food, you can’t eat it while you’re walking. Which things you can eat while you’re walking, standing, sitting, or lying down: You have to know all these categories.

In general, these are the sorts of things that people with manners already know, so it’s simply a matter of being careful and composed.

Once you come to the place where you eat—some people know only how to eat, but not how to put away. Some people know only how to eat, but they don’t know one another. What does it mean not to know one another? As soon as you get something, you stuff it into your mouth. Your companions are all around you, but they don’t get a bite. This is wrong, too. You have to be circumspect in how you carry out your duties. To begin with, you have to know where to sit and eat, so that it’s in line with your seniority. Some people don’t even know how to eat. They just sit down and start stuffing things into their mouths without first getting a cup of water to drink. When they finish eating, their mouths are all parched and dry. I’ve even seen monks do this. When you don’t know how to eat, you shouldn’t be eating. To know how to eat means (a) knowing the right place to sit and eat, (b) do you have a water container? Do you have a glass? Do you have a spittoon? People who are well trained: How do they eat? You have to learn how to read, starting with how to read the place for you to sit, how to read your bowl, how to read your robes, how to read your spittoon, how to read your glass, how to read your water container, how to read the water you should drink. Learn how to decipher all of these things.

When you have your place to sit, in line with your seniority, when you’ve arranged your robe so that you’re properly covered, then the next step is to sit with a nice posture. If you eat with your head tilted too far back, it’s like an animal eating. If your head is tilted too far forward, it’s like a crow picking at a corpse. So keep your head upright. Don’t tilt it too far forward or back. Keep it in balance.

And know how to wear your robe while you eat. In some places, they eat with everything scattered all over the place. Their robes fall off as they dig right in. Sometimes they don’t even wear their upper robe. They haven’t even removed their bowls from the bowl bag, and they dig right in. Sometimes they finish eating and have no water to drink. This is called not knowing how to eat in line with the meal protocols. In some places, they play music and sing—they strike their spoons on their plates or glasses, and talk up a storm. This is not at all appropriate for contemplatives who are maintaining the precepts.

When the meal is over, you have to know how to put things away. Whatever can be saved to eat in the afternoon, you have to put it away well. For example, on the almsround they may have given you some sugar to use in the afternoon. So you put it away. But if you’ve mixed it with your food, you can’t keep it. The same with other medicines.

Leftovers come in three categories: what you should put away to eat later, what you should give to laypeople or novices, and what you should throw away. With things that you should put away, if you don’t put them away properly, there’s an offense. For laypeople, it’s a blemish. As for things you should throw away, if you don’t throw them away, it’s an offense. What you should put away, you have to put away. What you should throw away, you have to throw away.

Or you can say that, when putting things away, some things to be put away can be eaten later and some things can’t. Things that can’t be eaten have to be totally put away. Things that can be eaten shouldn’t be totally put away. For the most part, if it’s something that can be eaten later, people tend to put it totally away. In other words, they’re afraid that their companions will see it and take it to eat. As for things that should be totally put away, they leave them out in the open. In other words, the trash in the spittoons gets thrown all over the place. As for food that you can give to laypeople to eat, you shouldn’t keep it in hiding. Otherwise, it spoils your virtue.

When you’re putting things away, you have to learn how to read what you should be doing. Don’t be a burden on others. You have to be circumspect in how you behave. If your hands are free, help your companions. Help put things away; help sweep up and wipe things down.

As for your own personal things, know how to wash them. Wash your bowl so that it’s impeccably clean. All your utensils: Clean them well. As for the water you drink with the meal: When the meal is over, throw it away. Don’t leave a drop in the container. Pour out the water and dry the container with a cloth. If you don’t throw it out, and drink it in the afternoon, it counts as food in the wrong time. For monks, it’s an offense. For laypeople, it’s a blemish on their virtue.

For example: You take a glass and fill it by plunging it in a large water jar. After drinking from the glass after the meal, you plunge it in the water jar again. The food from your mouth that’s now on the glass turns all the water in the jar into food that can’t be eaten in the afternoon. This is why we’re taught not to plunge our drinking glasses into water jars, and why we have a separate water filter to take water from water jars and to keep out dust and little living beings.

Here I’d like to talk a little bit more about putting food away. Leftover food that no one can eat should be put away well. When you throw it away, do it in a place that’s far from the paths where people walk. Bury whatever should be buried; if there’s no place to bury it, throw it in a designated place far away. Be neat and orderly in how you do it. This is called being established in higher conduct.

All of the issues surrounding food and its consumption: If I were to talk for three days, I wouldn’t come to the end of them. So I’ll just talk about the major issues, for you to take as a standard for judging other things.

The same general principles apply to lodgings, medicine, and cloth: You have to know (1) how to search for them, (2) how to keep them and store them, (3) how to keep them clean, (4) how to know when they’ve worn out beyond use or disappeared, and (5) how to know what will give pleasure to your companions. Once you know these things, behave in line with what’s appropriate.

For example, with cloth: You have to know first how to search for it; second, how to store it, how to dye it, how to wash it, how to scald it, how to scrub it with soap; how to air it, how to dry it.

If you scrub with soap a robe that simply needs to be washed in cold water, it’s wrong. If you simply wash in cold water a robe that needs to be scrubbed with soap, it’s wrong. If you dye a robe that simply needs to be scalded, it’s wrong. That’s the way things are. This is called knowing how to care for your robes.

For example, you go for alms in the village and your robes catch a few drops of rain, or they’re just a little sweaty. There’s no need to wash them. Simply air them in the sun for a bit and they’re dry. If you leave them out too long in the sun, it’s wrong. To air in the sun means that you leave them for just a few moments. If you air them in the sun from morning to evening, it’s called baking.

The same point applies to laypeople. If it’s a piece of clothing that you should just air in the sun, but you leave it out in the sun, it’s wrong. “Leaving out in the sun” means leaving it there a long time. “Airing in the sun” means that it’s there for just a moment.

As for a robe that should be left to dry in the sun, if you just air it in the sun, it’s wrong. If it’s wet, you have to leave it there long enough for it to really get dry. If you simply air it, it’s wrong. You put it away and find that tomorrow it smells musty.

If a robe has to be washed, it’s wrong just to leave it in the sun. It’ll smell really foul. If it’s dirty or soiled, you have to wash it. Simply leaving it in the sun doesn’t accomplish anything.

There are three ways of drying robes: airing them in the sun, drying them in the sun, and baking them. Airing is for when the robes are just a little sweaty. They’re not really dirty. You air them in the sun or the breeze for a few moments and then you put them away. There’s no need to leave them in the sun. If the robe needs to be left in the sun, don’t just air it. If it just needs to be aired, don’t leave it in the sun. As for baking robes: What sort of robes should be baked? The kaṭhina robes. Once they’re washed and dyed, you have to dry them over a fire. Otherwise, they won’t be finished in time. If you simply hang them on the line, the kaṭhina will fail. This is called emergency cloth.

In addition to this there’s scalding, washing, dyeing, and scrubbing with soap. When you scald a robe, you don’t use cold water. If the robe is smelly or stained with sweat, take water that’s boiling hot and pour it over the robe. Knead it around with your hands until the stain is out, squeeze the robe until it’s just damp, and then dry it in the sun. This is called scalding the robe. Some people, when a robe should be scalded, scrub it with soap instead. They scrub it until it’s almost torn, and the soap washes the dye away, leaving the robe white. If you simply wash a robe that should be scalded, it’s wrong. To scald means that you use boiling water. To wash means that you use cold water. To scrub means that you use soap. To dye means that you use coloring. There are many ways of caring for the cloth. If you simply wash in cold water a robe that should be scrubbed with soap, it doesn’t get clean. If you scrub with soap a robe that should be washed in cold water, the robe turns white.

Once you’ve learned these skills and know the situations in which to use them—you know about scalding, washing, scrubbing, and dyeing—then you learn about how to cut and sew your robes until you’ve mastered these skills as well.

Then there’s knowing how to use your robes. How do you wear your lower robe? How do you wear it when you go into a village? How do you wear it when you’re in the monastery? When you do physical labor, how do you wear it? When you’re alone, how do you wear it? When you’re sitting with guests, how do you wear it? When you know how to do these things properly, this is called knowing how to use your robes.

Some people know how to use their robes, but they don’t know how to store them. They have only two robes, but they leave them spread out as if they’re casting a net to catch fish. Only two or three robes, but they leave them out all over the place. If you know how to store your robes, they don’t take up much space. With some people, the hut is stuffed with robes until it’s too confining to live, even though they don’t have anywhere near 100 robes.

The same with laypeople: Their houses are filled with clothing. If you really stored it properly, it wouldn’t take up that much space. But it’s all flagrantly out in the open, a sign of bad manners. This is an important matter. You have to know how to store things properly. How many kinds of clothing do you have? All the way from the cloths to wipe your feet to the cloths you wrap around your head: You have to know how to wash them, how to store them, how to use them in a manner that’s proper and lovely to look at.

The affairs of robes are very similar to those for food. If an old rag is torn, put it away out of sight. If people see it, it looks messy. Keep things in their proper places. If a robe should be washed, wash it. If it should be dried in the sun, dry it in the sun. When you want to use it, it’ll be close to hand. If you get a nice piece of cloth, don’t put it away too well. The Vinaya has a rule against that. If you get a good piece of cloth, you have to tell your friends. If you don’t tell them, it’s an offense. In Pāli this is called vikappa: Take your cloth and let it have two owners. That’s so that you won’t be miserly. This is what’s formulated in the Vinaya.

And here again: If I were to speak on these issues for three days, I wouldn’t come to the end of them. So I’ll say just this much on the topic of cloth.

There are similar rules around lodgings, i.e., houses, huts, meeting halls, private places, public places like restrooms and sanctuaries. You have to know how to keep them clean. Open your eyes so that they see wide: What’s broken, what needs to be maintained as it is, what can be improved? Open your ears and eyes wide, so that you can do a thorough job of helping to look after the monastery. Each of us should have big, big eyes. When you stay here in the monastery, your eyes have to be as big as the monastery; your ears have to be as big as the monastery. Whatever’s fallen into bad shape, you have to take an interest in it. Whatever can be improved, whatever’s about to be damaged, whatever should be maintained as it is to give convenience to yourself and others: Look after it.

The affairs of lodgings are (1) search for them in purity. Don’t go around putting a squeeze on people’s hearts in any way at all. If you have a place to stay, stay there. If you don’t, sleep on the ground. Don’t be overly impressed by comfort. That way you don’t have to be a slave to anyone at all. You have to be the master. That’s what it means to be a monk. To be a master means that you stay quiet. “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay. If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll go.” Make the sky your roof, the stars your lamps, the trees your walls, and the ground your stone dais. When you can make your heart as large as the world like this, then wherever you stay, you’re at your ease. And when this is the case, you don’t have to search for anything in an inappropriate or corrupt way.

(2) Once you’ve searched for things in a pure way, then you have to know how to look after them. Whatever’s damaged, whatever should be maintained as it is: Look after things thoroughly and all around.

In the affairs of lodgings, the same principles apply as to food and robes. If each person looks after his or her duties, then everything is clean. Where you sit is clean, where you lie down is clean, where you stand is clean, where you walk is clean, your food is clean, your clothing is clean, your lodgings are clean, your medicine is clean. This is a sign of a person of virtue. But you don’t yet have the beauty of order.

What I’ve explained is just the first point.

The second point: the beauty of order. This kind of beauty is different from cleanliness. It comes from keeping things in a neat and tidy fashion. Cups and glasses, plates and bowls—everything: Keep them in their places. For example, pots and pans should stay in their kitchen. Cups, bowls, and utensils should stay in their places so that they’re pleasing to the eye. Make sure that everything stays in its place. Don’t leave them mixed up in a mess. For example, suppose that a dog slept with a person: How could that look beautiful? Dogs have to sleep under the house, cats have to sleep in the house, people have to sleep on their pillows and mats. When this is the case, it’s beautiful.

All your utensils: Wherever they belong, that’s where you put them. And once something has a place, don’t force it to move around often. Otherwise it’ll become homeless. First it stays in this home, then it stays in that home, and after a while it won’t have any home at all. If you’ve kept it in this spot, let it stay in this spot. If there’s no real need, don’t force it to run off somewhere else.

Most people don’t have any manners in this area, which is why their lives don’t have any beauty. Today you keep something in one room; tomorrow you put it somewhere else. Today it’s in the house; tomorrow it’s under the house, and when you look for it, your eyes practically split open and you still can’t find it.

This is called a breach of manners, in that it’s not beautiful. There’s an example that I’ve heard people tell. There was a couple in the time of Luang Pibul [Prime Minister of Thailand, 1938–44, 1948–57], when they got women to wear skirts. Before then, women had worn a cloth whose ends went between the legs and were tucked under the belt behind the back, so it was easy to tell the difference between a woman’s cloth and a man’s sarong. But now women were wearing skirts. And this couple kept her skirts next to his sarongs. Then they forgot. He didn’t intend to do it that way, but they kept her skirts under the foot of the bed and his sarongs off to one side.

Then on that day, I don’t know whether he was in a hurry or what, but it was a little dark when he came home, and he put his sarong next to his wife’s skirt. Then next morning, when it was light, he was in a hurry to go to the market for a cup of coffee. He had barely rubbed the sleep out of his eyes when he grabbed his sarong, put it on, and rushed out for his coffee. But he was really absent-minded. If he hadn’t noticed when he put it on, he should have looked down when he was walking down the street, but he didn’t look down. He was wearing his wife’s heavy silk skirt. And that’s how he sat, drinking coffee in a Chinese shop as if nothing was wrong, feeling no sense of embarrassment.

Meanwhile, his wife was looking for her skirt. “Hey. Where’d my skirt go?” She practically turned the house upside down. Finally she told her daughter, “Go look for you father. See where he’s gone. He’s taken my skirt. All I can see is his sarong.” The daughter ran to the market and saw her father sipping coffee as if nothing was wrong. She looked around, left and right, and didn’t know what to say. “Dad, Dad. You’re wearing Mom’s skirt.”

“What? I had no idea. I wondered what was wrong. It felt kind of stiff. It’s heavy silk.” So he hurried back, but he rolled her skirt up so that it was tied around his waist, afraid that his friends would see him wearing his wife’s skirt. He rolled it up so that they wouldn’t see the design on the cloth. But he was naked from the waist down as he hurried home: How bad a breach of manners can you get? But he wasn’t embarrassed about that. He was embarrassed that he was wearing his wife’s skirt. He wasn’t embarrassed about his own skin. The skin he used to be embarrassed about, he wasn’t embarrassed about now. He was embarrassed about the skirt, afraid that his friends would tease him, “Hey, this old fool’s wearing his wife’s skirt.” As for his daughter, she was embarrassed in his place, and so went running back to the house.

This is what it’s like with people who have no sense of beauty. They don’t keep their things in a beautiful way; they don’t wear them in a beautiful way. It can lead to a really bad breach of manners. Don’t think that this is a minor matter.

When we know how to keep things in a neat and orderly way, it’s called both clean and beautiful. So how are things kept neat and orderly? Some things you use only once in a long, long while. Some things you use once every seven days. Some things you use in the morning but not in the afternoon. Some things you use all day long. So with all of these things, you have to find a place for them. Have pity on them. Otherwise, they’ll jump at each other. Glasses, for instance, can jump at each other. I’ve heard it happening. Somebody grabs three glasses at once, they jump and kick one another—peng!—and then break. That’s actually a breach in your virtue. If we people jumped at one another this way, our heads would be split open. Glasses don’t even have any consciousness, but they can still jump at one another.

So you have to be careful. What you should arrange on a tray, what you should carry in your hand, what you should carry over your shoulder; when you should use one hand, when you should use two hands: You have to learn how to read these things so that you can put things in order.

These are called kalyaṇa-dhamma, the qualities of people who are beautiful people. The things are kept in a beautiful way; the people are beautiful. If things aren’t kept in a beautiful way, the people aren’t beautiful.

Just look around you. When we’re all sitting still here like this, it looks beautiful. If some of you were standing, some were walking, some were talking, what kind of beauty would there be? If we tried doing that, it would spoil our society together.

It’s the same with our belongings and utensils. When they’re not kept in order, they clutter the eye, they clutter the ear, they clutter everything every step down the line. For that reason, you need to have a sense of how to arrange them in an orderly way, in line with their duties, in the same way that a work supervisor knows how to arrange workers. What do supervisors do? What do their supervisors do? They arrange their workers in order.

It’s the same with an orchestra of xylophones and gongs. There’s an order to what they do. They just sit there, hitting away at their instruments—ngong, ngeng, ngong, ngeng—and get paid to do it. If they hit their instruments without any pattern, without any order, who would go to listen?

This is why, when things are orderly, you feel at ease. All you have to do is look at them, and you smile to yourself. When you want something, you grab for it and immediately you’ve got it. Otherwise, it’s like that old guy who grabbed for his sarong and immediately was wearing his wife’s skirt. That’s too much to take.

So remember this. When things are in order, it’s beautiful. Even things that have gone to waste should be dealt with in an orderly way—like food waste. Throw it in the spot where it’s been thrown before. Don’t just throw it any old place. Store things where they’ve been stored before, and put them neatly in order. It’s beautiful, and it gives many good results. One is that your eyes feel at ease just looking at them. Two, when you want something, it’s easy to find. Three, the things themselves rarely get damaged. It’s good in every way.

This is called being beautiful.

The next step is that, when these first two steps are mastered, your heart is at ease. When your heart is at ease, you have no more worries or concerns. This lack of worry and concern makes your heart cheerful. When you look at things, your eyes are at ease. When you hear people using them, your ears are at ease. When you think about how the belongings you’ve used are now kept in order, your heart isn’t weighed down. It feels at ease. This is what’s called sīla-visuddhi, purity of virtue. When your virtue is pure, it’s easy to get the mind into concentration. And what does that mean? There have been people who have reached stream-entry while standing putting food in a monk’s bowl. Some have reached stream-entry while fixing food in the kitchen. Some have reached stream-entry while gathering flowers in the garden. What does that come from? Purity of virtue. That’s when it’s not hard to get into concentration—when the mind is at ease.

But if your virtue isn’t pure, then no matter how much you sit with your eyes closed in concentration, all that settles down are your eyelids. Your mind is jumping out through the skin in front of your eyes and running all over the place. This is the power of defilement when the heart isn’t clean and bright. It keeps pushing the mind around so that it can’t find any peace.

When we take an inventory of these issues—beginning with cleanliness, and going on to beauty and then to ease of mind, purity of mind—when these three aspects of virtue have arisen in a person or a group, then concentration comes easily. It’s not blocked by magg’āvaraṇa, the obstacles to the path. The paths and fruitions can then be near to hand whether you’re sitting, standing, walking, or lying down.

For this reason, I’ve discussed abhisamācāra, higher conduct, as a part of giving rise to recollection of virtue as a topic of meditation. Take an inventory of yourself. Whatever is lacking or incorrect in terms of the standards of the Buddha’s teachings, correct it in a way that gives rise to peace, orderliness, and beauty. Whatever is already good, keep being intent in practicing in line with it. When we as Buddhists set our minds on practicing in this way, we’re sure to succeed in achieving our aims, and we’ll experience safety and happiness for a long time to come—

as I have shown in this discussion of virtue on the topic of higher conduct and the practices of quality coming under the topic of virtue.

So I’ll end here.