Lzh Dg Bu Pm Ss 4Encouraging Someone to Serve One’s Desires
Pāli / Sanskrit:Attakāmpāricariya
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Attakāmpāricariya Sutra: Encouraging Service to Personal Ambition
Background
This sutra belongs to the Vinaya Piṭaka of the Pali Canon, the collection of rules of conduct and instructive situations for the monastic community of the Buddha Gotama. The Pali title Attakāmpāricariya is translated as “Encouraging service to personal ambition,” a distinctive topic related to unwholesome action and its consequences in the monastic community.
The Vinaya Pitaka is not merely a dry list of prohibitions, but a body of stories, situations, and principles that help disciples understand the reasons behind each rule. This sutra belongs to the context in which, when problems arose in the Sangha, the Buddha issued regulations to protect the spirit of practice and common harmony.
The term attakāma (personal ambition, from atta = self and kāma = desire) shows that this sutra focuses on a basic human problem: sensual craving and attachment to one’s own view.
Main Content
This sutra teaches that encouraging or supporting someone in pursuing personal ambitions, desires that lead to suffering and wrongful action, is an unwholesome act. In the context of the Sangha, it harms the community and oneself.
The Buddha pointed out that wrongful actions often begin with uncontrolled needs. When someone encourages another person to pursue these ambitions, they are sowing seeds of spiritual decline. Uncontrolled desires for power, possessions, fame, or unmindful pleasures are the root of all actions that violate the precepts.
The sutra teaches that a true practitioner must:
First, recognize personal ambitions within oneself and not encourage them to grow.
Second, not help or encourage others to pursue such desires, because that is direct harm.
Third, understand that the peace of the monastic community depends on the gradual removal of personal desires in all its members.
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