Lzh Mi Bi Vb Pc 147Teaching Worldly Arts to Laity
Pāli / Sanskrit:Teaching worldly arts to laity
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Sutra on Teaching Worldly Arts to Laypeople
Background
In the Theravada tradition of the Buddha Dharma, the Vinaya Pitaka is the collection of regulations for religious practice that helps the community of monks and nuns maintain discipline and purity in life. The Sutra on Teaching Worldly Arts to Laypeople appears in the Pātimokkha section of the Bhikkhunī Vinaya, specifically among the Pācittiya rules, offenses requiring confession.
The background for the arising of this sutra concerns the nature and boundaries of religious activity. The Blessed One saw that monks and nuns in the community tended to teach worldly skills, such as writing, calculation, music, dance, or other arts, to laypeople. Although the motive might be compassion and a wish to help, such activity could divert the practitioner's attention from the essential goal of attaining awakening.
Main Content
The Blessed One laid down a rule that monks and nuns should not teach these worldly skills to laypeople, especially when the activity becomes a primary occupation or gives rise to attachment (āsava). The deeper reason is that immersion in such activities can:
First, scatter the mind away from the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Cattāro Satipatthānā), the basic means of practice for reaching awareness and liberation.
Second, create attachment to worldly activities, thereby giving rise to craving, hatred, and delusion (lobha, dosa, moha), the three poisonous roots of karma.
Third, adversely affect the honor of the Sangha in the eyes of the community. When practitioners are busy with worldly work, they lose their dignity and become like ordinary people, thereby weakening the faith of laypeople.
This rule does not mean that the Buddha Dharma denies the value of worldly skills or forbids laypeople to learn them.
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