Lzh Mi Bu Pm Ss 4Encouraging Someone to Serve One’s Desires
Pāli / Sanskrit:Attakāmpāricariya
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DISCOURSE ON ENCOURAGING SERVICE TO PERSONAL DESIRE
(Attakāmpāricariya)
Background
This text is recorded in the Vinaya Piṭaka, the collection that prescribes the way of practice and life for the Sangha in the Theravāda tradition. It is one of the rules related to ethical conduct for bhikkhus, bhikkhunīs, and practitioners following Theravāda Buddhism.
The background of the text arises from situations in the early religious community when some people were encouraged or incited to pursue personal ambitions, desires for material gain, fame, or power. These tendencies are harmful to pure virtue and contrary to the spirit of renunciation and the practice of reducing craving.
The Vinaya Piṭaka was compiled from the ordinances laid down by the Buddha Śākyamuni in order to protect the purity of the Sangha, so this text reflects the deep concern of the Buddha’s teaching with deviations from the proper path of practice.
Main Content
The text warns against acts of enticing or encouraging someone to pursue private personal ambitions (attakāmpa). The word “attakāma” in Pāli means self-interest, desire for oneself. Paricariya refers to serving or supporting someone in doing that.
In the spirit of the Vinaya Piṭaka, encouraging a person, especially a bhikkhu or bhikkhunī, to abandon the spirit of renunciation and pursue personal aims is regarded as harmful conduct. It weakens that person’s moral discipline (sīla) and wisdom (paññā), and also harms the spiritual health of the community of practice.
Such forms of encouragement may include urging the pursuit of material gain, fame, praise, or sensual pleasures. This teaching emphasizes that practitioners need to protect one another’s mindfulness from the calls of the world, rather than inciting one another to fall into the traps of ambition.
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