Lzh Mu Bi Pm Pc 136Stingy With Families

Kulamaccharinī Scripture (The One Greedy Toward Family)

Background

The Kulamaccharinī scripture is part of the Vinaya Piṭaka, specifically among the rules governing the communal life of monks and nuns. The title “The One Greedy Toward Family” (Kulamaccharinī) refers to greedy and stingy actions that renunciants perform in connection with their relationship to their families.

The Vinaya Piṭaka was compiled in the early years after the Buddha’s nirvana, when the community of monks and nuns needed clear rules to maintain morality and discipline. This scripture reflects a common situation: monks and nuns have relatives in the world, and interaction with them can lead to violations of discipline, especially greed and stinginess, vices completely opposed to the spirit of going forth.

Main Content

This rule deals with cases in which renunciants have a stingy and greedy attitude in relation to family. In particular, it warns against some monks or nuns trying to exploit their religious position to gain benefit from family, or showing excessive attachment to family property.

The actions under consideration may include asking family to provide more than is necessary, concealing property to protect the interests of relatives, or using religious influence to seize an inheritance. Such actions violate the Pātimokkha, the basic precepts of monks and nuns, because they chill the mind of compassion and serve private personal desires instead of the path.

The Vinaya Piṭaka does not judge the family, but focuses on protecting the purity of those who have gone forth. A true renunciant has cut off bonds to possessions when leaving the household life. Therefore, greed connected with family property is a direct contradiction of the discipline of celibacy and renunciation.

Practical Meaning

The Kulamaccharinī scripture teaches that the tendency toward greed, however small, is an enemy of practice.