Lzh Sarv Bu Pm Pc 71Travelling With Thieves

Exposition of the Theyyasattha Sutta (Travelling With Thieves)

Background

The Theyyasattha Sutta is recorded in the Vinaya Piṭaka, the body of rules of practice and discipline for the Sangha in Early Buddhism. This code is not merely a mechanical set of prohibitions, but a profound guide to ethics (sīla) and to living harmoniously within the monastic community.

The sutta is named “Travelling With Thieves,” a title that suggests a practical situation monks might encounter. In ancient India, when monks went on alms-round or travelled for long periods, they often met people with harmful intentions, including thieves or violent people. The question raised is: how should a practitioner keep his morality pure while standing amid dangers and harmful influences?

This sutta is a typical example of the Buddha’s method of teaching: he did not merely give abstract rules, but entered into concrete cases so that monks could clearly understand ethical principles and how to apply them in actual life.

Main Content

The specific content of this sutta has not yet been fully translated in the present materials. However, according to the general context of the Early Buddhist Vinaya, the Theyyasattha Sutta concerns a situation in which monks are travelling and happen to go together with thieves, perhaps not knowing their true identity, or knowing it but having no way to separate from them.

The legal question raised is this: does a monk violate the discipline if he travels with such people without being informed beforehand or when he cannot avoid them? This is a matter of “appropriateness” and “intention” (cetanā), two core factors in Buddhist ethics.

The Buddha and the elders of the Sangha emphasized that a practitioner must keep pure those present actions that can be controlled, yet should not isolate himself entirely from the world.