Mpt Pc 23Teaching Nuns for Profit

Explanation of the Āmisa Sutta (Teaching Bhikkhunīs for Gain)

Background

The Āmisa Sutta belongs to the Vinaya Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon, which is the collection of rules for practice and illustrative stories for the Sangha community. In its historical context, the Buddha established a monastic order consisting of both male and female monastics, and it was necessary to build clear ethical regulations to protect the purity of religious practice.

This discourse was recorded when problems arose in the community of bhikkhunīs. Specifically, it deals with the situation in which practitioners intentionally teach female monastics in order to obtain offerings, saying that those nuns will give gifts or benefits to the teacher. This conduct violates the spirit of Buddhist practice, because it places material benefit above the aim of liberation.

Main Content

The Āmisa Sutta identifies teaching the Dharma for the sake of gain (āmisa) as a serious violation of virtue. “Āmisa” (material gain) includes food, clothing, lodging, and medicine, the requisites necessary for monastic life; but when they become the principal motive leading to action, they defile the mind and undermine the Dharma.

This rule does not condemn receiving necessary offerings; that is the right of the Sangha community. Instead, it condemns improper intention: teaching the Dharma for the purpose of obtaining personal gain, using the Dharma as a commercial tool. Those who violate this rule commit no minor fault, commonly regarded as a Pātimokkha offense, a violation of the compulsory rules.

The discourse emphasizes that the Dharma must be taught out of compassion, out of the wish to help others be liberated from suffering, not for the sake of gain. This is the fundamental spirit of the bodhisattva in the Theravāda tradition, even though this term appears more explicitly in Mahāyāna.