Xct Mu Bi Pm Pc 144Not Owning a Bathing Cloth
Pāli / Sanskrit:Not owning a bathing cloth
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THE SUTTA ON NOT OWNING A BATHING CLOTH
Xct Mu Bi Pm Pc 144
Background
This sutta comes from the Vinaya Piṭaka of the Theravāda tradition, within the Pātimokkha, the basic admonitory rules for monks and nuns. It is not a sutta expounding the Dharma by praising karma, concentration, or wisdom, but a rule of daily conduct related to a bhikkhu’s property.
In the Buddha’s time, the Sangha community operated according to strict principles regarding personal property. Each bhikkhu was to prepare only the minimum requisites necessary for practice, in order to nurture the mind of renunciation, reducing attachment and craving. The matter of owning a bathing cloth is a concrete example, but it carries deep meaning regarding how monastics relate to material possessions.
Main Content
When the Sangha requires that a bhikkhu not prepare a bathing cloth as regular personal property, this reflects a broader principle. A bhikkhu may use a bathing cloth when necessary; this is the subtle distinction: use is allowed, but ownership is not. This spirit is called bhogamana, meaning “using in service of practice,” not “possessing as private property.”
This rule is recorded among the Pācittiya offenses, faults requiring confession. If a bhikkhu stores bathing cloths beyond what is necessary, regards them as his own, and protects them as property, this violates the spirit of Upasampadā, the vow undertaken at ordination.
The specific rule states: a bhikkhu should prepare only enough bathing cloth for bathing and drying the body. If there is surplus cloth, it must be given to other bhikkhus or stored in the common storeroom of the monastery. This act is not merely about material objects, but is also a training of the mind: not delighting in accumulation, not fearing lack, and not being bound to material things.
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