Bu Pc 8888. Making an upholstered bed or bench
Pāli / Sanskrit:Tūlonaddha
A monk who makes a bed with luxurious upholstery must remove the upholstery and confess the offense.
Save your scripture progress
Create a free account to save scriptures, track progress, and continue your daily learning path.
Tūlonaddha Sutta: The Luxuriously Upholstered Bed
Background
This rule is recorded in the Vinaya Piṭaka, specifically in the Pātimokkha (Pātimokkhasaṃvara) section pertaining to bhikkhus. The Vinaya Piṭaka is the collection of rules and training precepts that the Buddha Gotama established for the monastic community in order to maintain proper discipline, communal harmony, and spiritual cultivation.
This Bhikkhunivibhaṅga rule (the Tūlonaddha section) arose when bhikkhus began making beds and chairs upholstered with excessively luxurious materials, such as long wool, fine cotton, or rare silk fabrics. These were not basic items serving the purpose of rest, but rather objects displaying extravagance, contradicting the spirit of humble practice and relinquishment of material ambitions.
Theravāda Buddhism emphasizes that monastics must live simply, keeping away from sensual gratification (kāma), while not entirely excluding genuinely necessary requisites. A sleeping bed is a legitimate requisite, but the manner of its use must accord with the monastic way of life.
Main Content
This rule stipulates that: a bhikkhu must not make a bed or chair upholstered with luxurious materials (tūla — long fibers, wool, cotton, or fine silk fabrics). If any bhikkhu has made such an item with his own hands or has ordered another to make it, he has committed an offense of Pācittiya (an offense requiring confession and acknowledgment before the Saṅgha).
The penalty is not expulsion (as with more serious offenses), but rather the performance of three steps of confession. First, the bhikkhu must completely remove the luxurious upholstery from the bed. Next, he must acknowledge the offense before the entire Saṅgha or before a respected member of the Saṅgha. Finally, he must apologize and make a promise not to repeat the offense.
The reason for this rule is that equipping oneself with luxurious requisites reflects a mind of greed and delusion (lobha, moha) — mental states that obstruct the path of practice.
🌏 The Buddhist canon is vast — some sūtras (such as comparative Vinaya across schools, or untranslated Tibetan-canon texts) have to this day NEVER been translated into Vietnamese or English by anyone, scholars included. Rather than leave it blank, Inti AI offers a FAITHFUL summary grounded in the tradition — from the sūtra's title, origin and essence — so you can still reach this rare part of the treasury. Whenever an original translation exists, the app shows the original first.
Translations belong to the translator/source credited above. The bilingual compilation, presentation, and AI translations compiled by Inti are © Inti Foundation. Please attribute when quoting; do not bulk-copy or use commercially without permission.