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Memorise the regulations

Very similar issues to those discussed in part a apply to the other major source of moral guidance in traditional Buddhism – the patimokkha or monastic rules, which as I mentioned above should traditionally be recited fortnightly by a gathering of monks or nuns. Breaches of these rules should then be confessed to brothers or sisters in order to purify oneself and the community.

This tradition also shows the close relationship between purity beliefs and legalism. In order to purify oneself of a piece of wrong conduct, it must be closely defined, and its exact nature made clear so that all present can agree whether or not an offence has taken place. The monastic sangha at the uposatha gathering effectively becomes a court of canon law, with the difference only that for many minor offences, only a clear confession is needed and no punishment need be imposed. For major offences, however, a monk might be expelled from the sangha, or at least put out of communication with the other monks for a while.

Unfortunately, as too many leaders of institutions today (such as schools) still seem not to have grasped, legalism just does not work. If you define in precise language how people should not behave, and make them memorise and recite it, they are more likely to think about offending than they would otherwise, and are constantly put into a state of temptation by the reminders of how they might sin. They will also go to great lengths to find ways of sinning which are not technically in breach of the rules. The rules will then be modified to define the new offence as wrong too, and an endless process of rule, loophole, and hedge-rule will go on. Alternatively, they will obey the rules in form but not in spirit, and go about their activities in a spirit of constrained conformity but with creativity drained from their attitudes.

In the case of the monastic rules, large sections of the Vinaya Pitaka (“Book of the Discipline” of the Pali Canon) in effect show this process at work, as they consist in explanations of how a particular loophole in the rules was discovered and a new hedge-rule put into place to close the loophole. For example, monks are forbidden to engage in sexual activity or to be alone with women or to touch them. However, some monks started drawing rude pictures on the walls and claimed that this wasn’t against the rules. Hence a new monastic rule had to be brought in against drawing rude pictures on the walls[1].

Whether this legalistic approach was necessary for the organisation of the monastic sangha in the Buddha’s time can be a matter of debate – perhaps it was. However, it is still a major part of the way in which ethics for monks are thought about today. What is the point of being a Buddhist monk if you have so little understanding of Buddhist ethics, or so little sympathy with its spirit, that you have to be controlled by sets of rules like little boys in a preparatory school?

Furthermore, scholarly discussion on Buddhist ethics in general frequently alludes to the Vinaya rules as though they were a major source of information on Buddhist ethics. In fact, though, they seem to be in major conflict with Buddhist ethics, given that Buddhist ethics begins with motives and states of mind, which are worked with to change behaviour. Buddhist ethics, apparently more than any other, must be concerned with the spirit of an action and whether that is relatively right or wrong, not with the letter. Letting the monastic rules speak for Buddhist ethics is a bit like letting the Pharisees stand in for Jesus.

One defence of monastic rules that might be given is the nature of their role in confession. Confession can be a heart-felt process in which a fault is recognised and fully acknowledged, so that one’s resolve not to repeat it is strengthened. However, false or formalistic confession is the curse of legalistic religious organisations. There is no point in getting someone to confess something that they do not really recognise to be a fault, otherwise it just becomes an exercise in social regimentation. So, confession, if it is to work properly, should be of moral failures as spontaneously recognised by the person who confesses, not of a failure of adherence to a set of pre-defined rules. General principles might help one to reflect on areas that one needs to confess, but there has to be flexibility in the interpretation of these to meet the recognition that no formula ever fully captures moral conditions. Confession is an important, and potentially helpful, element of the Buddhist tradition, but it has no necessary relationship with the monastic rules.

In the end, then, the legalism of the monastic rules is inseparable from the whole question of monasticism discussed in the previous chapter. If monks and nuns are separated from lay people in this way, the need for accountability to lay people creates pressures for legalism in monastic life. The perfectionism of these rules then becomes a great burden of stress on monks, which they are unlikely to be able to fulfil, and provides more pressures towards hypocrisy or cynicism. Lay expectations are excessive partly because lay people can only vicariously lead the spiritual life through monks. The decay and misrepresentation of Buddhist ethics has thus been part and parcel of the monastic system, which in its turn was caused by an undue emphasis on purification rather than transformation in early Buddhism.