Reading guide
Overhearing a comfortable conversation
After the meal, several mendicants sit together in the pavilion by the kareri tree and land on an appealing observation: a mendicant who eats only almsfood gets, in the course of wandering for alms, “pleasing sights… pleasing sounds… pleasing flavors,” and is met “being honored, respected, revered, venerated, and esteemed.” Their conclusion follows naturally — “Come, we too should eat only almsfood” — before the conversation is left unfinished as the Buddha arrives.
Two things worth talking about
The Buddha doesn’t dispute that these are real perks of the practice. He simply names the deeper problem: talking this way isn’t “appropriate for you gentlemen who have gone forth out of faith from the lay life to homelessness.” His alternative is stated as a firm binary: “When you’re sitting together you should do one of two things: discuss the teachings or keep noble silence.” This exact formula recurs word for word in the very next discourse, applied to a different but equally worldly topic — suggesting it functions as a standing principle for this community, not a one-off correction.
One word added, one thorn exposed
The closing verse repeats, almost exactly, the one that ended Ud 3.7: “A mendicant who relies on alms, self-supported, providing for no other; the unaffected one is envied by even the gods” — and then departs from it. Where the earlier verse closed with “calm and ever mindful,” this one closes instead with “but not if they’re after popularity and reputation.” The outward practice described is identical in both verses; what has changed is the addition of a condition. Read right after mendicants praising the very honor and esteem the practice brings, the qualifier lands precisely: the same conduct that gods genuinely envy stops being praiseworthy the moment that honor itself becomes the point.
Key terms
The text
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Now at that time, after the meal, on return from almsround, several mendicants sat together in the pavilion by the kareri tree and this discussion came up among them:
§2“Reverends, when a mendicant who eats only almsfood is wandering for alms, from time to time they get to see pleasing sights, hear pleasing sounds, smell pleasing odors, taste pleasing flavors, and encounter pleasing touches. They wander for alms being honored, respected, revered, venerated, and esteemed. Come, we too should eat only almsfood. From time to time we too will get to see pleasing sights, hear pleasing sounds, smell pleasing odors, taste pleasing flavors, and encounter pleasing touches. We too shall wander for alms being honored, respected, revered, venerated, and esteemed.” At that point the conversation among those mendicants was left unfinished.
§3–4Then in the late afternoon, the Buddha came out of retreat and went to the pavilion by the kareri tree, where he sat on the seat spread out and addressed the mendicants: “Mendicants, what were you sitting talking about just now? What conversation was left unfinished?” So the mendicants told him what they had been talking about. The Buddha said,
§6“Mendicants, it is not appropriate for you gentlemen who have gone forth out of faith from the lay life to homelessness to talk about such things. When you’re sitting together you should do one of two things: discuss the teachings or keep noble silence.”
§7Then, understanding this matter, on that occasion the Buddha expressed this heartfelt sentiment:
§8“A mendicant who relies on alms,
self-supported, providing for no other;
the unaffected one is envied by even the gods,
but not if they’re after popularity and reputation.”
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