Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.95

c10.95

Ordinary labour of any kind whatever was always foreign to this monastic life; it was deeply embedded in the Buddhist conception of the moral that the educative value of labour could not be acknowledged here. The whole life and all the energies were claimed for spiritual exercises. Already at early morn, before the hour for begging excursions had arrived, in the chambers of the vihâras, in the halls and under the trees of the cloister-gardens, might be heard the monotonous, half-singing recitation of the sacred sayings and discourses of Buddha. The oldest of the brethren present himself recited or directed one of the others to recite. Or there came forward, as questioner and answerer, two of the brethren who were versed in the rules of the Order, and discoursed before the assembly on important and difficult points of monastic law and of rules of the Order.* Then after the begging excursion, after dinner and the hours of rest which followed, when evening brought the brethren again together, they sat on far into the night—the time allotted to the monks for sleeping was very scant†—silently or in converse with one another. There were also times when friends made compacts with each other, like that of Anuruddha and his two comrades, who kept awake one night every five days, propounding the Doctrine and discussing it together.‡ “He who abides in the Order,” we read,* “talks not of many topics and talks not of vulgar things. He expounds the word himself, or stirs another up to its exposition, or he esteems even sacred silence not lightly.”