When chanted

Chanted after its introductory verse, completing the passages on novice discipline.

A note on this chant. The book prints this chant in Pali only, with no Thai translation. The English here is a working translation prepared for this edition — it is not the book's own, and has not yet been checked by a teacher.

Historical background

The book prints its own reference for this list. It uses the same enclosing frame as the grounds of expulsion — the allowance stated, the five given, the allowance restated — so that the two lists can be compared line for line.

The comparison is the point of reading them together, and what it shows is that these five are not lesser versions of the ten. They are about something else entirely.

Meaning and purpose

All five concern the community rather than conduct in general. He exerts himself for the monks' loss of gain; for their harm; to deprive them of a dwelling. He abuses and reviles them. He sets monks at variance with monks.

Not one is a moral failing of the kind the ten training rules cover. A novice could keep all ten rules perfectly and still do every one of these five, which is exactly why they needed a separate allowance and a separate penalty.

The last of the five is the gravest thing on the list, and it is placed last deliberately: setting monks at variance with monks. Theft can be returned and abuse can be apologised for. A division worked into a community is the one injury on either list that nobody can simply undo.

The chant

As the book prints it: page 59 →