Thursday 30 December 2010

An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (1)

Introduction
Mettæ is a pæ¹i word which means loving-kindness. It embodies a selfless love, altruistic love, benevolence, friendliness, welfare, peace and real bliss. It cannot coexist with hatred. It brings about just positive feelings all the time regardless of difficult emotional situations. Sometimes depending on persons, mettæ and ta¼hæ (craving) cannot be differentiated due to that they have tendency to make a change alternatively. If mettæ turns into ta¼hæ, there arouses bias. As a matter of fact, mettæ performs equally upon all sentient beings (Kuddakapæ¹i, p-10).
In practical way of social activities, mettæ represents the state of helping others. It encourages contributing helpful works to those in need of help, such as providing  food, water, clothes, shelters, medicines and so on to the poor. Supporting to the societies functioning humane affairs such as giving education, doing services for the aged and poor children, etc, is also embedded in the act of mettæ. Mettæ can be put into practice as a meditation. In this account, one regards others as oneself because it is hard to love others as one loves oneself. While taking meditation, one should visualize the form of persons particularly, and then radiate the loving-kindness on them. Non-particular practice is also possible. Either the account of theories or practice or meditation, mettæ takes its own sense of genuine peace and real happiness. In this essay, I shall analyse the theoretical ways from the canonical texts, practical aspects in social activities and meditation on mettæ.

Loving-kindness (mettæ) and love (pema)
Love is the most complex and important of all human emotions. If defies adequate definition, but in its grandeur and its imaginative power over our lives, it can be creative and destructive, beautiful and terrifying (The language of love, p-9). Love is more than simply affection. Herein, according to Theravæda Buddhist perspective, mettæ is meant to connote wishing others welfare, peace and progress. It is the aspiration for the true happiness of any, and ultimately all sentient beings, for all these are like oneself in liking happiness and disliking pain. It is the antidote to hatred and fear, and is to be distinguished from sentimentality (An introduction to Buddhist ethics, p-103).
According to Kara¼iyametta sutta (Kuddakapæ¹i, p-10) one who wishes to achieve the state of being peaceful [metta] is required to be competent, upright, straightforward, easy to instruct, gentle, not conceited, content, easy to support, with few duties, living lightly, with peaceful faculties, masterful, modest, no greed for supporters. Mettæ is a pure love with limitless heart to all beings (whoever [weak or strong, tall, huge, middle, short, subtle, blatant, visible, invisible, near, far, born and seeking birth], wherever [above, below and all around]), in the same strength as a mother’s love for her only child. In this stage, there is neither discrimination, nor sexism, nor I, nor He, nor She, etc, all over the world, and all are equal under the real loving-kindness (mettæ). All forms of such a deep lovesome would say stronger and more permanent than romantic love. It is first and foremost of the four divine abidings (brahamvihæra): mettæ (loving-kindness), karu¼æ (compassion), muditæ (sympathetic joy) and upekkhæ (equanimity) [An introduction to Buddhism, p-209]. All of them are mutually interrelated each other.
On the other hand, the term pema is used for the love exchanged between sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives or members of the family, relatives, etc. therefore, pema means ordinary love which binds one person to another as a rope does. It makes one inseparable from the other (Abhidhamma in daily life, p-25). The love between husband and wife who had already become Sotæpanna (stream-winner) should be considered first. As they love each other sincerely enough, they did not think of being unfaithful. As their minds were so pure they hold each other in high esteem and did not want to be separated from each other. They always wanted to be together in samsæra. Such a desire to be together is chanda (wish). Those virtuous noble people would bind them to each other, and all their meritorious actions would lead them to a good destination.        

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Tuesday 16 November 2010

Introduction to Pabbajjavinicchaya (5)


General survey upon Pabbajja vinicchayakathæ
The explanation of pabbajja is available at diverse of canonical texts and commentarial treatises, such as mahavagga pali (p- 20), vinaya sangaha(p-133), vinayæla³kara ¥økæ,vol.1 (p-229),mahævagga a¥¥hakathæ (p-247), Sarattha døpani ¥økæ, vol. 3 (p-201) ka³khævitara¼ø a¥¥hakathæ  (-p104), vajørabuddhi ¥økæ (p, 407) vinayavinodanø ¥økæ, vol.2 (p-93),  vinaya vinicchaya ¥økæ, vol.2 (129), pæcityædiyojanæ pæ¹i, ( p-204), viyana vinicchaya uttara vinicchaya (p-235).
Although these explanations are described in different books, each of these explanations can be summarised just into three main parts: perfection of novice-hood, perfection of monkhood and the rules and regulations of them.
In connection with becoming a novice, the following components must be included:
1.shaving off the postulant’s hair and beard.
2.dressing in robes putting the upper robe on one shoulder.
3.taking refuge in the Budhha, Dhamma and Saµgha by reciting clearly from the preceptor (Vinaya mahævaggapæ¹i, p-115: the Buddha and his disciples, p-105).
In this account, a problematic issue is the robe-wearing style. It is mentioned in the text “dressing in robes putting the upper robe on one shoulder”. The ambiguity as to whether the upper robe should be put on the right shoulder or left shoulder allowed a slight controversial issue. In practice, all the monks and novices are putting it on left shoulder keeping the right shoulder open. Some say “most people are right-handed; the convenience is to use right hand for making an action while wearing the robe; therefore the one shoulder refers to the left shoulder”.
Regarding the monks-to-be, the followings are required:
1.the perfection of postulant
2. the perfection of motion
3.the perfection of pronouncement
4.the  perfection of Sømæ (jurisdiction)
5.the  perfection of Sa¼gha audiences (Ka³khævitara¼øa¥¥hakathæ, p-104).   
Among them, the author emphasizes aspects of the perfection of the postulant in this section, such as the postulant is required to be free from several diseases, deformed body, governmental duty, slavery, theft, debt, etc. and also the postulant must not be a eunuch, a monk by theft, a believer of other religion, an animal,  a mother-killer, a father-killer, an arahat-killer, one who bleeds the Buddha, one who makes schism of Saµgha, one who seduces a bhikkhunø and one who has both sexes. The qualification of a postulant is rather crucial than the other facts. Other important issue is becoming a monk by theft. It distinguishes three kinds of theft: theft of appearance (putting on robes oneself without the authorization of the Saµgha), theft of seniority (claiming rights of novicehood or monkhood, such as seniority, participating in Saµgha performances, having meal together, etc.), and theft of both. If the postulant entered the Order involving one of the thefts, he could not be a real monk. Therefore the novice who desires for becoming a monk generally disrobes (Shin lain pyan tal), then receives lower ordination again before receiving higher ordination lest he would be one of the three thefts unintentionally in his novice life.
The Pabbajjavinicchayakathæ offers many pieces of information about the means and ways of becoming a novice and monk as mentioned above.



Bibliography
****
The sources of pæ¹i cannon (texts)
- Cþ¹avagga pæ¹i, 3rd Ed (1999) Yangon: Win Light Mate Press House
- Mahævagga (Vinaya) pæ¹i, 5th Ed (1991)   Yangon: Religious Affairs House
- Pariværa pæ¹i, 8th Ed (1997) Yangon: Religious Affairs Press House

The sources of A¥¥hakathæ (commentaries)
- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Cþ¹avaggædi A¥¥hakathæ, Yangon: Religious
Affairs Press House
- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Ka³khævira¼ø a¥¥hakathæ, Yangon: Religious
Affairs Press House
- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Pæcityædi  A¥¥hakathæ,   Yangon: Religious 
            Affair Press House,
-Særiputta thera (1991) Vinaya sa³gaha a¥¥hakathæ, Yangon: Religious Affair Press

The sources of ¿økæ (Sub-commentaries) and Ganthantara (treatises)
-Co¹iyakassapathera, Bhaddanta (1960) Vimativinodanø ¥økæ,Vol 2, Yangon: Religious
            Affairs Press House,
-Dhammasiri mahæthera and Mahæsæmi mahæthera (1962) Khuddasikkhæ Mþlasikkhæ 
 ¥økæ, Yangon: Religious Affair Press House
- Taungphila, Sayadaw (1962) Vinayæla³kæra ¥økæ,Vol 1, Yangon: Religious Affairs
            Press House
- Særiputtathera, Bhaddanta (1977) Vinayavinicchaya ¥økæ, Vol 2, Yangon: Religious
            Affairs Press House

General sources
- I.B. Horner (1942a) The book of the discipline, Vol 4, London: Humphrey milford
            oxford University  Press Amen House
-- I.B. Horner (1942b) The book of the discipline, Vol 5, London: Humphrey milford
oxford University  Press Amen House
-Kanai Lah. Hazre (1998) Pæ¹i language and literature, vol 1 and 2, 2nd edition,
New Delhi: D.K Printworld
-Martin Perenchio and group (1993) Guide to the Tipi¥aka, Bangkok:
White lotus Co.Ltd.
-Oskar V. Hinuber (1996) A handbook of Pæ¹i literature, Berlin; New York:
De Gruyter.
-Rewata Dhamma (2001) The Buddha and his Disciples, United Kingdom:
Dhamma Talaka Publication.
-Sayagyi Goenka (1999) Cha¥¥hasa³gæyanæ CD (version 3) [it embodies all canonical
            texts, commentaries, sub-commentaries and other treatises], India: Vipassanæ
            research institute
-Spiro, M. E (1982) Buddhism and Society, Los Angeles: University of California
            Press
--Somdet Phra Mahæ (1973a) The Entrance to the Vinaya, Vol 2, Bangkok: Sama¼a
            Choa Mahæmakut Ræjavidyælaya Press
-Somdet Phra Mahæ (1973b) The Entrance to the Vinaya, Vol 3, Bangkok: Sama¼a
            Choa Mahæmakut Ræjavidyælaya Press
-Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1994) The Buddhist Monastic Code, vol 1, U.S.A: Valley
            Centre (free distribution)  
-Thanissaro Bhikkhu (2007) The Buddhist Monastic Code, vol 2, U.S.A: Valley
            centre (free distribution), 
-T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, part 1 (1881), Vinaya texts, Delhi:
            Motilal Banarsidass

Burmese sources
- Janakæbhivaµsa Ashin (1959) Ka³khæbhæsæ¥økæ, vol.1, Amarapura: New Burma
            Offset Press  
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1959) Ka³khæbhæsæ¥økæ, vol.2,  Amarapura: New Burma
            Offset Press
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1973) Pariværabhæsæ¥økæ, Amarapura: New Burma Offset
            Press
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1938) Pætimok bhæsæ¥økæ, Amarapura: New Burma Offset
            Press
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1966) Mahævaggabhæsæ¥økæ, Amarapura: New Burma
            Offset Press
-Taungbilar Sayadaw (1986) Yasavaððhanavatthu, Yangon: Religious Affair Press
-----

Introduction to Pabbajjavinicchaya (4)


The reason for this translation
There is scarcity of translation about Vinaya commentary and sub-commentary into English.   The book Guide to the Tipi¥aka (pp-5-12) shows just guidelines of Vinaya pi¥aka. The book An introduction to Buddhism (pp- 217-240) gives some of the Buddhist practices in article style. The book Theravada Buddhism (pp- 89-115) describes a critical study of vinaya rules and practices. The book Buddhism and society (pp-279-421) approaches the Monastism in anthropology style. The book A handbook of Pæ¹i literature (pp-7-23) states a detailed survey of Suttavibha³ga (rules), Khandhakas (divisions), Pariværa (appendices to Vinaya) and the lists of commentaries and sub-commentaries with short explanations. The books Vinaya texts translated by T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, part 1 (1881), part 2 (1882) and part 3 (1885) express the rules of monks and bhikkhunøs without background stories, and Khandhakas and Pariværa. The books Book of the discipline translated by I.B. Horner, Vol. 1 (1938), Vol. 2 (1940), Vol. 3 (1942), Vol. 4 (1962), Vol. 5 (1963) and Vol. 6 (1966) describe all the Vinaya texts, but not commentaries and sub-commentaries. Due to scarcity of the translation of vinaya commentaries and sub-commentaries, the thought occurred to my mind to translate some parts of vinaya commentary or sub-commentary. Therefore I did this translation.
However, this is a translation of a part of sub-commentary. Neither commentary nor sub-commentary can stand alone without the original canonical texts. All of them are interrelated each other.  One can only understand the meaning of the sub-commentary when reading it alongside the commentary and root text. 
.

Saturday 6 November 2010

Introduction to Pabbajjavinicchaya (3)


The feature of pæ¹i construction
            The creation of a translation or English version of a Pali text entails a scholarly attempt to render the stories, situation and thoughts of people from ancient cultures who spoke ancient languages into a modern language that is spoken by people who live in very different, contemporary cultures. The Pæ¹i language is believed to be spoken language of the Buddha and formulated to record the Buddha’s teaching. A translation is an art rather than a precise science. The analysis of words, grammatical constructions, contexts, and other factors in translation is seldom straightforward, always requiring intellectual agility and sensitivity. Some words have a very limited range of function or meaning in a language, but most words have a wide range of meaning. Furthermore, the function of many words changes when they are combined in phrases with other words or when used to serve particular functions. For example, the word pa¥a³gama¼ðþka (Vinayæla³kæra¥økæ, vol. 1, p-236) is a combination of two words pa¥a³ga and ma¼ðþka. Pa¥a³ga means a grasshopper and ma¼ðþka means a frog. When the two words are combined together, the meaning of pa¥a³ga changes into a supporting word for ma¼ðþka; the meaning of pa¥a³gama¼ðþka is a frog whose mouth is wider.
            On the other hand, a word or phrase has a range of possible meaning according to context. For instance, the word gøvæ (Ibid, 232) can be rendered into two types of meanings: neck and debt. The majority of Pæ¹i learners have familiarity with the former one only, not the latter. In this context of disciplinary rule connected with debt, the latter meaning is, however, to be taken. Herein the word gøvæ (debt to be owed) and bha¼ðaggha (debt to be owed) has their own separate senses (Ibid). For example, a monk borrowed #100 (money) from one of his friend; then he has to owe #100 (money) to him; that is the sense of gøvæ. Nevertheless, a monk borrowed #100 (money) from one of his friends; then he has to owe something, such as, robes, books, etc, equivalent to #100 (not money) to him; that is the sense of bha¼ðaggha.
         Different interpreters are going to arrive at differing interpretations of the same texts. Such different views of different interpreters are known as samænavæda (view of similarity or agreeable view), kecivæda (view of some scholar), ekevæda (view of the one), aññevæda (view of other) and aparevæda (view of the some other) [Sølakkhandhavagga abhinava¥økæ, vol, 1, p-299]. Furthermore, the authors of commentaries or sub-commentaries occasionally describe their preferences on the work of writing. For instances, when the authors intend to emphasize their strong opinion, they generally describe the words: amhækaµ khanti (our view) [Ibid, 231], amhækaµ mati (our inference) and amhækaµ ruci (our preference). Moreover, in connection with quotations or references, the commentators including Buddhaghosa mainly refer to the old commentaries in Sinhalese language such as, Mahæa¥¥hakathæ, Mahæpaccarøa¥¥hakathæ and Kurundø a¥¥hakathæ.
         Each and every canonical text of Vinaya and Suttanta basket has its own genre feature or textual style at the commencement of first paragraph: all the Vinaya texts except Pariværa are always commenced with tena samayena buddho bhagavæ.. [while the Buddha was residing at..], while Suttanta texts are commenced with Evaµ me sutaµ.[thus have I heard]. Unlike canonical texts, all the commentaries and sub-commentaries of three baskets open by and large their writings with several verses by paying homage to the Buddha, Dhamma and Saµgha believing that by doing so, their pieces of writings would be successful smoothly and conveniently without any disturbances. In the conclusion of their writings, they compose normally quite a few verses in order to express the year of their works completed and aspiration for something depending on particular persons such as aspiration for deity, human or Budhha in the future existence (Vinayæla³kæra¥økæ,vol, 2,  p-434).
However, nowadays, the formal style of religious books and any other religious publications begin with Namotassa bhagavato arahato sammæsambuddhassa [I pay homage to the blessed one, exalted one and self-enlightened one] at top of the first page apart from the paragraph. This tradition has affiliated into the religious rites and rituals. In Myanmar every religious ceremony is always opened by reciting Namotassa bhagavato arahato sammæsambuddhassa three times. Even this tradition is habitually practiced by monks and novices who learn by heart the Pi¥aka literature with regular recitation of Namotassa bhagavato arahato sammæsambuddhassa before memorizing.




Friday 5 November 2010

Introduction to Pabbajjavinicchaya (2)


A glance at the author and the meaning of Pabbajja
The word pabbajja, literally meaning ‘to go forth [from society] is the term for the process or ritual of renunciation. According to pæcityædiyojanæpæ¹i, there are four types of such renunciation, namely that of the sage (Tæsapa pabbajja), of the hermit (Isi pabbajja), of the novice (Sæme¼era pabbajja) and of the monk (Upasampada pabbajja) [Pæcityadiyojanæ, 206]. The last two are the ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ ordination for Buddhist monks and so are the only two described in the Pabbajjaviniccayakathæ.
However, the word pabbajja should be understood as it has two possible meanings: lower ordination (novice) and higher ordination (monk) [Vinayæla³kæra ¥økæ, vol, 1, p-239]. Initially, according to the evidence of the Pali canon, there was no separation between lower and higher ordination. Thus in case of the ordination of Yasa, a rich man who saw the sensual pleasures as disgusted elements and went to the deer park, finally met the Buddha, the word pabbajja referred to the state of being a fully ordained as a monk (Vinayamahævagga pæ¹i, p-21), while in the story of the ordination of Ræhulæ, the biological son of the Buddha who was born before he left the palace, it refers to the state of being a novice (Ibid, p-115). Rahula’s ordination is the model for childhood ordination, and pabbajja in contrast to upasampada refers to the novice ordination possible from childhood, while upasampada comes to refer to the higher ordination only possible for adults from the 20th year of their life (Pæcittiya pæ¹i, p-168).
Sometimes both words pabbajja and upasampada come together in the texts: pabbæjesuµ (to go forth) and upasampædisuµ (to ordain) [Vinayamahævagga pæ¹i,  p-100). In this regard, the former refers to the novice, and the latter to the monk. This theory is put into practice in every ordination ceremony: the postulant (monk-to-be) is required to go forth (lower ordination) at first, only then can he enter the state of monkhood. Regarding to this interpretation, Burmese scholar monks normally interpret the word pabbajja as the state of being a novice (Shin) and monk (Yahan). The word pabbajja is, which initially interpreted for both monk and novice ordination, gradually interpreted only to the novice ordination. In the practical way of performance in modern time, pabbajja is used just for the novice-ordination ceremony while the word upasamapa is for the monk in the monk-ordination ceremony. We can understand this from the culture of inviting people to join the ordination ceremony practised by the Burmese religious people. The following expressions can be seen in the invitation letter-- pabbajja ma³galæ( the auspicious ceremony of lower ordination [shinphu pwe]); upasampada ma³galæ( the auspicious ceremony of higher ordination [yahann khan pwe]) and punopasampadæ ma³galæ (the auspicious ceremony of higher re-ordination[thein htat pwe]). Even though the word ‘punopasampadæ’ (re-ordination), is correctly interpreted as re-ordination, this word ‘punopasampadæ’ does not find in the section of pabbajjakathæ in mahævagga. There is no recommendation of re-ordination to the same monk who has already been ordained either. Therefore, the concept of re-ordination is performed just for accumulation of merits for the Buddhist believers, especially in Burmese tradition.


Wednesday 3 November 2010

Introduction to Pabbajjavinicchaya (1)


The exposition:
The decision on the state of being ordained
(Pabbajjavinicchayakathæ)
***
Introduction
In this introduction I would like to discuss on the subject matter of definition of pabbajja (ordination) and the current practice that is relevant to the understanding of an ordination. I will also include the feature of pæli construction and its difficulty involved in the translation.
 I have translated the pabbajjavinicchayakathæ (the exposition of disciplinary decision upon Ordination) from vinayæla³kæra tikæ into English. This vinayæla³kæra tikæ was written by Taungphilar Sayædaw, a learned Burmese monk, at the request of the monks who were living around Taungphilar hill, Sagaing Division, Myanmar. His sub-commentary was to be based upon commentarial source of vinayasa³gaha a¥¥hakathæ written by Særiputtathera, a commentary to the vinaya canon. This vinayasa³gaha commentary is however different from samantapæsædika, the oldest commentary to the vinaya canon composed by the Buddhaghosa around fifth century. The vinayasa³gahaa¥¥hakathæ different from the samantapæsædika is that it is only dedicated on the monastic procedures and activities of the monks. According to the information reported in vinayasa³gaha a¥¥hakathæ, the date of composition is considered to be around 1153-1186. There are 34 sections in the vinayæla³kæra sub-commentary which are dealt with the different aspect of monastic procedures and activities, and the Pabbajjaviniccayakathæ [the exposition of disciplinary decision upon Ordination] is included as the 22nd section. The author, Taungphilar Sayādaw, also known as tipi¥akæla³kæra sayædaw, willingly devoted his life to the progress of Buddhism and the welfare and happiness of the others all over the land. He was well versed in Tipi¥aka, astrology, etc, and completed his work of writing this sub-commentary by 1647 AD (Vinayæla³kæra¥økæ, vol, 2, p-432). Pabbajjaviniccayakathæ in Vinayæla³kæra ¥økæ contains 37 pages [page number 229 to 266].  I, however, could have it done only 11 pages [page number 229 to 240] due to word limitation in this field.


Tuesday 12 October 2010

ျဖစ္တတ္ပါတယ္

 လုိက္ကာဆြဲအဖြင့္မွာ...

(၁)
အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔ မူလဌာေန၌..
"Hello!! Good morning every body! Today what I would like to talk about xxxxxx.
In my opinion,,,
As a matter of fact, xxxx"
 အဲဒီလုိ အဲဒီလုိေတြ ေန႔စဥ္ေျပာၿပီး မေမာႏုိင္ မပန္းႏုိင္ေပါ့။

(၂)
အဂၤါေမာင္ အဂၤလန္ကုိ ပညာေတာ္သင္သြားခါနီး...
"I am going to England for the purpose of studying a standard English and academic writing. I will be coming back when I feel myself satisfied with the knowledge of English I have learnt."
အဲဒီလုိ ေျပာဆုိႏႈတ္ဆက္ၿပီး ထြက္ခါလာခဲ့တယ္။

(၃)
အဂၤလန္ေရာက္ေသာအခါ...
"ဒကာႀကီး... ေနေကာင္းရဲ့လား။ အဆင္ေျပလား။ ဒကာမႀကီးေကာ သက္ေတာင့္ သက္သာ မဟုတ္လား။
ဒကာႀကီးရဲ့ သဒၶါတရားကေတာ့ တကယ့္ကုိ စံျပပါဘဲ။
ဦးဇင္းတုိ႔ တကယ္ ႀကိဳးစားမယ္။ တကယ္ေလ့လာ သင္ယူမယ္။ 
သမီးတုိ႔က ေက်ာင္းသူေတြလား။ ဘာစာေတြ တက္ေနၾကတာလဲ။
ေကာင္ေလးေတြ အလုပ္လုပ္ရတာ အဆင္ေျပရဲ့လား"

အဲဒီလုိ အဲဒီလုိ ေတြခ်ည္း ေျပာေျပာေနရတယ္။ အခုဆုိရင္ သုံးႏွစ္နီးနီးရွိေနၿပီေလ။ မယုံမရွိနဲ႔။ ငမုံကုိယ္ေတြ႔ ဆုိသလုိပါဘဲ။

(၄)
အဂၤလန္ကေန ျမန္မာကုိ ျပန္ခါနီးအခ်ိန္ကို စိတ္ကူးမိျခင္း..
"ဒကာႀကီးေရ... ဒကာမႀကီးေရ။ ဦးဇင္းတုိ႔ ျပန္ၾကေတာ့မယ္။ အခုလုိ ရင္းရင္းႏွီးႏွီး သိခြင့္ ေတြ႔ခြင့္ရတာ ၀မ္းသာလုိ႔ မဆုံးပါဘူး။ အစစအရာရာ လုိေလေသးမရွိေအာင္ ကူညီၾကတဲ့အတြက္ တကယ္ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္။ ေနာင္ အခြင့္သင့္ရင္ အလည္လာခဲ့ပါဦးမယ္။ အားလုံးကုိယ္စိတ္ႏွစ္ပါး က်န္းမာခ်မ္းသာၾကပါေစ"

အဲဒီလုိ ေျပာၿပီး ႏႈတ္ဆက္ရမွာကုိ ျမင္ေယာင္မိေသးတယ္။

(၅)
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံေရာက္ၿပီး မူလဌာေန၌ စာခ်စာသင္ျပဳလုပ္ရန္ စိတ္ကူးျခင္း
"Hello,, Hello, Hello.. Today,,, annn.. what I would... annn. like to talk... annn... annn... annnn"

ေအာ္.. အဲဒီလုိ အဲဒီလုိ ျဖစ္ေနဦးမွာ ျမင္ေယာင္မိရင္း အဂၤါေမာင္ရဲ့ အနာဂါတ္ပုံကုိ စိတ္ကူးနဲ႔ ေဖာ္ေနမိေၾကာင္းပါ။

မွတ္ခ်က္။
အဂၤါေမာင္အတြက္ကိုသာ ရည္ရြယ္ပါသည္။ အျခား ပညာေတာ္သင္မ်ားကုိ မရည္ရြယ္ပါ။ ပုံကုိ ဒီက ယူထားပါတယ္။
..

Wednesday 6 October 2010

တကယ္ဆုိ...

တကယ္ဆုိ
ရတုအဆက္ဆက္
လက္ဆင့္ကမ္းေနသူပါ
နရီေတြ မေပ်ာက္ေစခ်င္ဘူး။

တကယ္ဆုိ
ငုေရႊ၀ါပါ
ကာလာေရာယွက္ဖုိ႔အတြက္
ဒီသဘက္ကုိ မခြါခ်ပါရေစနဲ႔။

တကယ္ဆုိ
ငါးပြင့္ၾကယ္ထဲက
ၾကယ္မႈံၾကယ္မႊားေလးပါ
ဥကၠာေတြ ၀င္မေဆာင့္ေစခ်င္ဘူး။

တကယ္ဆုိ
အရုဏ္အဖြင့္မွာ
တင့္တယ္ခ်င္သူပါ
တိမ္ညိဳေတြကုိ အျပစ္မတင္ပါနဲ႔။

တကယ္ဆုိ
ပီတိေလးကုိ
စားခ်င္ရံုသက္သက္ေလးပါ
ေသာမနသ္ ေဒါမနသ္ေတြ
လြယ္အိတ္ထဲ မထည့္ခ်င္ဘူး။

တကယ္ဆုိ
အုိင္ဆုိေလးရွင္း ႀကိဳက္သူပါ
ဗုိင္းရပ္ေတြ
ေလမလြင့္လာပါေစနဲ႔။

တကယ္ဆုိ
အလွမ္းကြာလြန္းပါတယ္
သင့္ဥစၥာ
သင္သာ ပုိင္ပါေစေလ။

..

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Meeting or Missing (June 23 2010)

တုိက္တုိက္ဆုိင္ဆုိင္ တကယ့္ကုိ တုိက္တုိက္ဆုိင္ဆုိင္ပါဘဲ။ အဲဒီေန႔ (23.6.10) မွာ စူပါဗုိက္ဆာနဲ႔ ခ်ိန္းထားတယ္။ ႏွစ္ပတ္ႀကိဳခ်ိန္းထားတာပါ။ အလားတူပါဘဲ။ တိပိဆရာေတာ္က ၿမဳိ့ထဲသြားဖုိ႔ အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔ကုိ ထပ္ခ်ိန္းျပန္တယ္။ သူလဲ သူအားလပ္တဲ့ ရက္ကို ခ်ိန္းဆုိလုိက္တာပါ။ အဂၤါေမာင့္စူပါဗုိက္ဆာက ထူးျခားရင္ မက္ေဆ့ခ်္ပုိ႔ပါလုိ႔ ႀကိဳတင္ေတာ့ ေျပာထားပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ႏွစ္ပတ္ေလာက္ ႀကိဳခ်ိန္းထားတာကို မဖ်က္ခ်င္ဘူး။ ဒါနဲ႔ အဂၤါေမာင္က စူပါဗုိက္ဆာဆီ မက္ေဆ့ခ်္ပုိ႔လုိက္တယ္။ ဒီေန႔ လာခဲ့ရမလားေပါ့။ အမွန္က မလာခဲ့နဲ႔ အလုပ္ရႈပ္ေနတယ္ဆုိတဲ့ အသံကုိ ၾကားခ်င္ေနတာ။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ဆႏၵ မျပည့္၀ခဲ့ပါဘူး။ လာခဲ့ပါတဲ့။ မွတ္ကေရာ။

ဆရာေတာ္က ပါလီမန္အေဆာက္အဦထဲရယ္၊ လန္ဒန္အုိင္း စီးဖုိ႔ရယ္၊ သိန္းျမစ္ထဲ သေဘၤာစီးဖုိ႔ရယ္ အစီအစဥ္ဆြဲထားတာပါ။ အဂၤါေမာင္အသြားခ်င္ဆုံး ေနရာေတြေပါ့။ တကယ္ကုိ သြားခ်င္တာ။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ေရရွည္ကုိ ၾကည့္ၿပီး ဆရာေတာ္ႏွင့္လုိက္သြားမဲ့ အစီအစဥ္ကုိ ဖ်က္လုိက္တယ္။ စူပါဗုိက္ဆာဆီကုိဘဲ သြားလုိက္တယ္။ ဆရာေတာ္က က်န္တဲ့ ႏွစ္ပါးႏွင့္အတူ ထြက္သြားတယ္။ 

အဂၤါေမာင္လဲ စူပါဗုိက္ဆာဆီေရာက္ၿပီး စာမေဆြးေႏြးခင္ အဂၤါေမာင္က ဒီေန႔ ခရီးစဥ္ဖ်က္သိမ္းၿပီး လာခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ေျပာျပလုိက္တယ္။ ဘာခရီးစဥ္လဲတဲ့။ ပါလီမန္ လန္ဒန္အုိင္း သိန္းျမစ္ ခရီးစဥ္လုိ႔ ေျပာျပေတာ့ လုိက္သြားလုိက္ရင္ ၿပီးေရာတဲ့။ သူ႔ကုိ မလာႏုိင္တဲ့အေၾကာင္း၊ ေနာက္ေန႔မွ လာေတြ႔မယ္ဆုိတဲ့အေၾကာင္း မက္ေဆ့ခ်္ပုိ႔ခဲ့ရင္ ရတယ္တဲ့။ အဲဒီလုိ ခရီးမ်ိဳးက သြားသင့္တယ္တဲ့။ ကဲဗ်ာ.. ကဲဗ်ာ။  အဂၤါေမာင္ မပြင့္လင္းခဲ့တာမွားေရာေပါ့။ ပြင့္ပြင့္လင္းလင္း စူပါဗုိက္ဆာကုိ ေျပာျပၿပီး ေနာက္တစ္ေန႔မွ သြားေတြ႔ရင္ သားေရႊအုိး ရကိန္းဘဲ မဟုတ္လား။  စူပါဗုိက္ဆာနဲ႔ Meeting ကို ေရြးလုိက္ေတာ့ ခရီးစဥ္က Missing ျဖစ္သြားေတာ့တာေပါ့။

မွတ္ခ်က္။ ဇြန္လ ၂၃ ရက္ေန႔က ဒရပ္အေနနဲ႔ သိမ္းထားခ့ဲတဲ့ မွတ္တမ္းေလးပါ။ Publish လုပ္လုိက္ေတာ့ ဘယ္လုိျဖစ္လုိ႔ ထိပ္ဆုံးကို ေရာက္လာတယ္မသိ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ထိပ္မွာ ေန႔စြဲကုိ ေဖာ္ျပထားလုိက္ရတယ္။

.

တရားေဟာဆရာ တရားအေဟာ ခံလုိက္ရျခင္း

မေန႔က မနက္ ဘဏ္ကဒ္မွာ ျပႆနာတစ္ခု တက္ေနတာနဲ႔ ဘာကေလဘဏ္ကုိ သြားခဲ့တယ္။ တစ္ျခားျပႆနာေတာ့ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ အြန္လုိင္းက တစ္ဆင့္ ေစ်း၀ယ္ရင္း အမွားတစ္ခုလုပ္မိလုိက္လုိ႔ ေနာက္ထပ္ ေစ်း၀ယ္မရေတာ့တာနဲ႔ အဲဒီျပႆနာကုိ ေျဖရွင္းဖုိ႔ သြားခဲ့တာပါ။ 

ဘဏ္ကိစၥၿပီးလုိ႔ ျပန္ခဲ့တဲ့အခါ လမ္းမွာ ဒကာမတစ္ေယာက္ေတြ႔တယ္။ အာဖရိကတုိက္ မာလဂါႏုိင္ငံမွာ ေမြးဖြားၿပီး အဂၤလန္မွာ ႀကီးျပင္းခဲ့တဲ့ ဒကာမတစ္ေယာက္ပါ။ သူ႔ကုိယ္သူ အရင္မိတ္ဆက္ၿပီး တရားျပေပးတဲ့ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေက်ာင္းေတြ ဘယ္အနားမွာ ရွိသလဲဆုိတာကုိ သူ စုံစမ္းေမးျမန္းတယ္။ သူသြားခဲ့ဖူးတဲ့ သီရိလကၤာဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေက်ာင္း ျမန္မာဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေက်ာင္းေတြအေၾကာင္း သူေျပာျပတယ္။ အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔ေနထုိင္တဲ့ ေက်ာင္းကုိေတာင္ တစ္ေခါက္ ေရာက္ၿပီးၿပီဆုိဘဲ။ ဗုဒၶဘာသာဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေက်ာင္းေတြ လုိက္ရွာၿပီး တရားထုိင္ေလ့ရွိတယ္တဲ့။ အဂၤါေမာင္လဲ တရားျပေပးႏုိင္တဲ့ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေက်ာင္းေတြကုိ ညြန္ျပေပးလုိက္ပါတယ္။ အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔ေက်ာင္းက စာသင္သားသက္သက္ေနၾကတယ္ဆုိေတာ့ အၿမဲတရားျပေပးမဲ့သူ မရွိပါဘူး။

ဒါနဲ႔ အဂၤါေမာင္လဲ သူတရားစိတ္၀င္စားတာကုိ အခြင့္ေကာင္းယူၿပီး တရားသေဘာေလး ေျပာျပရင္းႏွင့္ အဂၤလိပ္စာ ေလ့က်င့္မႈ အရယူလုိက္တယ္။ တကယ္ဆို လန္ဒန္မွာ ေနထုိင္ရေပမ့ဲ တစ္ရက္ေနလုိ႔မွ အဂၤလိပ္စကား တစ္လုံးမေျပာရေလေတာ့ ရတဲ့ အခြင့္အေရးေလး ယူထားလုိက္ဦးမယ္ဆုိၿပီး လမ္းေဘးတစ္ေနရာမွာ မတ္တပ္ရပ္ၿပီး ႏွစ္ေယာက္သား စကားေျပာျဖစ္ခဲ့ၾကတယ္။ သူ႔မိဘေတြက ဂ်ိန္းဘာသာ၀င္ေတြတဲ့။ သူကေတာ့ ဟုိေယာင္ေယာင္ ဒီေယာင္ေယာင္သေဘာပါဘဲ။ ဂ်ိန္းဘာသာ  ဟိႏၵဴဘာသာ ဗုဒၶဘာသာေတြကုိ ေရာသမေမႊၿပီး သူစိတ္ကူးေပါက္ရာလုပ္ပုံရတယ္။ အျမင္ခ်င္း နဲနဲစီ ဖလွယ္ခဲ့ၾကတယ္။ ဂ်ိန္းဘာသာမွာ အတၱမံဆုိတဲ့ အတၱကုိ ခံယူထားၿပီး ေမာကၡဆုိတဲ့ လြတ္ၿငိမ္းမႈကုိ လက္ခံယူဆထားတယ္။ ဗုဒၶဘာသာမွာ အတၱမံဆုိတဲ့ အတၱအယူကုိ လက္မခံဘူး၊ နိဗၺာနဆုိတဲ့ ၿငိမ္းေအးမႈ လြတ္ေျမာက္မႈကုိ လက္ခံထားတယ္။ သူက ေျပာတယ္။ သေဘာခ်င္းနဲနဲတူတယ္တဲ့။

လမ္းေဘးမွာ ဆုိေပမဲ့ သူမ်ားအိမ္ေရွ့က လမ္းေဘးမွာ ျဖစ္ေနတဲ့အတြက္ အဲဒီအိမ္ရွင္က ႀကိဳက္ပုံမေပၚဘူး။ အိႏၵိယႏြယ္ဖြား ျဖစ္ပုံရပါတယ္။ ဘာမေျပာဘာမဆုိနဲ႔ သူ႔ရဲ့ မာစီးဒီး ကားစုပ္ေလးေပၚတက္ၿပီး ဘာကုိ ဘယ္လုိ လုပ္လုိက္တယ္မသိပါဘူး။ အိတ္ေဇာေပါက္ထဲက မီးခုိးေတြ အတုံးလုိက္ အခဲလုိက္ ထြက္လာၿပီး အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔ ႏွစ္ေယာက္လုံးကုိ ဖုံးအုပ္သြားတယ္။ အသံကလဲ ဆူဆူညံညံႀကီးေပါ့။ အဲဒီ ဒကာမဆုိ ေခ်ာင္းေတြ အရမ္းဆုိးၿပီး အဲဒီ လူကို က်ိန္ဆဲေနေလရဲ့။ မီးခုိးေတြ အူေနေပမဲ့ အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔လဲ စကားမျပတ္ဘူးျဖစ္ေနတယ္။

သူက ေယာဂက်င့္စဥ္ကုိ သင္ၾကားျပသေပးတဲ့ သင္တန္းဆရာမတဲ့။ အခုလဲ သင္တန္းက ျပန္လာတာတဲ့။ တရားအေၾကာင္း၊ ေယာဂအေၾကာင္း၊ ဘာသာအေၾကာင္း အေတာ္ေလး ေျပာၿပီး သူက ေမးတယ္။ မင္းက သက္သတ္လြတ္လားတဲ့။ မဟုတ္ပါဘူးဆုိေတာ့။ ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔ သက္သတ္လြတ္မစားတာလဲတဲ့။ ငါတုိ႔မွာ ေရြးခ်ယ္ခြင့္မရွိဘူး။ လူေတြကုိ မီခုိေနရတယ္။ သူတုိ႔ ကပ္လွဴတာကုိဘဲ ဘုဥ္းေပးရပါတယ္။ သူတုိ႔ဘာလွဴလွဴ စားလုိက္တာပါဘဲ။ သက္သတ္လြတ္စားၿပီး လူေတြကုိ သက္သတ္လြတ္စီမံဖုိ႔ အလုပ္ရႈပ္မခံေစခ်င္ပါဘူး လို႔ေျပာလုိက္တယ္။

ေနာက္ဆုံးမွာ လမ္းခြဲခါနီး သူကေျပာတယ္။ ေလးေလးနက္နက္ အႀကံေပးမယ္တဲ့။ ဘာလဲဆုိေတာ့ မင္း သက္သတ္လြတ္ စားျဖစ္ေအာင္စားပါတဲ့။ သူတုိ႔ ဂ်ိန္းဘာသာ၀င္ေကာ ဟိႏၵဴဘာသာ၀င္ေတြေကာ အားလုံး သက္သတ္လြတ္ေတြခ်ည္းဘဲတဲ့။ သက္သတ္လြတ္စားမွ ပါ၀ါေတြ ပုိတက္လာမယ္တဲ့။ တန္ခုိးေတြ ပုိႀကီးလာမယ္တဲ့။ ဘုရားေရ... အဂၤါေမာင္က တရားေဟာလုိက္ရၿပီ မွတ္ေနတာ။ လက္စသတ္ေတာ့ သူက တရားေဟာသြားတာကုိး။ အဆင္မေျပတဲ့အခါမွာ ဒီလုိဘဲ သားေကာင္က မုဆုိး၊ မုဆုိးက သားေကာင္ အျပန္အလွန္ျဖစ္ႏုိင္ၾကတာကို သတိမူမိလုိက္ပါရဲ့။

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Sunday 3 October 2010

A slight prologue to Mahasatipatthanasutta


There are two discourses on the foundation of mindfulness (Mahæsatipa¥¥hænasutta), one is found in the Døghanikæya (long discourse of the Buddha) and the other is found in the Majjimanikæya  (middle length discourse of the Buddha). Both discourses offer precise procedures which are required in establishing mindfulness. The former discourse, which is contained in the Døghanikæya, has a supplementary component on the development of four noble truths, which is not found in the Majjimanikæya. There are two commentaries on these discourses written by the Buddhaghosa around fifth century and subsequently developed two sub-commentaries written by Dhammapæla, around sixth/seventh century.  The commentary to Døghanikæya is known as Suma³galavisæsinø and its sub-commentary as Lønatthapakæsinø. Similarly, the commentary to Majjimanikæya is known as Papañcasþdanø and its sub-commentary Lønatthapakæsinø.
No scholar has been translated on any part of these commentaries into English. I have translated about five pages from Mahæsatipa¥¥hænasutta va¼¼anæ, a commentary on the Mahæsatipa¥¥hænasutta of of Døghanikæya. I was not aware of the predicament of this translation in the beginning. As I work on the translation, I found many compound and even complex words together, which are not possible to translate without additional information, for example Æramma¼ædhipatisahajætabhþmikammavipækakiriyædinæ- nattabhedænaµ(by means of the diversities of senses, masters, togetherness, realms, actions, results, functions and so on). This additional information is really not clearly explained. A reader without basic knowledge on such a concept is unlikely to understand by merely reading the commentary.
There are also many plural terms, for examples when the text explains about the six senses, only eyes sensation is mentioned and the remaining five senses are concluded with ‘ædi=etc’. The commentator means to include the remaining senses. This is completely different from the original pæli discourse where we find each name of sensation.
There are a number of passages of similes used in this commentary in which the Buddha compared with a bamboo-plaiter, and geologist; a meditating bhikkhu with leopard; mind with a calf; mindfulness with a rope.
There are many verses in this commentary quoted from another texts and treaties. Among them the verses “Just as the man (cowherd) willing to tame a calf may tie it to a post; even so one’s mind should be tied firmly to a post of meditative sense in this Sæsanæ” and Just as a leopard hiding himself in the forest seizes beasts, even so the bhikkhu, the son of Buddha, who has meditation practised and observes several phenomena, having entered the forest, seizes four noble fruitions are merely quoted from unidentified authors what they are called “Ancient teachers”. These verses can also be found in different commentaries such as Pæræjikaka¼ðaa¥¥hakathæ (vol.2. p-12,), Visuddhimaggaa¥¥hakathæ (vol. 1, p-217) and pa¥isambhidæmaggaa¥¥hakathæ (vol.2. p-163). However, it is still not clear who exactly composed these verses.
All in all, the explanation of Mahæsatipa¥¥hænasuttava¼¼anæ is acceptable to all of the Dhamma seekers due to its practical level of quality and meditative techniques.

Saturday 2 October 2010

The Uposatha performance (4)


Conclusion
There are thousands of theravæda monasteries not only in rural but also urban areas throughout Burma; depending on time and circumstances, a few monasteries are without monk, some with only monk, some with a small number of monks, some with thousands of monks; but uposatha is rarely performed in some of the monasteries owing to incomplete monks or not recognizing the uposatha day. That is just an unreasonable excuse because even one single monk can practise it in terms of adhi¥¥hæna uposatha (a determined observance), and also according to Burmese tradition when New Year comes and lunar calendars are published, at first the Buddhist people usually remember to offer the calendar to the monastery. Two or three or more calendars, hanging on the wall and posts, are in accessibility in each and every monastic building. On the other hand, a number of lay devotees generally gather in monastery in order to observe eight or nine precepts every uposatha day. Therefore it is impossible to fail to remember the days. The majority of monasteries in Burma are, however, still following the custom of uposatha formal act every full and new moon day. When the time falls, a big bell is struck several times, then hearing the bell-ring monks immediately come together in a sømæ carrying their own sitting clothes, after that uposatha is done by all members of monks harmoniously. Either the way of doing is in brief or in details, it is to be appreciated in modern time surrounded by plenty of sensual pleasures. In some monasteries two monks involve in pætimokkha recitation with a model of question and answer; the answerer, who is commonly a junior, usually recites it, when only a competent and experienced monk generally does it. On the other hand, in some monasteries it is taken alternately.
  As vinaya says; “Vinayonæma sæsanassa æyu; vinaye ¥hite sæsanaµ ¥hitaµ hoti. “The disciplinary rule is the existence of the dispensation of the Buddha; if the disciplinary rule subsists, the dispensation of the Buddha will subsist”, the rule is a main root of every religion and society. No religion can last long without rules as a simile of scattering flowers without making a garland with a strong string. Even a minor rule should not be let break because the mind of men indulges in bad thing. If a small offence is allowed to commit, then a greater offence would be committed sooner or later similar to a snake catching a frog from the tip of a leg, then it swallows all the entire body of the frog. Uposatha practice is one of the thousands of disciplines for the order. If it does not take place fortnightly, it is sinful for the monks known as dukka¥a offence. Even though it is curable, it should not be ignored as it might pull the offenders down to the woeful states after death. Doing uposatha is showing the unity and purity of Buddhist order. The machine of Buddhism is still running with momentum along its way to peacefulness without letting its tiny part of equipment take off. As far as Burmese monks keep carrying out the uposatha practice duly, the theravæda Buddhism will never disappear from the land of Burma in the long future.
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Selected bibliography
The sources of pæ¹i cannon (texts)
- Cþ¹avagga pæ¹i, 3rd Ed (1999) Yangon: Win Light Mate Press House
- Mahævagga (Vinaya) pæ¹i, 5th Ed (1991)   Yangon: Religious Affairs House
- Pariværa pæ¹i, 8th Ed (1997) Yangon: Religious Affairs Press House
- Pæcittiya pæ¹i, 8th Ed (1997) (eighth edition), Yangon: Religious Affairs Press House
- Pæræjika pæ¹i 5th Ed (1979) Yangon: Religious Affairs Press House

The sources of A¥¥hakathæ (commentaries)
- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Cþ¹avaggædi A¥¥hakathæ, Yangon: Religious
            Affairs Press House
- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Ka³khævira¼ø a¥¥hakathæ, Yangon: Religious
Affairs Press House
- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Pæcityædi  A¥¥hakathæ,   Yangon: Religious
            Affair Press House,
-Særiputta thera (1991) Vinaysa³gaha a¥¥hakathæ, Yangon: Religious Affair Press

The sources of ¿økæ (Sub-commentaries) and Ganthantara (treatises)
-Co¹iyakassapathera, Bhaddanta (1960) Vimativinodanø ¥økæ,Vol 2, Yangon: Religious
            Affairs Press House,
-Dhammasiri mahæthera and Mahæsæmi mahæthera (1962) Khuddasikkhæ Mþlasikkhæ 
             ¥økæ, Yangon: Religious Affair Press House
- Taungphila, Sayadaw (1962) Vinayæla³kæra ¥økæ,Vol 1, Yangon: Religious Affairs
            Press House
- Særiputtathera, Bhaddanta (1977) Vinayavinicchaya ¥økæ, Vol 2, Yangon: Religious
            Affairs Press House
General sources
-Goenka (1999) Cha¥¥hasa³gæyanæ CD (version 3) [it embodies all canonical texts,
            commentaries, sub-commentaries and other treatises], India: Vipassanæ
            research institute
-Gombrich. R.F (2006) Theravæda Buddhism (A social history form ancient Benares
 to modern Colombo), 2nd edition, Abingdon: Routledge Press
- I.B. Horner (1942a) The book of the discipline, Vol 4, London: Humphrey milfor
oxford University  Press Amen House
- I.B. Horner (1942b) The book of the discipline, Vol 5, London: Humphrey milford
oxford University  Press Amen House
-Spiro, M. E (1982) Buddhism and Society, Los Angeles: University of California
            Press
-Somdet Phra Mahæ (1973) The Entrance to the Vinaya, Vol 3, Bangkok: Sama¼a
            Choa Mahæmakut Ræjavidyælaya Press
-Misra, G.S.P (1969) The Age of Vinaya, New Delhi: Rashtra Bharti Press
-Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1994) The Buddhist Monastic Code, vol 1, U.S.A: Valley
            center (free distribution)  
-Thanissaro Bhikkhu (2007) The Buddhist Monastic Code, vol 2, U.S.A:Valley center
            (free distribution), 

Burmese sources
- Janakæbhivaµsa Ashin (1959) Ka³khæbhæsæ¥økæ, vol.1, Amarapura: New Burma
            Offset Press  
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1959) Ka³khæbhæsæ¥økæ, vol.2,  Amarapura: New Burma
            Offset Press
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1973) Pariværabhæsæ¥økæ, Amarapura: New Burma Offset
            Press
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1938) Pætimok bhæsæ¥økæ, Amarapura: New Burma Offset
            Press
- Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1966) Mahævaggabhæsæ¥økæ, Amarapura: New Burma
            Offset Press
-Sølænandæbhivaµsa, Ashin (2002) Sømæ training course (Burmese version), Yangon:
            Khaing yee mon Press
- U Maung Maung, Dhammaghosaka (1981) The Buddha trusted in Saµgha (Burmese
            version), Yangon: Thihaminn Press

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