Existence and Celibacy

The universe is a balance. In the very effort of becoming balanced, the next moment brings a new imbalance, and within that imbalance the movement back toward balance begins again. It is within this constant process that the flow of the universe exists. You are a small part, a molecule, so to speak, of this universe, and so you too are subject to this same law of balance. Even though your mind cannot take in this whole process, this whole scope, its influence bears on you without pause.

The Balance Built Into Existence

Generally speaking, a being's existence is founded, at its root, on the bond between woman and man: on the existence that arises once two such people come together. You study, you work, you build a home; all of it, at bottom, is done for this. Taken as a whole, the general direction of a being's life is oriented toward building exactly this kind of existence.

Looking closely at how a being's balance is built up within such an existence, one thing becomes visible: how suffering and happiness come to balance each other out within it. Many people can grasp this simply from their own experience of life. The pleasure gained through sensual life, looked at carefully, balances out against the weariness and suffering bound up with everything else that grows up around it. Within the pursuit of pleasure through sensual life, there is enjoyment, certainly, but the results that follow from it also build a complicated, wearying way of life. Ordinarily, a person's efforts in study, work, business, exercise, or building a home are, at their core, all aimed at living a comfortable and pleasurable sensual life. Many people never notice the suffering and weariness bound up with that same process, simply because their attention stays fixed on the hope of a pleasurable sensual life. Within that life, the family that results from seeking such pleasure, the children, the household, then demands, for its upkeep, a process filled with weariness, suffering, and disadvantage that many people remain caught inside until the day they die.

There are cases where a man and a woman are together but do not have children. Yet the underlying law is structured so that coming together in this way is meant for the continuation of the species. If that natural law is deliberately set aside, the balance has to be made up somewhere else. There is enjoyment in the process, so to speak, but no 'product.' So some other corresponding result has to arise to balance it out. No one in this world has eternal happiness or eternal suffering: the natural law of balance cannot be exceeded. If a couple stays together and there is even a single child, the karma involved gets balanced through that.

If someone tries to let go of this kind of existence, it cannot be let go of all at once. Someone who is going to see Nibbana does let go of their existence, but if the matters they are letting go of have not yet been brought to fullness within them, if some deficiency remains, then letting go of that existence prematurely becomes an obstacle to seeing Nibbana as well. Because from then on, for the rest of that life, all they will be doing is working through the pressure and mental turmoil created by having let go before those matters were complete. This kind of existence is something that is meant to fall away naturally, on its own. If one partner in a couple lets go of their shared existence, the other partner needs to have that same readiness built up within them too, otherwise the balance between them breaks, and the consequences of that build up later on.

Passion as an Energy, Not a Person

If you are gladdened by passion, you are caught by passion, and where there is that gladdening, there is ignorance. On the other side, for someone who has exhausted passion, there is no longer anything called 'passion' for them; but that is something felt as a result, not something manufactured by the mind. Once passion is exhausted and the gladdening falls away, what remains is simply a physical and mental matter. If a person, having exhausted passion at the level of its fruit, makes use of it purely as such a matter, it causes them no problem at all. The problem arises only where that is not the case: because that is where karma is being formed, and feeling and suffering grow.

So passion has two sides. One is being gladdened by passion within ignorance. The other is that someone who has exhausted passion can make use of it, with understanding, purely as a physical and mental matter. To go as far as exhausting passion, passion has to be let go of. Trying to bet against passion, or trying to suppress it, will not work. Passion is not something that can be finished off simply by understanding it intellectually: it is something to be let go of.

For as long as you think of it as passion, it remains passion. For as long as you think of it as a doctrine, it remains a doctrine. For as long as you think of it as a discipline, it remains a discipline. It takes shape according to the costume you dress it in, and we are the ones putting on that costume.

Looked at in its most basic nature, passion is not even a thought, and not a doctrine either: it is a line of energy. Many different aspects of a being's existence operate through this energy line: trees flower, fruit forms, reproduction occurs: all of it through this same energy line that we call passion. If someone stops having sex, that energy line can push them toward overeating, or toward excessive drinking, or toward some other outlet.

This energy line carries a frequency of its own. A doctrine's reactions are simply its nature: we do not call the flowing of water a 'frequency'; it is a doctrine, a nature. Through this one energy line, a whole range of such doctrines can arise.

Some men are drawn to men; some women are drawn to women: the reason is simply that this energy line has been set that way. Some are drawn, almost helplessly, to food. Some to clothing. Some to their own image. Whatever it is, a person gets caught by it in this manner, and their existence is built up around it. If someone has no sexual life at all, they will get caught by something else instead. It is the same with monks in a temple: one plants flowers obsessively, another rebuilds the temple compulsively. That energy line finds an outlet somewhere. Those who are satisfied within their sexual life tend to take the rest of life less seriously; they simply live along, and other matters do not weigh on them so heavily.

Passion is really just one energy line. Sex is only one strand that spreads out from it.

The Bodhisatta's Example

If someone carries iddhipada-citta, the mental basis of psychic power, and that energy is growing within them, then that person must, of necessity, have a sexual life. Such obstacles simply do not arise for them in the way they do for others. Preventing such a person from eating, drinking, and doing what an ordinary person does amounts to damaging their own faculties. It is rather like a great tree growing: for the growing energy to stay in balance, these things are needed.

The clearest example of this is the Bodhisatta. While fulfilling the perfections of an ascetic, the Bodhisatta did not remain celibate. He would let go, and then come back again: without that, it becomes an obstacle. It is something the Bodhisatta needs just as much as food, because through every such experience, his wisdom grows. Even in his final birth, the Bodhisatta had a companion; that, too, was part of his existence. It could not simply be set aside: it stayed bound up with him right through to the final birth. The fact that there was a wife even in that last life shows that it cannot simply be denied or rejected.

What the Buddha Saw Within Passion

A Buddha, at a certain period, passes through a phase of coming to understand everything about passion. During that period, passion is experienced as passion: it is enjoyed, and one is satisfied by it. Yet even while within passion, from what feels like a separate vantage point, he also observes how doctrines form within a being, and how a being takes shape within this subject and within passion itself. This is seen quite separately, almost as though composed and settled, even while engaged in it.

Within that, Dhamma becomes clear at every turn: how a woman sees a man, and how she experiences seeing him; how, during intimacy, one who is watching from a separate vantage point experiences it; how the minds and bodies of women and men function; how karma is formed; how the heart works; how defiled thoughts operate; how relationships form among women, and among men; and the natures that arise both during intimacy and afterward, once it has ended. Across this whole vast field, Dhamma becomes clear, and every such occurrence is examined again, forward and backward. When that phase reaches its fullness, one begins to feel, at last:

He has fully understood everything concerning passion.

Defilements Transcended, Not Erased

He has fully abandoned all defilements.

Eliminating defilements is a separate matter from what it might sound like. When we were children, we loved riding a toy car. Imagine that, as an adult, you came across a toy car again: it would hold no value for you any more, though you could certainly still ride it. To say defilements have been eliminated does not mean the defilements no longer exist; it means they have been transcended. And once transcended, they simply hold no value any longer.

Once the continuity of thought is no longer sustained, semen is not released even during intercourse; even self-stimulation becomes difficult. It becomes possible only if one deliberately keeps manufacturing thought after thought to sustain it, otherwise it does not happen at all. That is itself a wearying business. Even where the matter is purely physical and mental, if it comes to rest excessively on sex, it turns into a burden.

How Passion Develops Through a Lifetime

A small child has sex within them from the very day it is born. The way a son takes milk from his mother is different from the way a daughter takes milk from her mother; the way a daughter senses her father is different from the way a son senses his mother. All the warmth a small child receives from its parents is received together with exactly this kind of sensing. From that point on, as this being's physical and mental nature and way of thinking gradually develop, their passionate nature and the way they make use of it also change. As maturity gradually develops, the way we make use of things, the nervous system included, changes along with it. Passion is present from the very place a child is born. The growth of the nerves, the growth of the mind, the growth of one's capacity to think, the growth of the heart's pulse, all of this changes together with age. And so the capacity to handle this passionate nature also changes accordingly. The opportunities one gets for expressing it also affect one's experience of it. That is where the difference lies.

Yet, taken in itself, passion is always exactly the same. Whether you pour water into a glass and drink it, cup it in your hand and drink it, or pour it into a golden cup and drink it, the water remains water. Only the manner of drinking has changed.

How our mind behaves with respect to passion differs from person to person. But passion itself, from the moment of taking mother's milk after birth, right through to feeling the pleasure of a passing breeze, is present. If you ask what the maximum of passion is, measured through the pleasure felt in all of this, there is no maximum: every point is, in itself, the maximum. During intercourse, semen is released only once it reaches its maximum; that is precisely because there is only the one maximum. The way this is structured within each person's mind can differ, and there can be various reasons for that: psychological matters, unresolved issues from childhood, patterns of thinking, social and cultural factors. But passion itself, taken purely as passion, is the maximum everywhere. There is no point at which it is less.

The Machinery of the Body Runs on Passion

Consider someone playing volleyball. When the ball is struck, passion is present there too. Without passion, one could not play volleyball at all: the body's physical strength itself would fall away. Gautama Buddha built craving (tanha), delight (rati), and passion (raga) outwardly, into the world, precisely because, once they were exhausted within, they had to be built outwardly instead. Why were they built outwardly? Because it is passion that holds this entire system together: that is exactly why it was built into the outer world, so that, once built, it could continue to be sustained through it. Passion exists within all of you. If passion did not exist, you would not be able to do anything at all. Passion is simply a line of energy. It is passion that connects and carries information between your neurons; it is passion that makes your mouth water with saliva and your ear grow moist; it is passion behind your teeth coming in, your hair growing, your beard growing, the sweating of your body, and the digestion of your food. All of this happens on the basis of passion.

The heart's pulse is located in the heart. But the pulse of life itself is elsewhere: directly behind the navel, along the spine, there is a point: that is where the life-force (prana) resides, and within that life-force is the pulse of life. When a person dies, it is from that point that death occurs, not from anywhere else. That is exactly what is meant, in the cycle of samsara, by the cutting of the thread of life. It is bound up with life itself; the pulse is there. It is the energy called passion that drives the heart's beat. The body's complexion, vitality, ease, strength, and wisdom all develop out of this same source.

So does breathing, too, happen because of passion? In truth, you do not breathe: breathing simply happens to you. If you were to breathe deliberately, that would not be from passion. But breathing that simply happens, of its own accord, that is from passion.

Letting Go of Passion, and What It Gives Back

People have swallowed whole, and thereby misunderstood, the idea that the Buddha said passion is something to be hated. Passion is something to be let go of. Passion is, in fact, a person's very existence. When someone lets go of passion, a great many resources come to them in place of that 'arrears.' Let go of passion, and everything except passion is received. Hold on to passion, and the likelihood of receiving those other things is reduced. There is an Energy Balance at work here. Once the old existence is let go of, a new existence forms from some other direction. This is exactly why Gautama Buddha told monks to let go of passion: it is through this that robes, dwellings, alms food, and medicine for the sick come to them. Clothes are worn to cover shame, not to seek pleasure from them; food is eaten to sustain the body, not to demand flavour from it; a dwelling is needed to sleep in, and for protection from flies and mosquitoes.

What Celibacy Actually Means

It is on the basis of exactly this theory of balance that the Buddha primarily taught monks to be celibate. It is built up in the following way.

Being celibate does not mean putting on a robe. Nor does it mean ordaining the body. One can be celibate even while living a lay life. Within celibate existence, one does not take gladness in passion or sexuality, and one does not have children. It may look, from outside, as though one is living an ordinary lay life, but that is not what is actually present within it. Even while living as a lay person, there is, of course, a life going on, but it is a life that has been let go of. Cultivating this is what brings one to celibacy. And it is within this that the balance forms.

Two Arahants, Two Different Balances

Suppose someone has become an Arahant and their spiritual balance, too, is in good order. For such a person, remaining celibate is good: their existence then takes shape well. There is another kind of Arahant who, even so, does not remain celibate. For such a person, their balance forms instead through the mental confusion, disturbance, and life's pressures that come bound up with the life-style of not being celibate.

Existence and Sexual Life Are Two Different Things

Existence and sensual life are two different things. Sensual life has no real bearing on existence. Even someone eating, drinking, dressed, and living in a household, if they remain celibate while living that way, has an existence that forms according to that different, unbalanced arrangement. They receive people's praise, respect and honour, food and drink, and comfortable requisites; people pay homage to them. This happens because they have let go of something that ordinarily belongs to existence. If one is not celibate, troubles and obstacles arise correspondingly, relative to that; not being celibate itself becomes part of one's existence, and one then has to face the difficulty of creating, by one's own effort, the things needed to sustain that existence. Being celibate, by contrast, keeps existence relatively protected. For someone pursuing a different life-style, outside of the monastic going-forth, when it comes to the fruit, whether or not they have this kind of existence is beside the point: they simply have to work, suffer, earn, and provide for themselves.

That is why Gautama Buddha said: if you remain celibate within your austerities, and if you are cultivating some spiritual practice, some Dhamma, within that, then your existence forms accordingly: a comfortable existence, suited to your spiritual practice, takes shape.

None of this is saying you should be celibate, nor that you should not be. It is not saying you should have children, nor that you should not. Only the underlying theory is being explained here, and it applies equally to both women and men.

One who gives, receives. One who does not give, does not receive. It is according to the seeds one has sown that one reaps a harvest of some kind, and that, too, belongs to this same law.

Gautama Buddha tells monks to be celibate. The reason is that, through this, they receive the four requisites. Some end up caught by that too. But it is through this that the existence of the Dhamma is built. Being caught by something like sex is harder to escape than being caught by something like the four requisites.

Celibacy is a precept that applies to everyone. As I see it myself, celibacy means simply this: do not make it your own and indulge in it.

Why Strict Forest Monasticism Struggles Today

The Dhamma as practised in forest monasteries, given enough time, largely breaks down. That is because it is not practical, given how the human brain itself has evolved. Except for a rare few, people from the Gen Y generation onward simply cannot go and live that way any longer. The moment they hear music, hear a rhythm, the leg starts moving on its own; they need to be tapping away at something on their phone. And so, as time passes, that discipline breaks down and comes back out into the open again.

When someone takes up the monastic vow, they enter, while remaining celibate, into a certain course of Dhamma practice. An ordinary being's existence has sex at its foundation. After ordaining, this person lets go of that existence, and cultivates sila, samadhi, and panna instead. To progress within that, and to build an existence suited to it, one has to let go of sex, and this letting go must be done knowingly, with awareness. This does not mean having no feelings at all.

In building an existence within the Dhamma, one needs a great many things: food, medicine, a place to stay, robes, and so on. Because of the universal law of balance, the existence that had rested on sex turns instead toward the building up of these four-requisite matters.

Food and drink, honour, respect, and advancement come to such a person. Places to stay, to eat, to drink, are received. These arrive as one's existence. That is one way in which a being's balance comes to be formed.

Just as giving in charity brings a return, letting go of ordinary lay existence builds a new existence in its place. This is the underlying matter behind ordinary novice or monastic ordination. The Buddha tells people to be celibate because a new existence forms precisely through remaining celibate. Even in a place like Europe, celibacy earns its own particular respect. And there is a difference, too, in the frequency felt by someone who remains celibate.

It has been said that the existence of someone like a novice monk forms through remaining celibate, but there is another side to this too. Long-term abstention from sex can, in some cases, give rise to mental confusion. Over a long period like that, the spontaneous release of semen, what is called a wet dream, can relieve that built-up tension. But with age, or for other reasons, that release may not occur, and pressure can build up instead.

Kashyapa's Question and the Splitting of the Teaching

It was Venerable Kashyapa who was given the methodology needed for establishing the dispensation within Gautama Buddha's Sasana. The Buddha says to let go of passion, to give up association with women. At that, Venerable Kashyapa said that, if that is so, there would be no way for the Sasana to continue: it could not be sustained. He put the question: does the Sasana exist only within the community of monks?

At that, the Buddha says that the Sasana is open not only to the community of monks but to lay people too. Then Venerable Kashyapa points out that, if passion is raised up as a matter of doctrine in this way, it applies equally to lay people and to the ordained. It is at this very point that the Buddha, in the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra, divides this subject into separate parts: dividing it into Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma; and, among the methods for seeing Nibbana, dividing it further into emptiness (shunyata), the path of merit (kusala-magga), the path of investigating truth (satya-gaveshana-magga), and so on, distributed across a number of teacher-lineages. In this way, the subjects of the Dhamma come to be divided out among a number of such teacher-lineages.

Hinayana and Mahayana, in this sense, are simply two baskets. Those who follow emptiness, those who follow consciousness-doctrine, those who follow the path of merit, and those who investigate truth can each fit into whichever basket suits them. If one is travelling alone, seeking liberation alone, the best method is to live having let go of existence altogether. In that era, society, for the most part, accepted the passion-free method.

But within the basket called Mahayana, for someone who wishes to realise truth for themselves and also reveal it to others as they go, celibacy is not imposed on them.

Ordained and Lay Are Just Two Life-Styles

Being celibate and being lay are simply two life-style patterns: two ways of living. It is not that ordaining brings Nibbana, nor is it that living as a lay person makes seeing Nibbana impossible. If one is following the ordained life-style, then remaining celibate is indeed the better course. People in either life-style can be liberated, if they come to understand their own path. One can become Sangha. And in becoming Sangha, both of these life-styles are let go of. The life-style of the Sangha is to live within the present moment: to live together with the reality that exists right now. One who searches out the answer to the present moment's problem, and lives in the present, is Sangha. The past is not forgotten; the future, too, is well understood. But their existence rests within the present.

A Conversation About What Makes a Good Monk

Let me tell you about an experience of mine. One day, someone who had come to see me said, 'Seeing someone like you, Venerable Sir, living such a good monastic life, is a great source of happiness for me.' I said to him, 'How do you know that I am living a good monastic life? How can you decide such a thing from an hour or two of watching me? Either you are speaking blindly, or you are flattering me falsely, or you are simply trying to hang from a moringa branch that will not hold. There is nothing in what you have just said that gives reason to think you are being wise. If seeing someone live a genuinely good monastic life truly makes you happy, and if that is a fundamental matter for you, then first become that yourself. If we go about grasping at something and calling it right without examining it, know that we are, somewhere, very badly stuck.' In the end, that person said, 'My whole view of monkhood has changed completely. Thank you very much, Venerable Sir.'

The Arahant, Sex, and the Physical-Mental Matter

Next, there is no rule that an Arahant cannot have sex. But there is a point to note: sex is a physical and mental matter. Passion arises when, in going to experience that physical and mental matter, ignorance becomes joined to it and turns it into a matter of passion. If one acts while seeing the science, the true knowledge, within that physical and mental matter, there is no ignorance there, and so one does not get caught by passion. What is meant here is not 'being satisfied': 'experiencing' is what is meant, and experiencing is different from being satisfied.

An Arahant, or a Buddha, on seeing something beautiful, will say that it is beautiful. But the image does not linger in the mind. There, the recognition of beauty is not a beauty that has arisen with passion at its root. But if, even though it is beautiful, one goes on to want to experience it and possess it, that is where it turns into passion.

Once sex has become simply a physical and mental matter, what is present is understanding; one can, if one wishes, take enjoyment in it, but not for the sake of that enjoyment alone. These things cannot be worked out by mere deliberate thought: they are matters that occur within one's spiritual attainment.

When you eat ice cream, you can taste it fully, or you can eat it without really tasting it at all. Seeing the science within the flavour, one eats it clearly knowing that it is delicious: there is no passion there. One knows the underlying science and makes use of it. Where there is no clinging, there is no passion. It is going after the gladdening of anything at all that turns into passion. When eating, there needs to be satisfaction in the flavour, otherwise the food will not even digest properly. One should eat with that satisfaction of flavour present. But when the mind that arises from that satisfaction goes on to seek endless, unlimited gladdening, that becomes passion.

Indulgence, Ownership, and the Long Road to Stillness

Not every Arahant has this understanding. So the question arises: can passion, or ignorance, still arise in an Arahant? Can there still be indulgence? In truth, some kind of indulgence is present regardless. Indulging through passion runs very deep: there, one does the thing while making it one's own, with intense craving. It is experienced with a great sense of self-satisfaction, rather like hugging a pillow while falling asleep. For someone in whom the causes have fully ripened, even a sense of ownership within passion can be felt. But this differs from person to person.

That indulgence may simply be something belonging to that moment, to that particular matter. Looked at closely, no existence, no becoming, forms out of it. Say one gets caught up in it in that way: sometimes it may simply be a karmic matter, something that arises only for that moment; and through it, things may come to be well analysed and understood.

For someone who has attained Arahant-bodhi, or for a great Arahant, it may take as long as around ten years for the body's sexual functions to cease entirely. Attaining the fruit, or attaining bodhi, does not mean this happens overnight; sometimes it can take even longer than that. The body and consciousness need to be understood as two separate things. They exist together, but they are two separate processes.

Letting Go of Existence Completely

Once someone becomes a Buddha, or a great Arahant, they let go of existence entirely. Sex simply ceases to be relevant. Even the very moment of living, all of it, is let go of. Existence is emptied out, and then a new existence is built up again, all the way to parinibbana. With a Buddha's or a great Arahant's bodhi, a separate existence forms altogether. The karma created together with that bodhi is a separate matter again. That existence, and the existence we spoke of earlier, are two different things. Either way, it is all built up on the basis of knowledge, Dhamma, and doctrine: such existences are impermanent regardless; that is simply a separate matter. At the point where bodhi is formed, the old existence is destroyed, and only then is the new existence given. This person's existence had been built up within their own world of formations (sankhara), and it is that world of formations that is let go of, in a single moment.

Why Even a Buddha Cannot Show Every Being the Path

Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas, and great Arahants cannot, in the fullest sense, teach the Four Noble Truths as Dhamma. Only a Samma Sambuddha is able to teach the Four Noble Truths in that complete sense. A Buddha, in this lesser sense, cannot show the path to every being; he can only teach the path as he himself understood it, and give the path within the scope of what he himself has realised. Great Arahants, likewise, can only teach the path along the lines of what they themselves have understood, and give that much of the path to others. Having received that path, one has to cultivate it oneself in order to escape samsara, but it cannot, by itself, deliver one out of samsara. Only a Samma Sambuddha, a Buddha King, can go further than that: bringing causes and effects to their fullness in a way that actually delivers a being out of samsara.

When someone attains liberation in this way, through a path received from a great Arahant, a Buddha, or a Paccekabuddha, an imbalance arises there too. Suppose that Buddha, Paccekabuddha, or great Arahant gives someone special attention, keeps them close, and carries them through, taking on their burden, then the portion that needed to be balanced out is carried on the back of that great Arahant or Buddha instead. It has an effect on them. Not only that: whoever's ignorance has been removed in this way, the corresponding portion of karma released by it circles back and comes as a pressure upon that Buddha, Paccekabuddha, or great Arahant. The only way to balance that out is to become, so to speak, like a beggar by the latrine: to go on the alms round, doing the very work that lowers oneself. That is how the karma gets balanced. This is exactly the kind of thing figures of the Buddha-lineage do: balancing out the energy.

This is exactly why, when giving a Dhamma talk, one first frees oneself and only then delivers it: do not accept this, and do not reject it either: understand it for yourself, through your own intelligence, from within yourself. Do not simply believe what I say and listen to it on trust. Otherwise, having taught the Dhamma, if at the end it is said 'this is the Dhamma that this teacher, this Samma Sambuddha, taught,' then when a problem or a difficulty arises out of it, it goes straight back either to the source or to the teacher, the Samma Sambuddha himself. He is freed, as a being, through the karma he creates by giving the teaching in this way; his own liberation is built precisely on that. To put it another way: I teach on the basis of cause and effect, on doctrine, on Dhamma, and so on, and speak the Dhamma having already freed myself as a being. The more one knows how to give the path, and the more one gives it having freed oneself and worked in this way, the easier one's own existence becomes. For that, one must be willing to descend low and act accordingly; existence has to be built up along those lines. This is a matter of great importance for Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas, and great Arahants.

A Samma Sambuddha, a Buddha King, has cultivated iddhipada-citta relative to beings. This means that, relative to anyone at all who comes before him, iddhipada has already been developed: that is, any being whatsoever already exists within him. Because of this, freeing someone from samsara is, for him, a form of relief. There is a different mechanism at work there. There is a large story bound up in it, and a story within that story too. It is good if one can come to read it; and it is fine, too, if one cannot.

What a Great Arahant Still Cannot Do

Once someone has attained the bodhi of a great Arahant, they no longer even have the right to plant a flower seedling. Only where there is a strong reason, such as needing something for medicine, can they do a thing of that kind. A great Arahant cannot plant a tree simply to provide shade, or plant flowers simply so that pretty blooms appear. Examined closely, the energy-process required for such a thing simply does not arise for them any longer.

A great Arahant cannot associate with a woman; a Buddha, too, is bound by that same rule. But a woman is free to associate with a great Arahant or a Buddha. If, for some reason, a great Arahant or a Buddha does associate with a woman, there must be some special reason for it: a physical or mental reason.

In truth, there is nothing that could be called a fault in great Arahants or Buddhas. But there is something they cannot do: declare something that has not actually arisen through their own understanding, wisdom, intellect, direct perception, or knowledge. If that happens, their fruition diminishes. Suppose someone who has attained the Arahant-fruit simply declares, on a whim, whatever seems right to them: such a person gets expelled from the Sasana. This is not something done by the Samma Sambuddha. There, the Samma Sambuddha simply sees the result: he sees that this person is indeed an Arahant, sees that they have declared matters arbitrarily, and sees, too, that they are being expelled from the Sasana.

Being expelled from the Sasana means that, within this Sasana, an existence corresponding to their bodhi can no longer form for them. It is rather like a millionaire ending up picking coconuts on someone else's estate: something that happens strictly according to karma. That is what is meant by being expelled from the Sasana. It comes about through the system itself. This is simply a law. There are laws visible to us, and laws not visible to us: this is a law of the kind that exists in a way invisible to us.

Once a teacher becomes fully confident of someone, he tells them: there is nothing to fear in saying whatever you wish. That is upasampada: higher ordination. Becoming upasampada means that the person has matured. There is then nothing to fear, because the teacher stands above and takes on responsibility; the responsibility for what that person says falls upon the teacher.

Attachment, Addiction, and Being Disciplined Alone

Using alcohol or drugs is not, in itself, a matter relevant to the Dhamma: it is comparable to drinking coffee or tea. As for why alcohol is not relevant while association with women is: when we ask why such a thing would be needed at all while dwelling in bodhi, there needs to be a clear reason for it. If it is merely a mental matter, there is a problem there. Consider this: if a great Arahant associates with a woman in that way and forms an attachment through it, then that becomes a real problem: something one cannot escape, like a fish caught on a hook. An Arahant is someone in whom attachment simply does not form: so why would such a thing be needed at all? He knows the clear reason why; he has no need of attachment. What you first build, in any such association, is attachment. An Arahant is one for whom attachment cannot take root. Isn't what happens with drugs also a kind of attachment? No. That is something different. What occurs there is addiction. Addiction is not attachment. Attachment never turns into addiction. What happens, over time, is simply that attachment diminishes.

In front of other people, everyone is disciplined. In front of oneself, everyone is undisciplined. But what should really happen is that one remains disciplined in front of oneself too. Imagine having to spend days entirely alone. You have everything you need. No one else can hear you or see you. The way you are, in that situation, is your truest way of being.

There is a saying about Buddhas: 'Thus, one utterly restrained with regard to existence.' That comes about because everything concerning existence has been fully understood. Balance is never built up in the past, nor in the future. It is only in the present moment that the present moment's balance exists.