Everyone who ordains as a monk in this sāsana does not ordain with the sole aim of realizing enlightenment in this life itself. That said, everyone who ordains is solaced in the present life because of Lord Buddha. By working for the worldly and spiritual advancement of worldlings, to make one’s self and others happy is a good thing. There’s nothing wrong in that. However, if we fail to relate to the ordained life the Dhamma–Vinaya discoursed by the Buddha, then it is not the true meaning of monkhood. Be that as it may, in an era as this, having ordained with whatever aim, to at least live abiding by the sīla has to be appreciated. Having ordained with the aim of extinguishment in this very life itself, to then divert towards forest hermitage-developmental work―such as building kuṭīs, constructing pathways and erecting stone parapets at the hermitage―is a tragedy. One ordains having given up the life of lay household with its properties, wife, children, relatives, and responsibilities, not to repeat the same thing he did in the past but to do a thing not done in the past.

He who was a mason or a carpenter during lay life ordains and does bricklaying or carpentry; the writer ordains and writes books; the cook ordains and prepares the alms-meal at the refectory… this is something that should not happen. We need to think we ordained to develop through purity the mind that fell into ruin from defilements. Family, wealth, social status, is the mountain of defilements we built up during lay life. Having put down that burden one by one, if we started to shoulder the burden of development of the forest hermitage, then that, too, would be a mountain of defilements. Giving up the common cold in exchange for the headache is not what we ought to do; for both are equally bad.[i] Instead, what we must do is let go of them both through insightful understanding. Otherwise you’ll have to suffer on and on the afflictions of saŋsāra.

During lay life if you formed an attachment for relatives, wife, children, property, occupation, and business, having relinquished that attachment if you become attached to developing the forest hermitage, to benefactors, and pupils, if you form lustful desire (chanda-rāga) for them, then, a giving up born out of insightful understanding has not taken place in you. All that has taken place is giving up the mountain of defilements of lay household and becoming attached to the mountain of defilements of monkhood.[ii] The reason why you incline to make the world that constantly falls into ruin ‘mine’ is because the mind has fallen into ruin through defilements and desire for sense-pleasures (kāmacchanda). The mind is not skilful to insightfully penetrate the mind. You get that skill through paññā. For paññā to arise in you, samādhi needs to form in you. The penetrative insight (vipassanā) that forms in you through samādhi leads you not towards ‘building’ but towards ‘demolishing’; …not towards attachment and resentment but towards escape from it. Throughout lay life, all we did was ‘building’. It is through insightful understanding that ‘demolishing’ must take place. Owing to unknowing (delusion), you have built for yourself massive edifices right up to the sensuous sphere, fine-material sphere, and non-material sphere. When climbing up the ladders of tanhā to take up residence in these magnificent edifices you built, if you tripped over, by plummeting down to an abyss of suffering in the fourfold-hell you could even end up in a terrible disaster. You had best be skilful to recognize this risk.

Apart from rejoicing over happiness, shedding tears before sorrow and being neutral at equanimity, because you failed to see the impermanence of the said three kinds of feeling, the tears you have shed over happiness and sorrow in the journey thus far traversed in saŋsāra exceeds the body of water in the great ocean, says the Blessed One. If you were to miss the boat on this wonderful opportunity, the amount of tears you would have to shed in the future would be even greater. It was merely one teardrop at a time that a body of water that exceeds that of the great ocean flowed from your eyes in the past. Each such teardrop welled up in your eyes simply owing to a feeling (vedanā) arisen due to a sense-contact (phassa) with a form (rūpa). We who shed an ocean of tears because of a feeling that is of impermanence are nothing but deluded beings. Giving up the tanhā for the rūpa known as the lay household and becoming attached to the rūpa known as the forest hermitage is not an act that yields much of a difference. These are Mara’s plays in draughts (checkers).

‘To protect the sāsana’, ‘To develop the forest hermitage’―these are Māra’s beautiful, delicious cakes covered in icing (frosting). What you need to be skilful at is to insightfully realize it is simply not a cake but a pot of molten rock that is covered in icing. Throughout the round of rebirths, during dispensations of Buddhas, hundreds of thousands of arahats will have dwelt in the kuṭīs we built and offered at monasteries and forest hermitages. Such exalted arahats as Sunīta, Sopāka or Paṭācārā who emerged from humble origins, from rock bottom, and reached the apogee that is noble enlightenment, too, will have dwelt in them. Yet we are still building away kuṭīs and forest hermitages.

What is being built thus, brick by brick, is not the development of the forest hermitage but suffering (dukkha). Whereas the path to extinguishment means to take it apart and remove brick by brick.[iii] By setting a bad example, we hand down this suffering to the next generations as well. We tether the revered-lay benefactors, too, on the same rope. In the psychological world you build so as to seek pleasures, if buildings were being erected day by day, brick by brick, then for every brick being laid suffering would arise in you, and for every brick you take apart and remove happiness of realizing the Dhamma would arise in you. The nature of rūpa is that it is impermanent, as is the nature of the pañca upādānakkhandha―the five aggregates that are the objects of clinging: namely, form, feeling, perception, volitional formation, and consciousness―that form in association with rūpa. So, you must bear in mind that, because they are impermanent, although the edifices of bhava you build are massive, directly proportional to the extent of ignorance, someday those edifices of bhava erected out of the bricks known as tanhā, māna and dhiṭṭi would give way and collapse simply burying you under them.

If the speed at which the pañca upādānakkhandha become impermanent was of a particular velocity, at that same velocity those edifices of bhava erected out of the bricks called tanhā, māna and dhiṭṭi would elevate you up to the higher sensuous worlds.[iv] Yet, similarly, those edifices would collapse and plunge you to the abyss of suffering called the fourfold-hell also at that same velocity. If some being endures suffering in the fourfold-hell, he is only a being who endures suffering as a result of the very building he built collapsing on him, and being entombed in it.

It would be best if revered-all dwelling in forest hermitages thought in this manner: The forest is there not for it to be cleared nor to be beautified. The forest is naturally beautiful, delightful. If our hearts are soiled, laden with defilements, we will have to beautify the forest. If it is developing forest hermitages that you are honestly taken with, then, in the rebirth that follows, within that very forest or forest hermitage you can become a deity dwelling in a tree or a deity or nonhuman guarding the hermitage. Since that is what you desired, you must happily accept it. But the problem is, we, who willingly form the clinging necessary to become an inferior deity or a guarding-nonhuman or a gatekeeper at present, are ones who have experienced boundless celestial comforts as Sakka,[v] the ruler of heavenly realms, in the past. If you, who experienced such wonder, such comfort in the past, are desirous of becoming an inferior tree-dwelling deity or guarding-deity in the present, then that is an elementary attempt made from a highly superior human mind; it is a very primitive hope. If this elementary attempt were to be successful, making a milk-sap tree or a shrine of bone relics or a shrine to the Buddha at the very hermitage or monastery ‘mine’, you could abide being pleased with seeing the meritorious deeds done by others and detesting seeing things others do that are not to your liking. Missing out on the [precious] opportunity one gets to at least escape the fourfold-hell, clinging to a forest, forest hermitage or a tree to merely subsist on others’ merit, to content yourself with others’ merit, is a tragedy.

The one who develops the path to enlightenment should go to a forest hermitage or an empty dwelling not to change the state of the environment. By doing so, you would miss penetrating the Dhamma, and instead become a constituent of the Dhamma.[vi] Having seen that the life of lay household is a suffering, having let go of it, to turn the ordained life, too, into a suffering would be a tragedy. The Blessed One has discoursed that dukkha forms solely due to chanda-rāga (lustful desire) towards rūpa. Breaking free from the lustful desire you have for the thousand-piece patched robe you wear,[vii] giving it up, if revered-you form lustful desire towards the rag-robe instead, those acts are like two sides of the same coin. There is only the difference in pattern and shapes, and that’s all there is to it. In truth, the ‘world’ means a pattern. What paints that pattern is simply your arising and passing mind dampened with lustful desire. This designer, on one occasion, draws a human form, on another occasion, draws a celestial form, and on yet another occasion, draws the form of a peta-ghost, an animal, an asura,[viii] or a denizen of niraya. As long as there is the paint known as attachment, resentment and equanimity in the tins of paint known as tanhā, māna and diṭṭhi, the designer draws away pictures, patterns. Thus, having broken free from the lustful desire towards the rūpa called lay household, to become attached with lustful desire to yet another rūpa is nothing more than merely changing the shape and colour of the pattern.

What the patient who goes to the hospital to receive treatment for an illness must do is get his illness treated. Laying it aside, if he were to take on nursing other patients or toiling over renovations, maintenance and beautification of the hospital, then he would succumb to his illness. What is most unfortunate about it is that he succumbs to the illness while the hospital, the doctor and the medicine all three are present.

Therefore, what we must aim to do is not taking up residence again in the balloon-like womb of a human, animal or peta mother but making sure never to take up residence in that pile of excreta again. Yet if it’s a womb that you wish for, then you’ll get it again. The designer, the architect, of the fetus that wriggles while crouching inside the blood-red uterus, according to phenomena of causality, is none other than yourself. It’ll be what you yourself were delighted with. For this reason, when revered-you constantly reflect on the true purpose of ordained life, that will construe as you being a kalyāna-mitta to yourself. When you become a kalyāna-mitta to yourself, always hovering over you somebody will awake mindfulness in you. That is something born simply from within you purely owing to the respect for Dhamma–Vinaya. Under such circumstances, moral shame and moral dread (hiri-ottappa)―which cause you to be afraid of that which is unwholesome (akusala), that which is not Vinaya (avinaya) and that which is false Dhamma (adhamma)―will arise in you and constantly grow. For your safety on the path to enlightenment, this is one of the best forms of assurances you’ll get, one of the best guardians you’ll find. If one is lacking in moral shame and moral dread for the unwholesome, it will cause you only harm. Folks like that relate Dhamma–Vinaya not in accordance with what the Buddha constituted but according to their own freedom, their own whims and fancies. This mentality develops in you as a result of becoming attached to gain and hospitality.[ix] In that, it is the revered-lay benefactor who will be given priority over the Lord Buddha. The revered-lay benefactor means someone aristocratic or otherwise, who abides doing work or business to earn a living, managing the household and properties, [feeding] the wife and children. The sole aim of such revered-folks is to do as many meritorious activities as possible, …to channel funds into developing hermitages for that reason. Since those revered-laity are too busy with what is entailed in their household life, the full weight of this falls on the venerable bhikkhus. As a consequence, what befalls the venerable bhikkhus is having to seek for bricks, sand, cement, and masons. To abide in one’s monkhood having recognized with insightful understanding the aforesaid hindrance is truly commendable. Yet, because of falling into laxity―negligence (pamāda) if someone were to tread the path those benefactors desire, then we would have to pose ourselves the question, ‘Which path are we on?’ For revered-you who tread the path to nibbāna, two paths have not been discoursed by the Blessed One. The only path is the Noble Eightfold Path. In the journey we make with much willingness and contentment in the venerated ordained life, it is necessary to always pay attention to [whether we are on] the correct path (magga) versus the wrong path (amagga). For moral shame and moral dread are two of the rarest phenomena (dhammatā) in the world.

[i] To more accurately convey the meaning, analogy between the common cold and the headache is used here in lieu of a Sinhala idiomatic expression used by the venerable Author. The rest of the paragraph has been adjusted to follow suit.

[ii] That is to say, letting go of one and simply becoming attached to another.

[iii] Here, ‘take it apart and remove brick by brick’ appears to be metaphorically saying ‘gradually let go bit by bit’. Put another way, where attachment (tanhā–craving), the cause of suffering, is taken apart and removed bit by bit, the unconditioned pure state, the lightness, the freedom, of emancipation would start to surface. This is further elaborated in the 3rd sentence that follows.

[iv] Here, ‘higher sensuous worlds’ refer to the 6 heavenly worlds of the sensuous sphere. See deva.

[v] ‘Sakka’ is chief or king of the deities (the lord over the celestial beings) in the heavenly realm tāvatiŋsa.

[vi] That is to say, metaphorically, ‘rather than watching the play, you’d become a mere part in the play’. Dhamma is the truth of the way things are, the way things operate. So, if one becomes involved in the Dhamma, he would miss observing things as they are, thereby failing to penetrate the Dhamma.

[vii] Robes are made by patching pieces of cloth together (pieces of material affixed to one another). Rag-robe is a robe made out of old rags. Bhikkhus of old sourced used rags from various places, including from charnel grounds. A thousand-piece patched robe is an expensive type of robe made in the present day by patching a large number of (say, a thousand) small pieces of material, and considered as somewhat of a status symbol.

[viii] ‘Asura’ are ‘demons’ or evil ghosts inhibiting one of the lower realms (one of the fourfold-hell).

[ix] ‘Gain’ (lābha) refers to the gain of four requisites. ‘Hospitality’ (sakkāra) may indicate gain (of requisites) that is well made, reverence, honour, respect.