New Publication:What Mendicants Hold Most Dear

84000 is pleased to announce its newest publication:

Toh 302

དགེ་སློང་ལ་རབ་ཏུ་གཅེས་པ་།
What Mendicants Hold Most Dear
Bhikṣuprareju

What Mendicants Hold Most Dear contains the Buddha’s answer to a question by Upāli, the Buddha’s foremost disciple in knowledge and mastery of the Vinaya. Upāli asks the Buddha to teach about the nature, types, and obligations of mendicants and about the meaning of this term. For the benefit of the assembled mendicants and mendicants in general, the Buddha explains that their nature is restraint, their obligations consist of disciplined conduct, and their types are the genuine mendicants who abide by disciplined conduct and those who are not genuine and thus do not so abide. When one of the Buddha’s answers given in similes seems obscure, he offers further clarification upon Upāli’s request. The Buddha explains the advantages of maintaining disciplined conduct, thus urging the mendicants to treasure it, and he warns against disregarding it while wearing the mendicant’s robes.

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What Mendicants Hold Most Dear

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This is a free publication from 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, a non-profit organization sharing the gift of wisdom with the world.

The cultivation of generosity, or dāna—giving voluntarily with a view that something wholesome will come of it—is considered to be a fundamental Buddhist practice by all schools. The nature and quantity of the gift itself is often considered less important.