The Great Pretenders

NCE THER E WAS A TIME of great hardship in the country and the monks who were spending the vassa near a poor village found themselves with very little lay support.

In order to get enough food, the bhikkhus addressed each other in such a way that the people in the village, never suspecting that they would be deceived by monks, believed that they had attained sainthood. And as the news of them spread, they gained even more respect. So the villagers, although themselves struggling to survive, mangaged to pool together enough food to keep their “saints” well fed and comfortable.

When the vassa came to a close and all the bhikkhus who had spent their vassa away from the Buddha went back to pay their respects to him, as was the custom, the well-fed bhikkhus stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone else looked so thin and pale next to them.

The Buddha asked the healthy bhikkhus how they had managed to do so well when the other monks could barely get by. The bhikkhus, expecting praise for their cleverness, recounted how they had misled the poor villagers into believing that they were saints. “And are you really saints?” the Buddha asked them, knowing full well that they were not. When they admitted that they were not, the Buddha warned them that to accept requisites from lay supporters, if they did not truly merit them, was indeed very unwholesome action and should be refrained from.

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It is better for one to eat a red-hot lump
of iron burning like a flame than to eat
almsfood offered by the pious
if one is without morality and
unrestrained in thought, word, and deed.
Verse 308