Very Helpful (AN5.234)

Numbered Discourses 5.234

24. A Resident Mendicant

Very Helpful

“Mendicants, a resident mendicant with five qualities is very helpful to the monastery.

What five?

They’re ethical, restrained in the monastic code, conducting themselves well and resorting for alms in suitable places. Seeing danger in the slightest fault, they keep the rules they’ve undertaken.

They’re very learned, remembering and keeping what they’ve learned. These teachings are good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, meaningful and well-phrased, describing a spiritual practice that’s totally full and pure. They are very learned in such teachings, remembering them, reciting them, mentally scrutinizing them, and penetrating them theoretically.

They repair what is decayed and damaged.

When a large mendicant Saṅgha is arriving with mendicants from abroad, they go to the lay people and announce:

‘A large mendicant Saṅgha is arriving with mendicants from abroad. Make merit! Now is the time to make merit!’

They get the four absorptions—blissful meditations in this life that belong to the higher mind—when they want, without trouble or difficulty.

A resident mendicant with these five qualities is very helpful to the monastery.”