The Merits and Benefits of Monastic Ordination – Excerpt from "The Sūtra on the Merits of Monastic Life Spoken by the Buddha"

At that time, Ānanda, with palms joined, addressed the Buddha, saying: "World-Honored One, if someone enables another to leave home [for monastic life], or if there is one who leaves home and is provided with all necessities, how much merit is obtained? If, moreover, someone destroys the causes and conditions for another to leave home, what retribution of offenses will they receive? I beseech you, World-Honored One, to fully explain this."

The Buddha told Ānanda: "Even if you were to question me about this matter for a full hundred years, and I, with inexhaustible wisdom, excepting only mealtimes, were to explain it to you extensively throughout that hundred years, the merit of such a person could still not be exhausted. Such a person will constantly be reborn among gods and humans, always as a king, enjoying the bliss of devas and humans. If someone causes another to leave home within this śramaṇa Dharma, or if they assist in creating the causes and conditions for leaving home, they will constantly experience happiness throughout the cycle of birth and death. Even if I spoke for a full hundred years about their blessings and virtue, it could not be exhausted. Therefore, Ānanda, even if you questioned me for a full hundred years until the end of your life, and I until my Nirvana spoke of this merit, it still could not be exhausted."

The Buddha told Ānanda: "If there is someone who destroys the causes and conditions for another to leave home, they are thereby robbing them of an inexhaustible treasury of wholesome wealth and blessings, ruining the causes for the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment and Nirvana. Should there be anyone who wishes to destroy the causes and conditions for leaving home, they should carefully contemplate such matters. Why? Due to this karmic offense, they will fall into hell, constantly blind and without eyes, suffering extreme torment. If reborn as an animal, they will also be constantly blind from birth. If born among hungry ghosts, they will also be constantly blind from birth. They will endure suffering in the three evil paths for a long time before obtaining liberation."

"If born as a human, while in the mother’s womb, they will be blind from conception. Even if you questioned me about this meaning for a hundred years, and I with inexhaustible wisdom spoke of the retribution for this offense for a hundred years, it still could not be exhausted."

"Among the four paths [of rebirth], born constantly blind, I would never predict that such a person will have a time of liberation. Why is this? It is entirely because they destroyed [another’s] leaving home."

"[One may] accomplish boundless merit, but by destroying such wholesome causes and conditions, they incur immeasurable offenses. Due to obstructing leaving home, within this pure mirror of wisdom, for the sake of liberation and all wholesome dharmas—"

"if seeing one who has left home cultivating pure precepts heading toward the place of liberation, they destroy that person’s leaving home, creating obstacles—because of this cause and condition, they will be born constantly blind, unable to see Nirvana, due to destroying leaving home."

"They should constantly contemplate the twelve links of dependent origination beginning with ignorance and attain liberation, but by destroying the wisdom-eye of others and ruining the causes and conditions for leaving home, by obscuring the wisdom-eye, from life to life they will be constantly blind, without eyes, unable to see the three realms, due to obstructing the causes and conditions for leaving home."

"Leaving home should enable one to perceive the five aggregates, the twenty kinds of self-view, and the path leading to the human state; by destroying the causes for leaving home and ruining right view, they will be born constantly blind, unable to see the right path."

"Leaving home should enable one to perceive the gathering of all dharmas, the abode of wholesome dharmas; one should contemplate the pure Dharma-body of all Buddhas. By destroying the wholesome causes and conditions for leaving home, they will be born constantly blind, unable to behold the Dharma-body of the Buddha."

"Because through leaving home one should possess the form and appearance of a śramaṇa, along with pure precepts, becoming a field of merit planting the causes for Buddhahood—by destroying leaving home, they sever all hope within wholesome dharmas. Due to this karmic cause, life after life they will be constantly blind, because they destroyed leaving home."

"Leaving home should enable one to skillfully observe that all body and mind are suffering, impermanent, without self, and impure. Destroying another’s leaving home, creating obstacles, is to destroy this eye. By destroying this eye, they cannot see the Four Paths, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Four Right Efforts, the Four Bases of Psychic Power, the Five Roots, the Five Powers, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, the Eightfold Path leading to the city of Nirvana. Due to this karmic cause, they will be born constantly blind, even unable to see the pure wholesome dharmas of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness heading toward the city of Nirvana."

"Therefore, a person of wisdom, knowing that one who leaves home should accomplish such wholesome dharmas, should not destroy the causes and conditions for wholesome dharmas and incur such offenses. Whoever destroys for others such causes and conditions for leaving home and the right view of a śramaṇa will ultimately be unable to see the city of Nirvana. They will be born constantly blind."

"If there is someone who, for a full hundred kalpas, leaves home elsewhere, cultivating and upholding pure precepts—"

"if there is someone who, in this Jambudvīpa, leaves home, upholds the precepts, even for one day and one night, or even for a moment, purely leaving home—compared to the former [merit of] leaving home and upholding precepts for a hundred kalpas, [the merit of the latter] is not equal to even one part in sixteen."

"If someone perversely commits adultery with sisters or daughters, or in places where one should not be lustful, forcibly gives rise to stinginess and jealousy, the retribution for these offenses cannot be calculated or limited."

"If there is one person who can correctly contemplate, having the mind to leave home, wishing to abandon all evils—"

"if there is someone who destroys the causes and conditions for this person to leave home, preventing their aspiration from being fulfilled, the karmic retribution for this offense increases beyond the former [offenses], again multiplied by a hundred kalpas."

At that time, Ānanda again addressed the Buddha, saying: "World-Honored One, the wholesome roots planted by this Vīrasena, causing him to be born in a noble place where he will receive blessings and happiness—were there also wholesome actions in past lives, or is it solely due to the merit of leaving home for just this one day and one night that he receives such blessings?"

The Buddha told Ānanda: "You should not investigate past causes and conditions. Solely because of this one day and one night of purely leaving home, this wholesome root enables him to receive blessings seven times among the six desire heavens. For twenty kalpas, he constantly undergoes birth and death, enjoying worldly pleasures. Finally, born as a human in a family of blessings and happiness, when his prime has passed and his faculties mature, fearing the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death, he leaves home, upholds the precepts, and becomes a Pratyekabuddha."

The Buddha told Ānanda: "I will now speak a parable; you should listen well. Suppose the four continents—Pūrvavideha in the east, Jambudvīpa in the south, Aparagodānīya in the west, and Uttarakuru in the north—were all filled with Arhats, as numerous as rice plants or hemp groves. If one person, for a full hundred years, with utmost devotion, made offerings to all these Arhats—clothing, food and drink, medicine for illness, dwellings, bedding, even until their Nirvana—and afterwards erected stūpas and temples, adorned with various precious jewels, flowers, incense, garlands, banners, canopies, music, hung with precious bells, sprinkled with fragrant water, offering praises and worship with verses—the merit obtained from this. If someone, for the sake of Nirvana, leaves home and receives the precepts, even for one day and one night, the merit of their actions compared to the former merit is not equal to even one part in sixteen. For this reason, good men should leave home, cultivate, and uphold pure precepts. All you good men, all who desire merit, who seek wholesome dharmas, who receive the Dharma yourselves, should not obstruct the causes and conditions for leaving home. You should diligently and skillfully encourage and enable it to be accomplished." At that time, the great assembly, hearing the Buddha’s discourse, all became weary of the world. Some left home and upheld the precepts; some attained the fruit of Stream-enterer, up to Arhatship; some planted the wholesome roots for Pratyekabuddhahood; some aroused the mind for unsurpassed Bodhi. All were greatly joyful, reverently received it, and undertook to practice it.