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BRAHMESHANANDA: JAIN MONASTIC RULES
When and how long?
Utsargas are the general precepts and must be always followed by all. They cannot be given up permanently and even when they are bypassed occasionally, there must be valid reasons for doing so. Medicines are used only when there is some ailment and are discontinued after you are cured. Similar is the case with Apavādas. If a monk resorts to exceptions under special situation but does not revert to the rules after the situation is over, he is either insincere or has a wrong concept of rules and exceptions. An aspirant must, therefore, be extremely cautious so that he is not deodorized by his subtle desires which may urge him to take permanent shelter under the exceptions. The minimum possible exception must be made only for the shortest period of time and that too when no other alternative is available, because there is always the danger that one may want to resort indefinitely to exceptions to suit one's convenience. Those who have neither the sense of proportion nor the knowledge of the limitations of exceptions fall headlong like a ball rolling down a staircase. For such people exceptions are never a help but hindrances. The real spirit of an exception is well-demonstrated in the following story."
15
During a prolonged famine, a learned monk wandering in search of food came across a group of people sharing a common meal. When he begged for a little food they told him that the food was unfit for consumption by a monk because it was impure (ucchiṣṭa). The monk cited the scriptural exception that during a calamity such restrictions do not apply and said he would accept the impure food. After eating, however, he refused to drink water, saying that it was impure! He explained that when he had begged for food he was dying of hunger and there was no immediate possibility of getting pure food approved by scriptures. So he made the exception. But now he was no more dying of hunger and could wait for pure water which could be had elsewhere. Why should he then break the rule for water?
119
Similar precautions must be observed while relaxing the rules for the welfare of the Sangha. Such relaxations may not prove spiritually detrimental if the spirit of renunciation and total dedication to the fundamentals of monastic life are kept alive. In the absence of these, even the strictest observance of rules may be nothing more than lifeless pretention or mere ostentation.
15. 'Upadesha Pada', 784, quoted by Upadhyay Amarmuni, op. cit., p. 3.
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