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FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS
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The first rule (Sāmāyika caritra) entails two things: the giving up of all evil conduct, and the turning to good actions such as meditation. Both Sthānakavāsī and Svetambara ascetics are supposed to give themselves up to meditation continually, and a layman must do it twice a day. A Digambara layman must meditate four times: morning, noon, evening and midnight. In order to carry out the rule perfectly, both laity and monks must endeavour to keep their minds in a state of equanimity, and to look on all mankind with indifference.
The duty of repentance (Chedopas'rāpanīya ċāritra) is also binding on all who would arrest the growth of karma. If a monk sins, he must confess to his own guru and do the penance inflicted, which will be designed to fit the crime for instance, if a young monk, feeling hungry, has caten some of the alms given to him without first showing the food to the senior monk in the Apäsaro, he may be ordered to fast for two days, or to fast from the particular grain he took for four days; if, however, a monk has committed one of the great sins which infringe the five vows, for example given way to unchastity or dishonesty, he would have to take the great vows again, meekly standing in front of a guru. This retaking of the vows is called Navi dikşă or re-ordination, for it is the actual taking of the vows, and not the accompanying ceremonies, which is regarded as the essential part of initiation. If a layman, on the other hand, sins in some gross way, he would after confession and penance have to retake, not all the twelve vows, but only the one which he has broken.
The third duty (Pariharaviśuddha caritra) is variously interpreted by the different sects. The Sthanakavāsī and Svetambara believe it to be carried out when nine monks at the order of their superior go out together to perform austerities or tapa for eighteen months. (Of the nine monks six will do tapa for six months, and the remaining three will serve them; for the next six months the three servers will perform their austerities together
