In the Pāli discourse, there is a word that worth mentioning. It is “singi”. Venerable Minh Châu translated it as “ excessive sexual desire “. In fact, in Pāli dictionary this word means “kamamuccha”.

In Japanese version the word “singi” is translated as “love attachment”, and in English version it is translated as “erotomania “. It means that a monastic person leads a life of deep love affection and has a thought that someone is also in love with him. In Google search, the word “singi” means a love attachment and it is defined as “erotomania“ which means having a delusion of being greatly loved or liked. It is stated in the discourse that a monk who has these bad emotional habits is considered as an outsider but not a monk even though he is present at the temple, among the monastic community.

In the book “The eight strange things of the sea” from Anguttara Nikaya sutta, Buddha taught: “All big oceans are alike, they are vast and contain the water from all sources on the planet, but there is something special about them that they do not harbour the floating objects. Somehow, sooner or later the sea will drift those objects to shore. Likewise, in His teachings, there is no place for unworthy elements or followers. Considering that sutta, in response to this sutta, He said, “such disciple though still lives in a monastery, he is also seen as an outcast”. Buddha’s monastic community is like an ocean, at first all disciples are accepted and included, but after all if any of them turns out to be unworthy and unsuitable he will be eliminated.

We have seen the same thing in human history. There are so many mankind mistakes and troubles. We could see a lot of problems they caused while they were occurring. But after a while, as time goes by, any issue which wasn’t conformable to morality would cease by itself, be it from political, cultural, religious, social to private matters. Our bodies work the same way. If we step on a thorn which remains in our flesh as a splinter , it gradually turns into a callus and extrudes by itself. A pearl is formed when a grain of sand is slipped inside the shells. And inside our body if any part deems unworthy or unsuitable it would automatically find its own way to leave its hidden place.

The profound meaning of this sutta is that no matter wherever we live, in whatever environment we are present, in any organisation we belong, if we don’t have an inner quality which is corresponding to that place we will have to leave sooner or later. For example, we can say that we are practising Buddhism, we believe in Buddha, but our inner qualities are not matching with what Buddha taught, we do not have the Buddha nature in us, we don’t nurture and follow the Buddhist doctrine though other people regard us as Buddhist followers, Buddhist monks, therefore we still belong to Buddhist congregation in this life but in the next life we will integrate with another congregation that has nothing to do with Buddhism. That is because our inner quality has nothing matching with what Buddha taught. Although we take refuge in Triple Gems, have five precepts, have Dhamma names, but we do not have the knowledge of the Buddhist doctrine and do not practise what Buddha taught in our daily life, we do not have the mindset that corresponds to the Dhamma, therefore it is considered that we have eliminated ourselves from Buddha’s teachings.

How are we eliminated ? No one will expel us from the Buddhist congregation but we do it ourselves by just a blink of the eye when we stop breathing then immediately our next life will belong to a different congregation. There is a Tibetan saying “ An elephant can not fit in a dog hole “. The large form of an elephant will prevent it from doing so. We can see similar occurring in physical matters, oil and water do not mix. Whether or not we want to belong to a certain congregation, our wanting is one thing but our preparation for a suitable inner quality matching to it is far more important. It is that our mindset will determine which congregation we will belong, which world we will be born into. Our inner quality or mindset will determine the lasting place that we will belong. In a marriage or within a family, since there are unresolved issues from its members, therefore sooner or later there will be a marriage break up or family disintegration because there are inherently unworthy, unsuitable elements in it. This is the important message from this sutta.

In summary, if we are oil we can not dissolve in water. Being unskilled in the way we conduct ourselves in a Buddhist congregation, this may result in becoming a kidney stone or an inflamed appendix that needs to be removed. Inside an oyster, whatever does not belong to it will be eliminated. While the oyster works very hard to expel the foreign object inside its body, we admire and call it a gem, a pearl. We seem to ignore the fact that the pearl is the pain, the wound, the big problem of an oyster. If an oyster can use the human language it would tell us that “ The precious pearls which the ladies wear on their necks, their chests, their wrists actually is my pain, my wound! I wanted to eliminate it but unable to do so. If I possess the same level of human intelligence and live in the human world, I would go to a doctor to remove it when it still is a small grain of sand. But when the wound developed as a big object which you call “a pearl”, my pain is already immeasurable!” This is all the content of the Kuhasutta that we’ve learned .

Kuhasutta the Deceivers

In the Pali version of the discourses, there is a word that needs special attention: ‘siṅgī’. Ven. Minh Châu translated this into Vietnamese as ‘hoang dâm’ (uncontrolled lust). But in the dictionary, this word ‘siṅgī’ actually means ‘kāmamucchā' (sensual stupor). Japanese would translate it to mean 'love attachment' and English ‘erotomania’. This diagnosis applies in the case of a person who lives in corrupted emotional state with a delusion that someone loves him or likes him (despite contrary evidence). If a monk has this delusion, then he will no longer be accepted as a monk, and though he may stay in the temple, he will be considered as an outsider to the monastic community.

“(1) Bhikkhus, those bhikkhus who are deceivers, stubborn, talkers, imposters, haughty, and unconcentrated are not bhikkhus of mine. (2) They have strayed from this Dhamma and discipline, and they do not achieve growth, progress, and maturity in this Dhamma and discipline. (3) But those bhikkhus who are honest, sincere, steadfast, compliant, and well concentrated are bhikkhus of mine. (4) They have not strayed from this Dhamma and discipline, and they achieve growth, progress, and maturity in this Dhamma and discipline.” - aṅguttara nikāya - the book of the fours