ShareThus have I heard. At one time the Venerable Mahamoggallana was staying with the Bhagga people in Sumsumaragira, in the Deer Park in the Bhesakala grove. The Venerable Mahamoggallana addressed the bhikkhus: "Dharma friends." "Yes friend", they replied to the Venerable Mahamoggallana. The Venerable Mahamoggallana spoke as follows:

"It is possible that a monk should make the following request: "Speak to me, Reverend Monks." If he is difficult to speak to, endowed with qualities which make him difficult to deal with, intolerant, not good at grasping what is taught, then those who practice the path of sublime conduct with him will think he is not one to be spoken to, he is not one to be instructed, he is not someone we can have confidence in. What are the qualities which make someone difficult to approach?

We should know that Mahamoggallana was one of those who had a part in building the Sangha. Shariputra and Mahamoggallana were given the role of building Sangha, so that the Sangha would have happiness. Of course, there were other monks beside Shariputra and Mahamoggallana who also practiced Sangha-building. However, we know that these were the two monks who played that role most of all. We know that when Shariputra passed away, Ananda could not stand up because the passing away of Shariputra left a huge gap in the Sangha. When we study the sutra, we see how, in the time of Buddha, there were monks in the Sangha who did not go along with the Sangha. There were people whose behaviour did not allow other monks to approach them and to help them, so these people lived like a drop of oil in a bowl of water. They could not make progress and they could not bring happiness to themselves or the Sangha and, aware of this, Mahamoggallana gave this teaching, so that everyone in the Sangha could practice. When we live in the Sangha and there is harmony, we can enjoy ourselves, we can talk to anybody in the Sangha and be happy, and we can also make others happy. But if we are not able to communicate with other members of the Sangha, if nobody wants to be close to us, then we are isolated and when we are isolated we cannot be happy and we cannot make the Sangha happy.

In the past, there was a practice of silence... that is, it is like ‘putting into Coventry’, to ‘isolate’. We don’t talk to that person at all, and in the temple they practiced that. They used the method of isolating that person, as that person causes suffering to happen in the Sangha. Everybody is silent with regard to that person; they don’t talk to that person. But in the practice of Plum Village, we have never needed to use the practice of isolation as we have other methods. When we isolate someone, it is as if we have given up hope in that person. We feel we cannot teach that person any more. In the beginning, people try their best to help the person, but after a while they give up hope. They say that there is no benefit for that person to stay here and there is no benefit for us for that person to stay here and so they use the final practice they can use, and that is to isolate that person. So we know that practice is the final effort and it really shows that the Sangha has failed and the person who was isolated has failed as well. Isolation means we have failed, we are defeated, we have no capacity to intervene in order to help that person and to help the Sangha.

In the past they didn’t talk about ‘shining the guiding light’, which is what we practice today. But, in fact, the practice of shining the guiding light did exist in the time of the Buddha. In the practice of the Parivarana ceremony, the monks would shine lights on each others practice, but in Plum Village we practice shining light in the practice throughout the year, not just once a year. Before someone receives the precepts, before someone becomes a dharmacharya, during retreats and at the end of retreats, we practice ‘shining the guiding light’. If we’ve practiced this ‘shining the guiding light’ it means that we haven’t given up and that we intervene with the strength of the Sangha in order to help. If one person shines light, it is not enough to help that person transform, but if the whole Sangha shines the light, it is. Imagine there is someone in the Sangha who is isolated and will not listen to anyone else and nobody likes to come to that person and help them. If we allow that situation to continue a long time, until we have no other way but to practice isolation - it is a great shame. It is a great shame for the Sangha and a great shame for the person who is isolated, so we need to have another method to use and that is ‘shining guiding light’.

In the sutra, Mahamoggallana suggests methods – not just for one person, but for everyone in the Sangha to use. Because we do not want to become a part of the Sangha which no one dares to approach, because we haven’t got the capacity to listen deeply, because we have very heavy habit energies which we follow without knowing that we’re making others suffer. When we live in a Sangha, we take refuge in that Sangha and we make use of that Sangha to encourage us, to support us and teach us. If we isolate ourselves, if we don’t know how to obey, if we are not easy to speak to, even though our brothers and sisters want to help us, they cannot and finally we have to leave our Sangha. It is a great shame for us, and a great shame for our Sangha. So, when we read the Sutra, we can learn from Mahamoggallana and we can apply what we learn in our daily life. At the same time, we are able to see the methods which, in the time of the Buddha, Mahamoggallana taught and which, today, we are still practicing in Plum Village and which we can contribute to future generations for their practice, without having to use the method called isolation. Mahamoggallana brings up the reasons which make it impossible for us to be able to talk to someone set apart in the Sangha. If he has wrong desires and is controlled by his wrong desires, that is the reason which makes it difficult for us to talk to him. In the most recent English version it says; A bhikkhu has evil wishes and is dominated by evil wishes... I have translated ‘evil wishes’ as ‘wrong desires’. In Chinese, it means some sort of infatuation - some sort of attachment.

When a part of a Sangha is overwhelmed by an attachment and it stops the rest of the Sangha from being able to approach that person, we don’t want anybody to mention to us that we are attached. We have some kind of attachment to another person in the Sangha or a person outside the Sangha and the Sangha knows about it. Some people may have come and have pointed it out to us, but we always try to avoid it, we don’t want the help of the Sangha. This attachment is the first reason that Mahamoggallana gives as a reason which makes it impossible for the Sangha to be able to approach us and talk to us. This brother, this sister, is caught in their attachment and therefore the Sangha cannot approach them and help them. Are we in that situation? Do we have some wrong desire, some wrong attachment that is going to isolate us, just as it has isolated the other person in the Sangha? That is called ‘looking in the mirror’ - we see that others who have been attached have been isolated, and they cannot accept whenever anybody comes to encourage them to do differently. So the first thing which makes it difficult for the Sangha to approach us and talk to us is when we are caught in a wrong attachment. It means that our attachment is unwholesome. It is an attachment with another person in the Sangha, or somebody outside the Sangha.

The second reason is that he only knows how to praise himself and criticize others. The bhikkhu who praises himself and despises others is difficult to approach. There are people who only want their self-pride to be protected and they haven’t the capacity to praise anybody else in the Sangha, except themselves. They can only talk about the weaknesses of other people. They have no capacity to praise others in the Sangha. That has happened - it happens in all of the hamlets. There are people who have never opened their mouth to praise one of their brothers or sisters. They only wait until their brothers and sisters have some weakness or short-coming and then they talk about it, and if somebody can’t see our good points and praise our good points, then we cannot bear it. We don’t have the capacity to praise anyone else, we don’t have the capacity to ‘water the flowers’ of others, and we cannot speak well of others. Standing before that person we cannot talk about their positive things, and we cannot talk about their positive things to other people either, if we are like that then we will be isolated in our Sangha. This is someone who really wants to be praised. Everybody has positive and negative points, but some people only want to talk about the negative things of other people, they’re very stingy, very mean. We know that the other person has short-comings and they have to transform those short-comings, but we have to be able to see the positive things in that person too. Sometimes we just see the unwholesome things and they blind us to the wholesome things in that person. The other person has made us suffer one time and when we look at that person, all we see is that one time they made us suffer. We are unable to see all the goodness and sweetness they have contributed to the Sangha. We are never able to open our mouth to praise people.

Now, when we see somebody like that in the Sangha, we come back to ourselves and we ask ourselves – "Am I like that? Am I someone who just sees the faults of others and am I not able to see or talk about the good points in other people?" And when someone just wants to be praised and wants to despise others, we see that person and we ask ourselves, "Am I like that? Do I want to be isolated because I’m like that?" If we have some prejudice about one of our brothers or sisters, we have to practice and ask ourselves the question: "Besides the weaknesses I see in that person, have they any strengths?" And we have to number those strengths. When I talk to another person about that person, can I talk about the good points of that person to others, and if I can’t then I’m isolating myself. Or, in the case of a person who is easily angered... A bhikkhu who is angry and who is mastered by his anger is difficult to approach. Maybe we don’t have a very cruel nature, but we may get angry very easily. People get tired of that and they don’t want to get near us, they don’t dare talk to us. They don’t want to have a conversation with us because we get angry so easily. We are easily mastered by our anger and that means we cannot be master of ourselves when we are in that state. When somebody gets angry easily and cannot be master of themselves, they are easily isolated and other parts of the Sangha don’t dare come near that person, to converse with them, to help them. But we have to ask ourselves – if somebody else in the Sangha is like that, am I like that too? Do I easily get angry? Am I easily mastered by my anger?

The fourth reason is the bhikkhu who is angry and because of his anger he bears a grudge and is difficult to approach. There’s some people who, once they have gotten angry, forget everything... they are not angry anymore. But there are the people who get angry and then they bear a grudge afterwards and the light of their eyes and their words and their way of behavior makes us want to go and sit somewhere else. Because he holds a grudge, we avoid that person as if he were a leper. He doesn’t manifest his anger in an expressive way, but holds that grudge and that grudge influences his way of speech, his way of thinking and his actions. When we bear a grudge like that the Sangha will not want to talk to us. A bhikkhu is angry and because of his anger he talks unkindly and people don’t dare come near him because of this and so he’s isolated. He gets angry and it shows on his face and in his speech that he is angry and when we speak in an angry way, people don’t dare come near us.

A bhikkhu who, when corrected, corrects in turn the one who has corrected him, is difficult to approach. Instead of saying "Thank you for having pointed out my fault to me", he corrects that person in return. When you say "You think you are better than me, do you?", or "I know I didn’t close the door in mindfulness, but your lack of mindfulness is even greater than mine"... if we say something like that then that person won’t correct us any more. If two or three people correct us and we act like that then nobody will want to correct us any more and we will be isolated. We have to look and see if we’re like that because we must not become an element of the Sangha like that. A bhikkhu, who, when corrected, disparages the one who corrected him is difficult to approach. Disparages means, "Your practice is so bad already and you don’t look after your own practice... all you think about is other peoples faults..."

The ninth thing is – a bhikkhu who, when corrected, retorts, is difficult to approach. We see that the person is trying to help us, but we also want to blame them in return... so the advice of the others is not received by us and no-one will dare to approach us. Sometimes the other person doesn’t really show us the mistake we have made. They are talking about something else, but because we have an internal formation, thinking that people are going to criticize us, when they say something we think they are criticizing us even when they’re not. So we disparage that other person, we retort to that other person, even though that person isn’t even trying to correct us. We think that people are taking a devious route in order to criticize us, when in fact they are not even talking about us at all.

The tenth thing is a bhikkhu who, when corrected, evades the question by asking another or changes the subject. He evades the question by asking other questions. There are people like that. So, a bhikkhu, who, when corrected, evades the question by asking another changes the subject. He acts in a ‘gross’ way... somebody whose actions are ‘gross’ has evil intention and nobody wants to come near him. Someone who is jealous and sulky may make people afraid of them and if we have these characteristics they will avoid us. A person who is jealous does not know how to share the merit and cannot practice no-self. When they see the other person is happy... the other person is loved and valued, they cannot bear it. They ask "Why am I not valued? Why am I not loved? The other person is loved, is valued... has that person done something such as saying unkind things about me behind my back which has made them valued and made me not valued?" But if we see there are people around us who are loved and valued, it should make us happy because that person is my brother, my sister, and when they are happy I can share their happiness. Being able to do that makes me light and fresh and we know that when another is light and fresh, we are also. When we are light and fresh, we are loved and we are valued, but if we are jealous then we lose all our fresh-ness and all our light-ness and therefore we are not able to enjoy or profit from the good qualities of others. Therefore, jealousy can destroy our happiness and the happiness of the Sangha and make it impossible for others to be able to approach us. That kind of person is unmindful...