hi Yong Peng,

This is a rather convenient little cultural superstion, with no
basis in the actual Vinaya (whether Pali or any other, so far as i'm
aware). In fact if the lay people had been able to read the vinaya
theu would have realized that many, perhaps most of the Vinaya rules
were prompted precisely becaues of the complaints of lay people,
including respected ariyas such as Visakha or Bimbisara. The Budddha
never once suggested the slightest criticism of the lay people
because of this, but always called the monk or nun in question
before him and asked about the problem, even if it was an arahant.

Yes there is a lot of interesting material in the Vinaya, and lay
people as well as monastics should be encouraged to read it. There
are a lot of fairly dry and uninteresting bits, but these can easily
be filtered out by those how just wish to browse the fun parts.

in Dhamma

Bhante Sujato

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Ong Yong Peng" <yongpeng.ong@...>
wrote:

> Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo, Piya and friends,
>
> I have a question concerning laypeople and the Vinaya. In some
> Buddhist traditions, particularly the various Chinese traditions,
> there is a belief that laypeople should not read the Vinaya, and
> another belief that any layperson doing so will go to hell.