Venerable Bhikkhu Kumara,
Op 11-jan-2012, om 4:50 heeft Kumara Bhikkhu het volgende geschreven:

> What if the commentaries got it wrong?

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N: The oldest commentaries, the Mahaa-Atthakathaa, the Mahaa-paccari
and the Kuru.n.di are now lost. Buddhaghosa translated into Pali,
compiled and arranged material from the ancient commentaries which
were written in Singhalese.
More convincing than historical arguments is reading the ancient
commentaries themselves as we have them today. The Visuddhimamagga
and the Atthasaalini constantly refer to texts of the Tipi.taka. I
just read to my husband about stinginess, as defined in the
Dhammasanga.ni (first book of the Abhidhamma) and elaborated on in
the commentary. Just an example to show that one can see for oneself
whether this is helpful or not in daily life:

{Atthasālinī} (II, Book II, Part II, Chapter II, 376), in its
explanation of the words of the Dhammasangaṇi, states that the
mean person also hinders someone else from giving. Stinginess can
motivate one to try to persuade someone else, for example one's
husband or wife, to give less or not to give at all. We read in the
Atthasālinii :

...and this also has been said,
Malicious, miserly, ignoble, wrong...
Such men hinder the feeding of the poor...

A ``niggardly'' person seeing mendicants causes his mind to shrink as
by sourness. His state is ``niggardliness''. Another way (of
definition):- ``niggardliness is a ``spoon-feeding''. For when the pot
is full to the brim, one takes food from it by a spoon with the edge
bent on all sides; it is not possible to get a spoonful; so is the
mind of a mean person bent in. When it is bent in, the body also is
bent in, recedes, is not diffused---thus stinginess is said to be
niggardliness.

``Lack of generosity of heart'' is the state of a mind which is shut
and gripped, so that it is not stretched out in the mode of making
gifts, etc., in doing service to others. But because the mean person
wishes not to give to others what belongs to himself, and wishes to
take what belongs to others, therefore this meanness should be
understood to have the characteristic of hiding or seizing one's own
property, occurring thus: ``May it be for me and not for
another''
(end quote).

--------
Nina.



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