King Pasenedi of Kosala was very impressed by the friendliness and cheerfulness of life in the Buddhist aramas. It was in marked contrast to that of the court, he told the Buddha, where selfishness, greed and aggression were the order of the day. Kings quarreled with other kings, brahmins with other brahmins; families and friends were constantly at loggerheads. But in the arama, he saw bhikkhus “living together as uncontentiously as milk with water and looking at one another with kind eyes.” In other sects, he noticed that the ascetics looked so skinny and miserable that he could only conclude that their lifestyle did not agree with them. “But here I see bhikkhus smiling and courteous, sincerely happy… alert, calm and unflustered, living on alms, their minds remaining as gentle as wild deer.” When he sat in council, the king remarked wryly, he was constantly interrupted and even heckled. But when the Buddha addressed a huge crowd of monks, none of them even coughed or cleared his throat. The Buddha was creating an alternative way of life that brought the shortcomings of the new towns and states into sharp focus.

Some scholars believe that the Buddha saw such rulers as Pasenedi and Bimbisara as partners in a program of political and social reform. They suggest that the Sangha was designed to counter the rampant individualism that was inevitable as society progressed from a tribal, communal ethos to a competitive, cutthroat market economy. The Sangha would be a blueprint for a different type of social organization, and its ideas would gradually filter down to the people. They point to the frequent juxtaposition of the Buddha and the cakkavatti in the texts: the Buddha was to reform human consciousness, they suggest, while the kings introduced social reforms. More recently, however, other scholars have argued that far from endorsing monarchy and working with it in this way, the Buddha seemed highly critical of kingship and preferred the republican style of government that still prevailed in his native Sakka.

It seems unlikely that the Buddha had such political ambitions; he would surely have regarded any involvement with a social program as an unhelpful “clinging” to the profane world. But the Buddha was certainly trying to forge a new way of being human. The evident contentment of his bhikkhus showed that the experiment was working. The monks had not been infused by supernatural grace or reformed at the behest of a god. The method devised by the Buddha was a purely human initiative. His monks were learning to work on their natural powers as skillfully as a goldsmith might fashion a piece of dull metal and make it shining and beautiful, helping it to become more fully itself and achieve its potential. It seemed that it was possible to train people to live without selfishness and to be happy. If the bhikkhus had been gloomy or frustrated, this would probably show that their lifestyle was doing violence to their humanity. “Unskillful” states, such as anger, guilt, unkindness, envy and greed, were avoided not because they had been forbidden by a god or were “sinful” but because the indulgence of such emotions was found to be damaging to human nature. The compassion, courtesy, consideration, friendliness and kindness required by the monastic life constituted the new asceticism. But unlike the old, extreme tapas, it created harmony and balance. If cultivated assiduously, it could evoke the ceto-vimutti of Nibbana, another eminently natural psychological state.

But the full Dhamma was only possible for monks. The noise and bustle of the ordinary Indian household would make meditation and yoga impossibilities, so only a monk who had left this world could achieve Nibbana. A layman such as Anathapindika, who engaged in commercial and reproductive activities that were fueled by desire, could not hope to extinguish the three fires of greed, hatred and delusion. The best that a lay disciple could achieve was rebirth next time in circumstances that were more favorable to enlightenment. The Noble Truths were not for laymen; they had to be “realized” and this “direct” knowledge could not be achieved without yoga, which was essential to the full Buddhist regimen. Without the discipline of mindfulness, a doctrine such as anatta would make no sense. But the Buddha did not ignore the lay folk. It seems that there were two main lines of preaching: one for monks and another for the laity.

This becomes evident in the poignant story of Anathapindika’s death. When he became mortally ill, Sariputta and Ananda went to visit him, and Sariputta preached a short sermon on the value of detachment: Anathapindika should train himself not to cling to the senses, since this contact with the external world would trap him in samsara. This, one might think, was basic Buddhist teaching, but Anathapindika had never heard it before. As he listened, tears ran down his face. “What is the matter, householder?” Ananda asked anxiously. ‘Are you feeling worse?” No, Anathapindika protested; that was not the problem. It grieved him that “even though I have waited on the Master and the contemplative bhikkhus for so many years, I have never heard talk on the Dhamma like that before.” This teaching was not given to the lay people, Sariputta explained. It was only for those who had left the household life behind. That was not right, Anathapindika replied. Householders should be instructed in such matters: there were some with only a little desire in them, who were ripe for enlightenment and could, therefore, achieve Nibbana.

Anathapindika died that night and, we are told, was reborn in heaven as a “stream-enterer” with only seven more lives ahead of him. This was doubtless seen as a blessing, but it seems a poor reward for his generosity and devoted service. To keep such essential teaching from lay folk seems unfair, but the idea that everybody should be on the same spiritual footing is essentially modern. Premodern religion was nearly always conducted on two tiers, with an elite who spent their whole lives studying and meditating on scripture, and gave instruction to the inevitably more ignorant laity. Full religious equality only becomes a possibility when everybody is literate and has access to the scriptures. The Buddhist canon was not written down until the first century b.c.e., and even then manuscripts were rare. Anybody who wanted to hear the Dhamma would have to go to the Buddha or to one of the monks.

What did the Sangha preach to the laity? Lay people had “taken refuge” with the Buddha from the very first. Lay men and women would feed the monks and support them, acquiring merit that would get them good rebirths. The monks would also teach the laity how to live morally and perform good, purifying kamma that would advance their spiritual prospects. Everybody regarded this as a fair exchange. Some lay people, such as Anathapindika, would spend a lot of time with the Buddha and the bhikkhus. They were encouraged to take five moral vows-a Dhamma for beginners. They must not take life; they must not steal, lie or take intoxicants; they must avoid sexual promiscuity. These were much the same as the practices required of Jain lay disciples. On the quarter (uposatha) days of each month, the Buddhist laity had special disciplines to replace the fasting and abstinence of the old Vedic upavasatha, which, in practice, made them live like novices to the Sangha for twenty-four hours: they abstained from sex, did not watch entertainments, dressed soberly, and ate no solid food until midday. This gave them a taste of a fuller Buddhist life and might have inspired some to become monks.

Like any yogin, before the Buddhist monk could even begin to meditate, he had to undergo a moral training in compassion, self-control and mindfulness. The laity were never able to graduate to serious yoga, so they concentrated on this morality (silo), which the Buddha adapted to their station of life. Laymen and -women were thus building the foundation for a fuller spirituality, which would stand them in good stead in their next existence. Where monks learned “skillful” techniques in meditation, the lay person focused on “skillful” morality. Giving alms to a bhikkhu, telling the truth at all times and behaving kindly and justly toward others helped them to develop a more wholesome state of mind, and to mitigate, if not wholly stamp out, the fires of egotism. This morality also had a practical advantage: it could encourage others to behave toward them in a similar manner. As a result, besides accruing merit in their next lives, they were learning ways of being happier in this one.