Muttodaya schedule

Daily schedule

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Special Programme

Guests from abroad can get help with organising accomodation and so on from Mr Udo Blechschmidt, ph +49 (0)9221-66209
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Sìmá – what’s that?

A place for sangha kamma

One of the main principles of sangha life is to make decisions and perform formal acts together in harmony. These official transactions are called sangha kamma. They include for instance ordinations, recitation of the monastic code (pátimokkha), assigning kathina cloth, distributing responsibilities and duties (e.g. building projects), settling disputes and many more. All the monks have to meet and decide together.

But what does “all the monks” mean? All the monks in the world? Impossible! All the monks in each country? No. It refers to all the monks who are present at the time of the respective transaction within a previously determined area. Such an area is called “sìmá”.

 Various types of sìmá

 The monastic discipline (vinaya) allows various types of sìmá, according to the circumstances given. If for example, a group of monks is staying out in the wilderness and gathers to recite the pátimokkha, an area of approximately 100 meters around the group automatically becomes a sìmá. Any monk who happens to enter this circle has the right and the duty to join the communal transaction. Otherwise it would become invalid.

In civilised areas one can use administrational boundaries as a sìmá, e.g. the area of Stammbach community or the village of Gundlitz. At Muttodaya we are presently using such a sìmá.

 Signs

 The types of sìmá mentioned above are called “not tied off” (abaddhasìmá), because there is no action required on the side of the monks in order to mark the area. But there is still another type, the so called “tied off” sìmá (baddhasìmá). Here an area is designated especially and exclusively for the performance of sangha kammas using boundary markers that have been agreed upon beforehand. One can use trees, rocks, pathways, rivers and even ant hills as a boundary marker. In many monasteries one can see Dhamma wheels carved in stome. Buried underneath them are stone balls which are the actual markers (in Páli: nimitta). A tied off area has the advantage that one can design it after the needs of the sangha and local conditions.

In Thailand the placing of such boundary markers and the determination of the sìmá (a sangha kamma in itself) is an auspicious event in which all supporters of the monastery participate. Usually it is understood that it happens with this celebration that a sangha abode turns into a fully fledged monastery.

 Muttodaya sìmá

 In order to tie off a valid sìmá the rules and regulations of the vinaya have to be followed meticulously. In Buddhist countries there is an additional hurdle of administrational paperwork which can take years to complete – longer than an application for a permission to build kutis in Germany!

In Germany there are no such administrational requirements for the establishing of a sangha kamma area so that we can determine our own sìmá just only two years after the foundation of the monastery.

 We invite all friends of the monastery to take part in this memorable and auspicious event.