Kathina Questions: Can One Monk Receive It, and How Does It Differ from Pha Pa?

Can a monk who spent the rains alone receive the kathina?

Most of us understand that there must be five or more monks to receive the kathina. But in fact, even if only one monk, or two or three, spent the rains retreat there, they can still receive it.

For a monastery where a single monk spent the full three months of the rains and cloth is offered to him as belonging to the Saṅgha, the Buddha gave a ruling in a story found in the Robe Chapter (Cīvarakkhandhaka) of the Vinaya Piṭaka (Vin. 5/164/222): At that time a certain monk spent the rains alone. The people of that place offered robes, saying, “We offer these to the Saṅgha.” That monk thought, “The Blessed One has laid down that four monks at the least are called a Saṅgha, but I am alone, and these people have offered robes saying, ‘We offer these to the Saṅgha.’ What if I were to take these robes of the Saṅgha to Sāvatthī?” Then that monk took those robes to Sāvatthī and told the matter to the Blessed One.

The Blessed One said, “Monk, those robes are yours until the kathina privileges lapse.”

“Monks, here a monk spends the rains alone, and the people of that place offer robes, saying, ‘We offer these to the Saṅgha.’ Monks, I allow those robes to that monk alone, until the kathina privileges lapse.”

At this point the commentary on the Robe Chapter explains the practice (Vin. A. 3/240): if he can find monks to complete the quorum (gaṇapūraka), the kathina is spread, and those robes are his for five months; if the kathina is not spread, those robes are his for the robe month (cīvaramāsa) only.

So on the question “Can a monk who spent the rains alone receive the kathina?”, which people debate, asking whether it can really be done, the answer is: a monk who spent the rains alone owns all the cloth offered to the Saṅgha there, and he can spread the kathina when monks come to meet as a Saṅgha making five including him. (Somdet Phra Buddhaghosacariya (P. A. Payutto))

Must the kathina be a gift to the Saṅgha?

Saṅghadāna is a gift offered to the Saṅgha, that is, offered without singling anyone out. If we look at the Dakkhiṇāvibhaṅga Sutta (the discourse on the analysis of offerings), the Buddha showed the fruits of wholesome giving in as many as 21 grades, beginning with giving one meal to an animal, which brings long life, beauty, happiness, strength and quick wit for 100 lifetimes.

Giving to an immoral human being brings benefits for 1,000 lifetimes.

Giving to an ordinary person who is virtuous brings benefits for 100,000 lifetimes.

Giving to someone outside the Buddha’s teaching who has attained the meditative absorptions (jhāna) (free of sensual lust) brings benefits for a hundred thousand koṭi of lifetimes (a koṭi is ten million).

Giving to someone practicing to realize stream-entry (sotāpatti) brings benefits beyond counting. (M. U. 14/376/424)

And so it goes on, increasing step by step, up to the highest: giving to the Perfectly Self-Awakened Buddha, which brings benefits beyond measure.

But greater even than that is offering to the Saṅgha. The Buddha praised it as more fruitful, bringing greater benefits than a gift offered specifically to the Perfectly Self-Awakened Buddha himself.

So a gift to the Saṅgha is this fruitful and brings benefits this great.

Now, the point is how to set the mind so that it becomes a gift to the Saṅgha. For example, a lay person comes to the monastery and tells a monk, “I wish to offer a gift to the Saṅgha; may I invite one monk to receive it?”

If the monk who comes to receive the gift is an immoral monk, or a monk we do not like, or an elder we greatly respect and have faith in, and we let our mind flare up or waver, then it will not be a gift to the Saṅgha. And if it is not a gift to the Saṅgha, it is not called a kathina.

If we feel irritated, displeased or disheartened, thinking, “Why do I have to offer to a monk I don’t like?”, or because a novice has come as the Saṅgha’s representative to receive the gift, how will we look after our mind so it does not sink?

On the other hand, if it is an elder we respect and have faith in, and we feel delighted and gladdened that we have offered to a monk whose conduct inspires faith and confidence, this too is not called a gift to the Saṅgha, and that cloth cannot be used as kathina cloth either.

So how shall we set our mind to see any one monk as an envoy of the Saṅgha (saṅghadūta), a representative of the whole Saṅgha with the Buddha at its head?

It is like the Chinese ambassador to Thailand, who represents 1.4 billion people. One monk represents the whole Saṅgha, both the conventional Saṅgha (sammuti-saṅgha), the Saṅgha that comes into being through the Discipline, and the noble Saṅgha (ariya-saṅgha), the four pairs of persons, the eight individuals, the Saṅgha of the Perfectly Self-Awakened Buddha’s disciples.

Shape the mind, adorn the mind, beautify the mind so that it goes with virtue, concentration and wisdom, recollecting: “Oh, I have a representative of the Saṅgha, both the conventional Saṅgha and the noble Saṅgha, come to receive the gift I have prepared so carefully. How fortunate I am!”

We offer to one monk, but we direct our minds to the virtue, concentration, wisdom, liberation (vimutti) and knowledge and vision of liberation of the whole company of noble disciples.

So it is not at all easy to make kathina merit that truly accords with the Dhamma and Discipline. But when we can incline the mind to offer it as a gift to the Saṅgha, the wholesome that arises is beyond measure.

Must we host a kathina at least once in our lives?

A true host is like this: if we wish to be a leader of merit, it means we do not keep that merit to ourselves to make alone, but announce it and tell others. Those who hear about it also wish to be leaders of merit, so they pass the merit on, and those who are told pass it on in turn, one after another, that is, inviting one another to come and cultivate the wholesome together in this kathina season.

Everyone can be a leader of merit. Put another way, this is called a kathina host. So the word “host” does not emphasize money; it means the person who leads that merit by announcing it and inviting others.

Most of us feel awkward and don’t dare invite one another, because we think the kathina is about money, about fundraising. But in truth, inviting others to share in this merit together can be done in many ways.

You can take part with your physical effort, or by rejoicing in the merit, or by passing the word on to others, or by giving material things, or by undertaking the precepts, listening to the Dhamma, and so on.

But we think that telling people about merit means asking for money, so we hardly dare tell one another about it. Yet in truth, merit is something that should be told, because there are so many kinds of merit!

Is the kathina still necessary today?

Offering the kathina, spreading the kathina and so on are rites that follow what the Perfectly Self-Awakened Buddha laid down. These activities belong to the discipline.

But discipline must lead to Dhamma.

We keep the forms, patterns, customs and fine traditions that the people of old preserved and practiced down the generations, and destroying these traditions would not be right at all. But understanding them and developing from these outward forms toward the Dhamma means gaining the wholesome of giving, of virtue and of cultivation; gaining faith, effort, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom; that is, gaining harmony in the Dhamma as well.

That way, we will not be stuck at mere ritual but can penetrate to the substance of the Dhamma. Then there is no need to sit and argue whether offering the kathina is still necessary; instead, we develop wisdom until it pierces the husk and reaches the heartwood.

How do kathina and pha pa differ?

In the Buddha’s time, when the Teacher had not yet allowed monks to accept robes from lay people, the monks had to go about collecting cloth that people had thrown away, such as soiled cloth that villagers no longer wanted and had discarded, cloth used to wrap corpses, and so on. When they had gathered enough small scraps for their needs, they cleaned, cut, sewed and dyed them to make robes and lower robes. So making robes in the Buddha’s time was rather complicated, a major task.

When the villagers saw the monks’ hardship, they brought cloth to offer. But since there was no direct allowance from the Buddha yet, they would lay the cloth down and leave it in various places, such as charnel grounds or beside paths, and when monks came across it, they took it and made it into lower robes and robes. That is how the ceremony of laying down cloth came about.

At first it was called paṃsukūla cloth (rag cloth). But as people kept calling it by that name down the years, or perhaps because of the places where the cloth was laid down, in the charnel grounds of the forest, the name shifted to “pha pa”, forest cloth.

Pha pa differs from the kathina in that it can be offered at any time of the year, as many times as you like, whereas the kathina is a Vinaya act, done only in its season and only once a year.

So whether pha pa or kathina, both center on cloth. But as the ages passed, cloth became easy to find and there was no longer any shortage of it. There were still shortages in other areas, though, such as restoration work, or building a preaching hall, a dining hall or other small buildings.

So, both to preserve the tradition and because the lay hosts wanted to raise funds for various activities within the monastery, the offering of pha pa came to be held.