A single copper coin
tore all of Buddhism apart.
About a hundred years after the Buddha passed,
in a city called Vaishali,
a group of monks did something seemingly trivial.
They accepted copper coins from the laity in public.
Today, this sounds entirely unremarkable.
A monk receiving some donation money—
what's the big deal?
But in the Buddhist world 2,500 years ago,
this act was like a spark dropped into a vat of oil.
It ignited an argument
that eventually split a single tree into two,
and it has never grown back together.
Hello,
everyone.
I am Wang Lijie.
In our last episode, we calibrated the Buddha's original teachings:
Dependent Origination,
Non-self,
The Four Noble Truths,
The Three Marks of Existence.
These are the basic coordinates of his teachings.
We agreed
that no matter what sect we encounter later,
or what evolutions
and new theories arise,
we will use these coordinates as a reference
to see if they are getting closer or drifting further away.
Today, we officially enter the second act.
Act One was about one person's enlightenment.
Act Two is about the fate of that enlightenment after it left that person.
How does one tree grow eighteen branches,
or even more?
All schisms
begin with the story we tell today.
Alright,
let me set the scene.
Roughly a hundred years after the Buddha's Parinirvana,
around the late 4th century BCE—
the year is academically debated,
as there are several versions of when the Buddha passed—
but it was roughly around that time.
Buddhism back then
had grown from a small Ganges valley community of a few hundred
into a large religious organization spread across Northern India.
The sangha had grown large
and widely dispersed.
The mechanism of asking the Buddha questions in person
was long gone.
Sanghas in different regions operated independently,
passing down their own lineages
and interpreting the Buddha's teachings and precepts in their own ways.
Think about it:
it's like a company founder has been gone for a hundred years.
During his life, he gave many oral instructions,
answering different problems for different departments.
But he never wrote a standardized employee handbook.
A hundred years later,
people in different branches remember different versions of those instructions.
And everyone sincerely believes
that their version is the founder's true intent.
Against this backdrop,
the Vajjian monks in the eastern city of Vaishali
began practices that monks elsewhere considered outrageous.
The most glaring one
was accepting monetary offerings.
Specifically,
this is how they did it:
On Uposatha days,
the regular assembly days for the sangha,
they would place a copper bowl before the laity,
suggesting that people drop money into it.
The collected money
was then shared among the monks present.
In the precepts laid down by the Buddha,
monks not touching gold or silver was a fundamental rule.
The Pali Vinaya records it clearly:
monks must not accept gold or silver.
The logic of this precept is not hard to understand.
Monks lived on alms.
What they ate, wore, and used
depended entirely on what their followers offered.
You could not be picky,
you could not hoard,
and you certainly could not buy anything yourself.
Because the moment you have money,
choices arise.
With choices, you develop preferences.
With preferences, you develop attachments.
The essence of this precept is not moral constraint;
it is a scalpel.
It cuts the chain of material attachment at the most mundane level.
But the monks of Vaishali did not see it that way.
They said,
"Times have changed."
In the Buddha's era, the Sangha was small.
They moved between just a few city-states,
and alms alone were sufficient.
But what about now?
The Sangha has spread across Northern India.
Journeys are longer,
and the way goods are exchanged has changed.
Walking from one city to another
takes days and nights on the road.
Without money, you can't even take a ferry.
Furthermore, the followers have changed.
Many laypeople want to give money as an offering.
Insisting they carry heavy grain to you
is just causing them unnecessary trouble.
So they felt that
without taking money,
the Sangha simply couldn't function in many practical matters.
Listen closely to this conflict;
it's not just a Buddhist issue from 2,500 years ago.
Any organization with a founder, scriptures, and rules
cannot escape this dilemma.
Should the constitution be amended?
Should the classics be reinterpreted?
Should the founder's words
be followed literally and rigidly,
or applied flexibly according to their original intent?
At that time, this conflict wasn't just about money.
The monks of Vaishali introduced ten controversial practices
known in Buddhist history as the "Ten Points."
Besides accepting money,
these included seemingly trivial things.
For example,
storing salt in a horn for later use—
does that violate the rule against hoarding food?
Eating another meal after lunch in another village—
does that break the rule against eating after noon?
Is wine diluted with water still wine?
Can the size of a sitting mat be slightly larger than the regulation?
Listening to this, you might think:
"Is this trivial stuff really worth fighting over?"
But the issue is never the size of the matter itself.
The question is:
If these ten small things can be compromised,
what about the next ten?
And the ten after that?
Once the baseline starts to shift,
it will keep shifting
until no one remembers where it originally was.
For the conservatives,
the Buddha's precepts weren't just random rules set by an executive.
They were a realization by an enlightened one,
based on a thorough insight into how the human mind works—
a prescription for spiritual practice.
When you change them,
you aren't changing a regulation,
you are changing the prescription on a medical diagnosis.
Are you sure you understand the disease better than the doctor who wrote it?
At this moment, a monk entered the stage of history.
His name was Yasa.
His full Pali name was Yasa Kakandakaputta.
He was a realized elder of the Western Sangha
who belonged to the faction that strictly observed the precepts.
Yasa came to Vaishali
and witnessed the practices of the Vajjian monks firsthand.
Especially the scene of money being divided in a bronze basin
left him unable to sit still.
Yasa then did something that required great courage at the time.
In front of the lay followers,
he made a public declaration.
The gist was:
"Dear donors,
do not put money in there.
Offering money to Bhikkhus violates the Buddha's precepts."
Can you imagine this scene?
On their own home turf, the Vajjian Monastic Order
was publicly humiliated by an outsider monk.
The result was predictable.
The two sides had a complete falling out.
The Vaishali order demanded Yasa apologize to the followers,
and even imposed a disciplinary action called Brahmadanda,
formally declaring that he had committed a fault,
and expelled him.
Yasa did not apologize.
He did something even more powerful.
He left.
But he didn't leave in disgrace.
He left with a clear plan.
He began visiting conservative elders across the land one by one,
from Kausambi to Varanasi,
persuading them one by one to take a stand.
See?
This is a classic route for internal organizational reform.
Someone discovers a problem on the front lines,
goes back to network with influential allies,
and then forces the issue onto a platform where a formal ruling must be made.
Yasa voted with his feet and then with his voice.
He didn't just argue in small circles;
he wanted to debate this at the highest level of the entire Monastic Order.
Eventually,
both sides agreed to hold a large-scale assembly for a formal ruling
on whether these ten practices were actually lawful.
This became the Second Buddhist Council in history,
also known as the Council of Vaishali.
According to the Pali Canon,
700 elders participated in this council,
so it is also called the Council of Seven Hundred.
Both sides nominated an elder named Revata to preside.
Revata held prestige with both factions,
and everyone trusted his impartiality.
The ruling method was a point-by-point review.
For each disputed practice,
Revata questioned the eldest presiding monk, Sabbakami.
Sabbakami referred to the Vinaya Canon
and gave a clear ruling on each point.
The result?
All ten practices were ruled unlawful.
The process of this ruling itself is worth reflecting on.
It wasn't a voting system;
it wasn't a matter of who had more people.
Instead, they returned to the Vinaya itself,
comparing each point with the original texts.
What does this method imply?
It means the authority to judge did not lie with any living person,
but in the words left behind by the Buddha.
The text became the Supreme Court.
In other words,
the formal conclusion of the Second Council was that
the ten practices of the Vaishali order
all violated the Buddha's precepts
and were unlawful.
At this point, you might think
the conservatives won
and the story is over.
But history is not a court verdict.
A verdict can be announced,
but enforcement is another matter.
The Vajjian monks did not change their ways because of this ruling.
They did not accept it.
As for what happened next,
different traditions have different records.
Pali texts state that
the Vajjian monks held another,
even larger assembly after the council,
independently confirming the legitimacy of their own practices.
This assembly was known as the Great Recitation.
However, keep in mind,
this account reflects the perspective of the Theravada school.
Theravada is the lineage of the conservative faction.
We aren't entirely sure
how the other side described themselves.
Regardless of any disputes over details,
all traditions agree on one thing:
After the Second Council,
the Buddhist Sangha did not become more united.
On the contrary,
it set off on an irreversible path toward schism.
Over the next century or two,
this rift continued to deepen,
eventually forming the greatest structural fracture in Buddhist history.
One side was called Sthaviravada,
meaning "the Way of the Elders,"
representing the orthodox position of senior monks.
The other side was called Mahasamghika,
meaning "the Great Community,"
representing the numerically dominant group.
Notice these two names.
One side says,
"We represent orthodoxy."
The other says,
"We represent the majority."
Two completely different narratives of legitimacy.
In any political debate today,
you can see the exact same rhetorical strategies.
But here is a question many people ask:
If the core conflict of the Second Council was just ten minor rules,
how could it lead to a permanent split in all of Buddhism?
Was the issue of loose change
really that serious?
The answer is,
the debate over precepts was just the tip of the iceberg.
What lay beneath the surface
was the real force tearing Buddhism apart.
Let me explain a few key underlying tensions.
First,
the conflict over the goal of practice.
One group of monks believed
the ultimate goal was total personal liberation—
to become an Arhat
and escape the cycle of rebirth.
Once achieved, it was finished;
you owed no one anything.
Another group of monks sensed
that practice shouldn't just be for oneself.
Enlightenment isn't just a personal matter;
it should have a broader direction.
This disagreement hadn't fully surfaced at the Second Council,
but it was already surging beneath the water.
The later birth of Mahayana Buddhism
and the rise of the Bodhisattva path
were the products of this undercurrent finally breaking through.
Second,
what exactly is the Buddha?
Is the Buddha a historical enlightened being,
or an ultimate existence transcending time and space?
The conservatives leaned toward the former:
The Buddha was a human,
one who attained enlightenment through practice.
His greatness lay in proving with his life that this path works.
Other monks leaned toward the latter:
The Buddha was not just a historical figure;
the state of Buddhahood is the manifestation of an ultimate cosmic truth.
These two understandings
seem only to differ in degree,
but if you follow their logic,
they lead to completely different systems of practice
and entirely different religious rituals.
Third,
is an Arhat truly perfect?
Conservatives saw the Arhat as the final achievement;
attaining Arhatship meant total liberation,
with nothing higher.
But other monks began to raise doubts.
According to one traditional account,
a monk named Mahadeva proposed five controversial points regarding Arhats.
He said:
Arhats may still have nocturnal emissions in their dreams;
Arhats still possess some degree of ignorance;
Arhats can still harbor doubts;
Arhats may need someone else's confirmation to know they are liberated;
Arhats still cry out under extreme pain.
Regarding the exact date and attribution of these "Five Points of Mahadeva,"
academic debate continues to this day.
Some scholars believe it occurred much later than traditional accounts suggest.
But regardless of when it was officially proposed,
the underlying issues already existed around the time of the Second Council.
Because this question was fatal:
If the Arhat is not the state of perfection,
then what exactly is the ultimate goal of practice?
Do you need a goal higher than that of an Arhat?
If so,
what do you call it?
Later, Mahayana Buddhism provided its own answer:
Buddhahood,
the Bodhisattva path.
But that wouldn't happen for several hundred years.
Now you see the whole picture.
The issue of loose change was just a fuse.
The real powder keg
lay in fundamental disagreements over the direction of practice, the nature of the Buddha,
and the criteria for liberation.
These weren't problems while the Buddha was alive,
because if you had a doubt, you could just ask him.
But a hundred years after the Buddha's passing,
the ultimate arbiter was gone.
All that flexibility
turned into ambiguity.
Every "expedient means"
turned into a dispute over the correct path.
In an earlier episode, I said that
teaching according to the listener's capacity was the Buddha's most brilliant method,
but also the greatest challenge he left for posterity.
He provided too many versions of the "translation,"
but left no master key to compare them.
The story of the Second Council
makes me think of a much larger issue.
It's not just Buddhism.
Look at Christianity.
After Jesus left,
the apostles immediately began arguing over the true meaning of his teachings.
The rift between Paul and James is still discussed today.
Look at Islam.
After Muhammad passed,
the split between Shia and Sunni happened almost immediately.
Look at Marx.
After his death,
various factions attacked each other in his name for over a century.
Even in science,
after Einstein passed away,
physicists had vastly different interpretations of his legacy.
This isn't a defect of any single system of thought;
it is the structural destiny of how ideas spread.
Think about it.
What is language?
Language is lossy compression.
That living, three-dimensional reality in a person's mind
that can never be fully captured by words,
once translated into language,
inevitably loses some information.
And that missing piece
is precisely the source of future conflict.
The Buddha knew this better than anyone.
He spent 45 years teaching according to capacity,
using countless ways to translate the same ineffable truth.
But the more he translated,
the more versions there were;
the more versions there were,
the more material there was for later generations to argue over.
The Buddha clearly foresaw this.
The words he left on his deathbed were:
"Be an island unto yourself;
take the Dharma as your island."
Don't rely on anyone,
including me.
Rely on your own practice.
You rely on the Dharma itself.
But the Dharma cannot speak for itself.
It must pass through human understanding to function,
and human understanding
can never be completely identical.
So the true legacy of the Second Council,
was not the ten specific rulings themselves,
but the exposure of an ultimate dilemma for any organization.
When the rule-maker is gone,
how do you ensure the rules aren't distorted?
By the absolute authority of the text?
That leads to fundamentalism.
By a majority vote?
That risk straying from original intent.
By the inner experience of the enlightened?
Then who decides who is truly enlightened?
These three paths,
Buddhism would eventually walk them all.
Each path left behind glory,
but also left behind scars.
Have you ever considered something even more interesting?
The debate over these three paths
is a scaled-up version of the inner struggles we face daily.
A voice in your heart once told you what was right—
something you saw in a moment of clarity.
But in daily life,
that voice is often forgotten,
misinterpreted,
or diluted by various excuses.
Are you loyal to the truth you first saw,
or to the labels you later attached to it?
The argument among monks at Vaishali 2,500 years ago
is actually the argument you have with yourself.
The upcoming history will show you that,
once this argument begins,
it never truly stops.
From two branches,
to eighteen branches,
to dozens of branches—
the most spectacular and poignant era of schism in Buddhist history
is fast approaching.
I'd like to ask you all,
did today's video spark any reflections?
After a rule-maker is gone,
should those left behind be loyal to the letter or the spirit?
This question—
have you ever encountered it in your own life?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
I'm Wang Lijie.
See you next time.