This discourse was taught by the Blessed One, taught by the Arahant, the fully enlightened Supreme Buddha. This is as I heard,
“Monks, people are very helpful to you, as they provide you with robes, food, lodging, and medicine. And you, monks, are also very helpful to people, as you teach them the Dhamma that is perfect in the beginning, perfect in the middle, and perfect in the end, with correct meaning and wording, and you expound the holy life in its fulfilment and complete purity.
In this way, monks, this holy life is lived with mutual support, for the purpose of crossing over the flood of saṁsāra and making a complete end of suffering.”
This is the meaning of what the Blessed One said. So, with regard to this, it was said:
People and monks are in mutual dependence; both realize the pure Dhamma and reach ultimate freedom, Nibbāna, the unsurpassed liberation.
People provide monks with the basic necessities of life – robes and dwelling places that dispel their hardships.
People practise the Dhamma by placing confidence in those meditative, liberated ones, who possess noble wisdom.
Practising the Dhamma leads them to a happy rebirth; they are born in heaven and rejoice in divine sense pleasures.
This, too, is the meaning of what was said by the Blessed One. This is exactly as I heard.
