English
Revised edition. Venerable Sangha, please listen! Today the Sangha will hold the fourteenth or fifteenth day of Uposatha. If the Sangha deems it the right time and appropriate, may the Sangha permit it. Today the Sangha will hold the Uposatha and recite the Pratimoksha Sutra. This is the announcement. Venerable ones, we shall observe the Uposatha and recite the Pratimoksha Sutra. Whoever among you has transgressions, please confess. If there are no transgressions, remain silent. If you remain silent, I shall know that you, the venerable ones, are all pure. Just as when questioned individually, the monks respond, so too should this assembly of monks be addressed in the same way, proclaimed three times. Furthermore, if any monk, in this assembly of monks, after being proclaimed to three times, knowingly does not confess a transgression, that is knowingly speaking falsely. Venerable ones, knowingly speaking falsely, the Blessed One has declared to be an obstructive dharma. Therefore, any monk who desires to be purified of committed transgressions should remember and confess the transgression. Having confessed, he will abide in comfort. If one does not confess and repent, it will not be so. Venerable ones, I have finished reciting the introduction to the Pratimoksha Sutra. Regarding this, I will ask you, the venerable ones, whether you are pure in this? I will ask two or three times whether you are pure in this? If you, the venerable ones, are pure in this, then it is accepted as such by this silence. Explanation of the introduction to the recitation of the Pratimoksha Sutra.