Saṅghādisesa 2.
Ṭhānissaro’s explanation in the BMC:
These penalties for indirect contact have inspired the Commentary to say that if a bhikkhu makes contact with a clothed portion of a woman’s body or uses a clothed portion of his body to make contact with hers, and the cloth is so thick that neither his body hairs nor hers can penetrate it, the penalty is only a thullaccaya because he is not making direct contact. Only if the contact is skin-to-skin, skin-to-hair, or hair-to-hair (as might be possible through thin cloth) does he commit the full offense. Thus a bhikkhu who fondles the breasts, buttocks, or crotch of a fully clothed woman would incur only a thullaccaya because the contact was indirect.
There is a certain logic to the commentators’ assertion here, but why they adopted it is unclear. Perhaps they drew a parallel to the following rule—concerning lustful remarks made to a woman—which also contains derived offenses for remarks directed at items “connected with the body.” In that case, defining connected with the body to include clothing worn by the woman does no violence to the nature of the activity covered by the rule, for it is possible to make remarks about a woman’s clothing without using words that touch on her body at all.
Here, however, the nature of the activity is different. If one pushes a woman, it does not matter how many layers of cloth lie between her body and one’s hand: One is pushing both the cloth and her. If one squeezes her fully clothed breasts, again, one is squeezing both the cloth and the breasts. To say that one is pushing or squeezing only the cloth is a denial of the true nature of the action. Also, if one stroked a woman’s fully clothed thigh, it is unlikely that the strength of her reaction would depend on whether her body hairs penetrated the cloth, or if one was wearing latex gloves that prevented her hair from touching one’s skin. Common linguistic usage reflects these facts, as does the law.
The question is, does the Vibhaṅga follow this common linguistic usage, and the answer appears to be Yes. In none of the Vinīta-vatthu cases concerning physical contact with women does the Buddha ever ask the bhikkhu if he made contact with the clothed or unclothed portions of the woman’s body. This suggests that the question of whether she was clothed or unclothed is irrelevant to the offense. In one of the cases, “a certain bhikkhu, seeing a woman he encountered coming in the opposite direction, was impassioned and gave her a blow with his shoulder.” Now, bhikkhus sometimes have their shoulders bared and sometimes robed; women walking along a road may have different parts of their body clothed or bared. If the presence or absence of a layer or two of cloth between the bhikkhu’s shoulder and the woman’s body were relevant to the severity of the offense, then given the Buddha’s usual thoroughness in cases like this he would have asked about the amount, location, and thickness of clothing on both the bhikkhu and the woman, to determine if the offense was a dukkaṭa, a thullaccaya, or a saṅghādisesa. But he didn’t. He simply penalized the bhikkhu with a saṅghādisesa, which again suggests that the presence or absence of cloth between the bhikkhu and the woman is irrelevant in all cases under this rule.
The only cases of indirect contact mentioned in the Vinīta-vatthu refer to contact of a much more remote sort: A bhikkhu pulls a cord of which a woman is holding the other end, pulls a stick of which she is holding the other end, or gives her a playful push with his bowl.
Thus in the context of this rule the Vibhaṅga defines “object connected to the body,” through which indirect contact is made, with examples of things that the person is holding. The Vinaya-mukha adds things that are hanging from the person, like the hem of a robe or a dress. In this context, contact made through cloth that the person is wearing would be classed as direct. This would parallel Pr 1, in which the question of whether there is anything covering either of the organs involved in intercourse is completely irrelevant to the offense. Thus the concept of direct and indirect contact here would seem to follow general linguistic usage: If a woman is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, for instance, grabbing her by the arm and grabbing her by the cuff of her shirt are two different things, and would receive different penalties under this rule.
Thullacaya, grave offense, is the closest to Saṅghādisesa. It is no light offense although of course not as severe as the sanghadisesa.
As I read it in the Vibhaṅga (not the Commentary) it indicates that a lustful bhikkhu who mistakes a woman as a transexual - although she is a woman- could perform all sorts of touching while she is naked but only incures a thullacaya, not a sanghadisesa.The relevant pali is
Itthī ca hoti vematiko sāratto ca.
Bhikkhu ca naṁ itthiyā kāyena kāyaṁ āmasati parāmasati …pe…
gaṇhāti chupati, āpatti thullaccayassa
.
Thanissaro: The Vibhaṅga shows that misperception affects the severity of the offense only in the cases of women and paṇḍakas**. A bhikkhu who makes lustful bodily contact with a woman while under the impression that she is something else—a paṇḍaka, a man, or an animal—incurs a thullaccaya.** If he makes lustful bodily contact with a paṇḍaka while under the impression that the paṇḍaka is a woman, a man, or an animal, the penalty is a dukkaṭa. In the cases of men and animals, misperception has no effect on the severity of the case: Lustful bodily contact—e.g., with a male transvestite whom one thinks to be a woman—still results in a dukkaṭa.
We might wonder why the Buddha gave only a Thullacaya - why not a sanghadisesa- but of course we cannot fathom the depth of the Vinaya.
In a like vein I find Thanissaro’s speculations about the thinking of the Commentary unconvincing.
If the women is wearing thick covering and he touches her this does seem to be less lewd than if she was wearing sheer panties for example .
