So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrels’ feeding ground. Now at that time Venerable Pilindavaccha addressed the mendicants as “lowlifes”. Then several mendicants went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him, “Sir, Venerable Pilindavaccha addresses the mendicants as ‘lowlifes’.”
So the Buddha addressed one of the monks, “Please, monk, in my name tell the mendicant Pilindavaccha that the Teacher summons him.” “Yes, sir,” that monk replied. He went to Pilindavaccha and said to him, “Reverend Pilindavaccha, the Teacher summons you.”
“Yes, reverend,” Pilindavaccha replied. He went to the Buddha, bowed, and sat down to one side. The Buddha said to him: “Is it really true, Vaccha, that you addressed the mendicants as ‘lowlifes’?” “Yes, sir,” he replied.
Then, having applied his mind to Pilindavaccha’s past lives, the Buddha said to the mendicants, “Mendicants, don’t complain about the mendicant Vaccha. He doesn’t address the mendicants as ‘lowlifes’ out of hate. For five hundred lives without interruption he was reborn in a brahmin family. For a long time, he has addressed people as ‘lowlife’. That’s why he addresses the mendicants as ‘lowlifes’.”
Then, understanding this matter, on that occasion the Buddha expressed this heartfelt sentiment:
“In whom dwells no deceit or conceit, rid of greed, unselfish, with no need for hope, with anger cast aside, quenched: they are a brahmin, an ascetic, a mendicant.”