The monks heard the complaints of those people, and the monks of few desires complained and criticized those monks, “How could the monks from the group of six stay on and on, eating alms at a public guesthouse?” … “Is it true, monks, that you did this?” “It’s true, sir.” The Buddha rebuked them … “Foolish men, how could you do this? This will affect people’s confidence …” … “And, monks, this training rule should be recited like this:

Preliminary ruling ‘If a monk eats more than one almsmeal at a public guesthouse, he commits an offense entailing confession.’”

In this way the Buddha laid down this training rule for the monks.

Second substory Soon afterwards Venerable Sāriputta was traveling through the Kosalan country on his way to Sāvatthī when he came to a public guesthouse. Because it was a long time since he had been there, people served him respectfully. After he had eaten, Sāriputta became severely ill, and he was unable to leave that guesthouse. On the second day, too, those people said to him, “Please eat, venerable.” But since he knew that the Buddha had prohibited eating alms at a public guesthouse after staying on and on, and because he was afraid of wrongdoing, he did not accept. As a consequence, he missed his meal. When he arrived at Sāvatthī, he told the monks what had happened, and they in turn told the Buddha.