Buddhist Path Today

[mark45y]

When the monks are marching in the front of the red shirts and the police put policewoman in the front rank as is happening today what are the monks supposed to do?

[fabianfred]

Non-offenses. There is no offense for a bhikkhu who makes contact with a woman

—

 unintentionally — as when accidentally touching a woman while she is putting

food in his bowl;

 unthinkingly — as when a woman runs into him and, startled, he pushes her

away;

 unknowingly — as when, without lust, he touches a tomboy he thinks to be a

boy (this example is from the Commentary), when he doesn't even know that

he has run into a woman in a crowd, or when a woman touches him while he

is asleep; or

 when he doesn't give his consent — as in the case of the bhikkhu led around

arm-in-arm by a crowd of women.

[mark45y]

Non-offenses. There is no offense for a bhikkhu who makes contact with a woman

—

 unintentionally — as when accidentally touching a woman while she is putting

food in his bowl;

 unthinkingly — as when a woman runs into him and, startled, he pushes her

away;

 unknowingly — as when, without lust, he touches a tomboy he thinks to be a

boy (this example is from the Commentary), when he doesn't even know that

he has run into a woman in a crowd, or when a woman touches him while he

is asleep; or

 when he doesn't give his consent — as in the case of the bhikkhu led around

arm-in-arm by a crowd of women.

I understand that but if the monks are in the front row and they are walking towards the front row of policewoman that is intentional. He would walk straight into her.

[Brucenkhamen]

Monks aren't supposed to be involved in political activities or protests anyway.

[phetaroi]

Monks aren't supposed to be involved in political activities or protests anyway.

It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Sangha does anything regarding this issue.

[khaowong1]

Monks aren't supposed to be involved in political activities or protests anyway.

U

It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Sangha does anything regarding this issue.

yes, very interesting indeed. I am currently staying in a temple in the U.S., I've asked two different abbots what they think about these monks involved in these protests, both had nothing to say. nothing...

[bankei]

Monks aren't supposed to be involved in political activities or protests anyway.

Why?

Didn't the Buddha once stop a war?

Bankei

[agent69]

Are they supposed to be involved in political activities? Don't be too hasty to decide though.

[phetaroi]

Are they supposed to be involved in political activities? Don't be too hasty to decide though.

I have to admit that from my own perspective, my opinion changes from one country/situation to another. I liked that they were involved in Burma; dislike that they are involved here. It's making me re-examine my beliefs and searching for a principle.

[agent69]

Are they supposed to be involved in political activities? Don't be too hasty to decide though.

I have to admit that from my own perspective, my opinion changes from one country/situation to another. I liked that they were involved in Burma; dislike that they are involved here. It's making me re-examine my beliefs and searching for a principle.

But does it say whether it is right or wrong for a Buddhist monk to join a demonstration? It may say something about your opinion. And if it happened to be similar to the majority of the people in a community, then it is socially right which is not always right for other community. But what about the monk? Is it right for him to do such thing? Will he still be able to be true to his path to the awakening?

[phetaroi]

But does it say whether it is right or wrong for a Buddhist monk to join a demonstration? It may say something about your opinion. And if it happened to be similar to the majority of the people in a community, then it is socially right which is not always right for other community. But what about the monk? Is it right for him to do such thing? Will he still be able to be true to his path to the awakening?

I completely agree with all your questions. And yes, my initial point was that I need to straighten out my thinking.

[Xangsamhua]

We have chaplains to the military, to schools, football clubs - all kinds of associations and institutions. I guess a protest rally is a temporary association, but I can see a place for a chaplain or chaplains to it while it lasts, especially if people are going to be placed in a dangerous or stressful situation. A monk can be a chaplain can't he?

[phetaroi]

We have chaplains to the military, to schools, football clubs - all kinds of associations and institutions. I guess a protest rally is a temporary association, but I can see a place for a chaplain or chaplains to it while it lasts, especially if people are going to be placed in a dangerous or stressful situation. A monk can be a chaplain can't he?

Hmmmm. Interesting point.

I guess it comes down to what role the monks were playing at the demonstration. My impression from the news reports I saw and from one interview with a monk, was that they were active participants in the demonstration...I may be wrong. Generally speaking (and in reference to your post), chaplains don't join the battle or actually play football.

What was your impression of the role the monks were playing in the demonstration?

[Xangsamhua]

We have chaplains to the military, to schools, football clubs - all kinds of associations and institutions. I guess a protest rally is a temporary association, but I can see a place for a chaplain or chaplains to it while it lasts, especially if people are going to be placed in a dangerous or stressful situation. A monk can be a chaplain can't he?

Hmmmm. Interesting point.

I guess it comes down to what role the monks were playing at the demonstration. My impression from the news reports I saw and from one interview with a monk, was that they were active participants in the demonstration...I may be wrong. Generally speaking (and in reference to your post), chaplains don't join the battle or actually play football.

What was your impression of the role the monks were playing in the demonstration?

Not sure. From the photos I saw one elderly monk who looked like he might be playing a traditional role. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratchaprasong/4507250881/

Couldn't tell what the other monks were doing. They seemed more actively involved, but at a distance.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratchaprasong/4514230893/

The attached photos are from a wonderful collection posted in "My neighbourhood under siege: Ratchaprasong" in the Photography and the Arts forum.

[phetaroi]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratchaprasong/4514230893/

The attached photos are from a wonderful collection posted in "My neighbourhood under siege: Ratchaprasong" in the Photography and the Arts forum.

I think the photos are excellent, and I say that as an amateur photographer. I also don' think they were very balanced. By far, most of the photos showed the red shirts as happy, smiling people. I saw quite a few photos from other sources that painted a very different picture. And, that's okay.

It bothers me when politics (no matter what the side) uses religion (and here I am again saying that I think Buddhism is religion).

Edited April 13, 2010 by phetaroi

[sabaijai]

The fact that monks don't have the right to vote indicates that Thai society believes that monks should not be politically involved, and I would think that would include not joining political demonstrations.

Taken to the extreme, permission to get actively involved with politics leads to Buddhist monks standing for Parliament, as they do in Sri Lanka. Or getting arrested for demonstrating, as also happened, recently, in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka arrests Buddhist monks over Fonseka protest

By Charles Haviland, BBC News, April 8, 2010

Colombo, Sri Lanka -- Sri Lankan police have arrested 12 Buddhist monks who were demonstrating against the detention of the opposition politician, Gen Sarath Fonseka.

Late on Monday, a police spokesman told the BBC the monks would shortly be freed, but this could not be confirmed.

The arrests in the capital Colombo are another episode in the bitter fall-out of the so-called Fonseka affair.

The government incarcerated Gen Fonseka, the former army chief, after he lost the January presidential poll.

'Disgraceful'

He has now been two months in detention and a group of monks decided to vent their anger by demonstrating outside the city's main station.

Four had started a hunger strike on Sunday urging his release.

The police - including several in plain clothes - arrived to arrest the monks and, when they resisted, manhandled them to bundle them into vans.

The police spokesman said they had been obstructing people and that they were later taken to a magistrate while the hunger-strikers went to hospital.

The monks' lawyer, Nuwan Bopage, said the fundamental right to protest was being breached in a "disgraceful" way.

Tuesday will see the resumption of the court-martialling of Gen Fonseka on charges of unlawful political involvement while in uniform and of irregular procurement practices.

In spite of this, the retired general is standing in Thursday's parliamentary election.

Buddhist monks come from the Sinhalese ethnic majority and many are politicised.

A large number support the government, but those just detained are affiliated to a left-wing nationalist party which is now aligned to Gen Fonseka.

<< A Buddhist monk is forcibly removed from a demonstration in Colombo 5 April 2010. The arrested monks belong to a left-wing nationalist party

[321niti123]

Monks aren't supposed to be part of political activities because they are supposed to reach a point of letting go all the materialist things in the world, where he has only him and his own mind.

In the case of thailand, it is in the buddhist commandments, it prohibits drinking or violence, so any monk caught drinking or doing anything violent may be charged with fraud, and be asked to forfeit his monkhood.

[IMA_FARANG]

Quote:

When the monks are marching in the front of the red shirts and the police put policewoman in the front rank as is happening today what are the monks supposed to do?

---------------------------------------

If a monk wishes to avoid contact with a policewoman...it is surely within his ability to do so.

If he has no intention of touching her, and any contact is unintentional on his part, surely there is no error.

But let me pose you another hypothetical question.

A monk is walking with a crowd along a river. A young woman trips and falls into the river. She is being swept towards a waterfall. The monk is in a position to save her....but it will require making physical contact with her to save her life. He should:

1. Ignore her. Monks shouldn't touch women.

2. Grab her and pull her to safety.

3. Wait for someone else to save her...if someone else can get there in time.

What's your answer?

Edited May 28, 2010 by IMA_FARANG

[Xangsamhua]

But let me pose you another hypothetical question.

A monk is walking with a crowd along a river. A young woman trips and falls into the river. She is being swept towards a waterfall. The monk is in a position to save her....but it will require making physical contact with her to save her life. He should:

1. Ignore her. Monks shouldn't touch women.

2. Grab her and pull her to safety.

3. Wait for someone else to save her...if someone else can get there in time.

What's your answer?

In Mahayana there would be no issue, as the monk's Bodhisattva Vow takes priority over pratimoksha vows. For a Theravada monk I'm not sure. If I were a Thai monk in that situation I would save the woman and submit to the disciplinary consequences later. But I don't know what they would be.

Now, what would you do, IMA?

[IMA_FARANG]

But let me pose you another hypothetical question.

A monk is walking with a crowd along a river. A young woman trips and falls into the river. She is being swept towards a waterfall. The monk is in a position to save her....but it will require making physical contact with her to save her life. He should:

1. Ignore her. Monks shouldn't touch women.

2. Grab her and pull her to safety.

3. Wait for someone else to save her...if someone else can get there in time.

What's your answer?

In Mahayana there would be no issue, as the monk's Bodhisattva Vow takes priority over pratimoksha vows. For a Theravada monk I'm not sure. If I were a Thai monk in that situation I would save the woman and submit to the disciplinary consequences later. But I don't know what they would be.

Now, what would you do, IMA?

----------------------------------------------------------

Very good answer, Xangsamhua.

Answering my own question, Now that would be giving away too much, wouldn't it?

But anyhow, not being a monk or any such thing, I would hope that I would try and rescue her. In my personal opinion, rules are always secondary to doing what I think is right. It's interesting that some of the posters on here seem to be more interested in the "rules" than the results. Perhaps I'm wrong about that?

[Xangsamhua]

I went to another site with the question and got this response:

he'd save her.

on top of being plain common sense, Ajahn Brahm discussed a similar situation where he personally carried a woman who got injured in a car accident.

I don't remember which talk it was but you will find it in one of his Dhamma talks on youtube.

[Xangsamhua]

A bit more on the topic from Thanissaro Bhikkhu at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors.../bmc1.ch05.html

Apologies for the length, but the whole topic:Buddhist Monastic Code I, Chapter 5, Saṅghādisesa is very long and the relevant part may be hard to locate.

I think it's clear that monastic vows are breached when the touching is motivated by lust. Clearly the line of policewomen referred to in the original post is unlikely to have aroused lust among the red bhikkhus, so had they pushed them aside this form of touching would not in itself breach the patimokka. The monks' very presence on the scene, however, may well have done so, but that is the topic of another thread.

2. Should any bhikkhu, overcome by lust, with altered mind, engage in bodily contact with a woman, or in holding her hand, holding a lock of her hair, or caressing any of her limbs, it entails initial and subsequent meetings of the Community.

This rule has sometimes been viewed as a sign of prejudice against women. But, as the origin story makes clear, the Buddha formulated the rule not because women are bad, but because bhikkhus sometimes can be.

"Now at that time, Ven. Udāyin was living in the wilderness. His dwelling was beautiful, attractive, and appealing. The inner chamber was in the middle, entirely surrounded by the outer chamber. The bed and bench, the mattress and pillow were well arranged, the water for washing and drinking well placed, the surrounding area well swept. Many people came to look at it. Even a certain brahman together with his wife went to Ven. Udāyin and on arrival said, 'We would like to look at your dwelling.'

"'Very well then, brahman, have a look.' Taking the key, unfastening the lock, and opening the door, he entered the dwelling. The brahman entered after Ven. Udāyin; the brahman lady after the brahman. Then Ven. Udāyin, opening some of the windows and closing others, walking around the inner room and coming up from behind, rubbed up against the brahman lady limb by limb.

"Then, after exchanging pleasantries with Ven. Udāyin, te brahman left. Delighted, he burst out with words of delight: 'How grand are these Sakyan contemplatives who live in the wilderness like this! And how grand is Ven. Udāyin who lives in the wilderness like this!'

"When this was said, his wife said to him, 'From where does he get his grandeur? He rubbed up against me limb by limb just the way you do!'

"So the brahman criticized and complained and spread it about: 'They're shameless, these bhikkhus — immoral, liars!... How can this contemplative Udāyin rub up against my wife limb by limb? It isn't possible to go with your family wives, daughters, girls, daughters-in-law, and female slaves to a monastery or dwelling. If family wives, daughters, girls, daughters-in-law, and female slaves go to a monastery or dwelling, the Sakyan-son monks will molest them!'"

There are two ways in which a bhikkhu can come into contact with a woman: either actively (the bhikkhu makes the contact) or passively (the woman does). Because the Vibhaṅga uses different terms to analyze these two possibilities, we will discuss them separately.

Active contact. The full offense for active contact here is composed of four factors.

1) Object: a living woman — "even one born on that very day, all the more an older one." Whether she is awake enough to realize what is going on is irrelevant to the offense.

2) Perception: The bhikkhu correctly perceives her to be a woman.

3) Intention: He is impelled by lust.

4) Effort: He comes into physical contact with her.

Of these four factors, only two — intention and effort — require detailed explanation.

Intention. The Vibhaṅga explains the term overcome with lust as meaning "impassioned, desiring, a mind bound by attraction." Altered, it says, can refer in general to one of three states of mind — passion, aversion, or delusion — but here it refers specifically to passion.

The Commentary adds a piece of Abhidhamma analysis at this point, saying that altered refers to the moment when the mind leaves its state of pure neutrality in the bhavaṅga under the influence of desire. Thus the factor of intention here can be fulfilled not only by a prolonged or intense feeling of desire, but also by a momentary attraction.

The Commentary also tries to limit the range of passion to which this rule applies, saying that it covers only desire for the enjoyment of contact. As we noted under Pr 1, the ancient commentators formulated a list of eleven types of lust, each mutually exclusive, and the question of which rule applies to a particular case depends on which type of lust provokes the bhikkhu's actions. Thus if a bhikkhu lusting for intercourse touches a woman, it says, he incurs only a dukkaṭa as a preliminary to sexual intercourse under Pr 1. If he touches her through his lust for an ejaculation, he incurs a thullaccaya as a preliminary to causing an emission under Sg 1. Only if he touches her with the simple desire to enjoy the sensation of contact does he incur a saṅghādisesa under this rule.

This system, though very neat and orderly, flies in the face of common sense and, as we noted under Pr 1, contradicts the Vibhaṅga as well, so there is no need to adopt it. We can stick with the Vibhaṅga to this rule and say that any state of passion fulfills the factor of intention here. The Commentary's discussion, though, is useful in showing that the passion needn't be full-scale sexual lust. Even a momentary desire to enjoy the sensation of physical contact — overwhelming enough that one acts on it — is enough to fulfill this factor.

Effort. The Vibhaṅga illustrates the effort of making physical contact with a list of activities: rubbing, rubbing up against, rubbing downwards, rubbing upwards, bending down, pulling up, drawing to, pushing away, seizing hold (restraining or pinning down — abhiniggaṇhanā), squeezing, grasping, or touching. The Vinita-vatthu includes a case of a bhikkhu giving a woman a blow with his shoulder: He too incurs a saṅghādisesa, which shows that the Vibhaṅga's list is meant to cover all similar actions as well. If a bhikkhu with lustful mind does anything of this sort to a living woman's body, perceiving her to be a woman, he incurs the full penalty under this rule. As noted under Pr 1, mouth-to-mouth penetration with any human being or common animal would incur a thullaccaya. If this act is accompanied by other lustful bodily contact, the thullaccaya would be incurred in addition to any other penalty imposed here.