Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Can monks use smart phones?
Swaroop
India Veteran
Do the precepts have to be revised to ban the use of smartphonesby buddhist monks?
0
Comments
Nope. With any sort of luck and a little bit of practice, the up-side and down-side of such instruments will become apparent without laying down the law.
My resident monk here is too poor to afford a phone with a data contract, which rules out smartphones for him. Problem solved!
What's wrong with a monk using a smart phone?
Buddhist monks are expected to keep out of the way of temptations, not just resist them. In Thich Nhat Hanh's communities a monk is not allowed to access Internet on his own.
I found this section helps to illuminate the question some
Smart phones are the spawn of the devil.
Just imagine -- there are people who actually believe they have friends because they use Facebook.
@SpinyNorman this is a Buddhist forum.
Smartphones are instruments of Mara
Mara is a devil too.
Venerable Karma using a selfie stick (stick in every sense of the word
) ...Taken during a break from creating the Medicine Buddha, last October/November....
Smartphones are a tool like anything else. They can be use with wisdom and skillfulness. My teacher (who is a monk) has one. It is not a problem. He doesn't use it for social media, but for sangha emails, meditation timers and a calendar. They can be misused and abused like many things, but were we to change the precepts to reflect all those things it would take a whole book. More so an issue how I use the internet myself. I don't really need to worry about whether it is appropriate for anyone else to use it. On a phone or otherwise.
Without a smart phone how will the monks keep track of sports scores?
Or a consort?
Answers to the usual hell realm ...
Are they allowed to read newspapers and books?
The same temptations exist in the real world so maybe monks should be confined to a cell.
Perhaps George puts his on airplane mode on the putting greens....
http://www.ewamchoden.org/?page_id=46
@David they are not. Other than Dharma texts.
If they still want to be immersed in the material world why take monkhood at all? @David
I think this is an extraordinarily sweeping statement.
Traditions vary, and people in those traditions interpret matters differently.
To bring ALL monks under this umbrella is a mistake, to say the least....
"Wanting" to be immersed is different to "needing" to be.
If one cannot keep up with the global movement of events, there is a real danger of living in an unrealistic, fantasy world of delusion made up of one's own ignorance.
Would that have a cell phone?
As @federica mentions there is a wide divergence of behavours, from tantra dakini taking consorts to nuns walling themselves up for life in stupas.
I prefer to be strict with my sangha and dharma officialdom. Put them in a cell until enlightened, then offer them every luxury once impervious to luxury or poverty.
Too harsh? Perhaps. I for one need the inspiration ...
Better tell H.H. The Dalai Lama he is a failure as a monk then.
Where are you getting this information?
@David " Freedom wherever we go. A Buddhist monastic code for the 21st century" by Thich Nhat Hanh
Yes, that's hardly comprehensive literature. It's a book, by a Zen monk who adheres to a christian ethic. Hardly a reference of any great credibility.
What do you think the logic behind banning means of information is?
Will being ignorant of the world and it's ideas help transcend suffering or do you think one has to be aware of the world in order to come to grips with it?
Thich Nhat Hanh does seem to know a lot about Christianity for someone that only reads Buddhist Suttas.
He also has a decent grasp on scientific basics.
How does that work?
@Swaroop why would you base the entirety of Buddhist monasticism on one book by one teacher in one lineage? TNH writes some amazing things. But he is not representative of all monks and nuns, nor would he suggest that is the case. He lives by his own version of the precepts, which he tweaked for the modern world. I think they are great things to consider and I think they are a pretty fair way of bringing the precepts into modern life. But that doesn't mean all monks subscribe to them. TNH uses the internet quite a bit to spread his message. Considering he has written dozens of books, I am quite sure he reads more than dharma texts. In fact I can pretty much guarantee it, as he went to college, and taught at college. He's been on tv multiple times, even on Oprah for crying out loud, lol.
I wonder if your cultural expectation living in India is just different from the western world. Perhaps your culture has taught you that this behavior (cell phones for monks) is unacceptable? In most places it is not. And in either case, it's none of my business.
@karasti yes. You are right. In our culture we expect monks to behave like monks. BTW this photo was shot in Rangoon air port by an Indian politician and posted on Twitter with the caption "technology spares no one"
Perhaps this is a timely lesson in learning that simply because A + A = AA in one place, it doesn't necessarily follow that these calculations are the same the world over.
What you present as fact, is in fact, merely local opinion.
It's also useful to remember just how globally-embracing this forum is....
There is a Theravada monk, Bikkhu @samahita who posts on this site and across the internet. He uses technology for dharma purposes, technology doesn't use him.
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/20388/bhikkhu-samahita-dhamma-posts/p1
During some interview I heard a while back someone talked about how they asked a monk about how they avoided getting engrossed in the internet. The monks response was something to the effect of the problem isn't the internet the problem is the monkey mind.
Let's remember we also have our own resident monk in @Jayantha and once upon a time, had a Tibetan monk also posting here. To my lasting shame, it was so long ago, I forget his name....
@samahita?
Maybe you mean @Palzang? Looking at his timeline he left like a month after I joined, I must remember him from looking through old posts.
Until you are a monk, I'd say the expectations are not yours to have.
That doesn't sound very trustworthy of the monks... I suppose the idea is that if you keep them away from 'distractions" long enough maybe they become awakened and wont abuse it... That feels quite backwards. How can one learn to use something skillfully if they just avoid it? That would be like being a smoker or a drug addict and saying " well as long as I just don't see it I wont abuse it and then everything will be fine forever.... that is until they are put in the situation of being tempted by it again.
The Buddha taught us to know the gratification(sensual pleasure), danger(that it is subject to change), and escape(the ending of craving) of our experience.
What happens when they come in contact with it once more? total loss of mindfulness, thats what
. I've heard plenty of stories(and saw one case personally) of monks who were in very restricted situations and then once they went to another monastery that trusts them and is not being big brother on their activities they go nuts, downloading music, using the internet like a crack addict etc.
As @karasti said, a cell phone is a tool like any other. Modern monks, especially in the West, can use a variety of devices and media for the dhamma, in fact the media group and supporters pages for my monastery are are facebook. There is where we plan the newsletters and do all kinds of media related activities.
My abbot, Bhante Gunaratana(author of mindfulness in plain english) has a cell phone, it helps him in a variety of ways as running a monastery and retreat center is a lot of work. A good majority of the monks I know have a cell phone or at minimum a tablet , myself included.
Thank you @person , yes, it was indeed Palzang....
In ancient times, monks were at the very forefront of information technology, early adopters, at the cutting edge itself.
How so?
A short time after paper began being made in ancient India, monasteries were producing it, improving it, and using the new technology to record, preserve, and spread their teachings.
(As a side note, I am using a Samsung Galaxy TabS 10.5 to type this post right now. I also use it to look at Buddhist websites, listen to dhamma talks, and read suttas. It was donated to me by a generous layperson when I ordained.)
@BhanteLucky Bhante! good to see you posting, how did your Upasampadā go ?:)
Ok, but even TNH's monks aren't prohibited from using cell phones. Particular ways in which the phone can be used is what is prohibited, not the use of the phone itself. Even under TNHs rules, if these monks are on the internet, it would still be permissible since they aren't by themselves.
One minor Mahayana precept forbids listening to music, gambling, fortune-telling etc. That rules out a certain amount of apps. I suppose calendars and messaging is OK but we must bear in mind that huge infrastructure that the cell towers and the internet as a whole demands as well as the influence our behaviour has on others. For example we can avoid using Google to host our calendar; we can also avoid using the phone during work hours or in the company of friends. That leaves a lot of pitfalls open to be sure and a lot of research ahead of anybody who would select the apps and service providers that would most accord with the dharma-vinaya.
And what about all those monks smoking cigarettes? Things are really going downhill.
I think you mean, 'Dunhill'....
Only if they are smart monks ......