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"Unwholesome" entertainment?
pyramidsong
Veteran
I love Stephen King novels. Love them. I am just wondering if there is any Buddhist guidelines about occupying the mind with "dark" stuff, even just for entertainment. I don't really want to give them up. I have a sneaking suspicion that reading books about murderous clowns and resurrected pets could be considered "unwholesome"... 
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you have to be human for a while..
so it's okay to take a break and screw around a bit.
we do have human bodies, with human brains..human needs, you can't just quit samsara cold turkey..
cut down if it makes you feel better
I think that's a bit harsh, but it's worth taking to heart how it can be true. If we were never in contact with a certain idea or sense-stimuli (violent images, abuse, etc.), we may not have any component of those thoughts in our mind, and thus not suffer from them.
Someone on another thread said, "You are what you eat", so choose carefully. I think that applies to whatever you expose your thoughts to, as well. Isn't there something about "Right thought" in Buddhism, as well as "right speech"? Mindfullness is the first step.
I am an avid reader and enjoy fiction / novels - not Stephen King though. It is one of my leisure activities and to spend a day reading a good novel is one of my favourite activities - I don't watch television though do enjoy a good film. My children also read and I have always read to them - still do to my son who is 8 ... the Deltora Quest are our latest series of books. Like my time online - I am mindful of it and how it fits into my life.
I think the context, and what you take from it, is what's important. Yes, there is a murderous clown in It..but Pennywise is portrayed as an evil entity that preys on people's fears, which the main characters must vanquish. That seems pretty positive to me.
My favourite book, Les Misérables, certainly has violence and dark scenes/characters in it, but reading it has caused me to think more deeply about suffering and compassion, and has been a major influence on me...it has led me to seek meaning and direction in life (and, ultimately, to start studying Buddhism). Though fictional, the whole work is Victor Hugo's protest against an oppressive penal system, as well as a cry for greater social equality (education, assistance for the poor, etc).
From the preface:
So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hell on earth, and complicates a human destiny which is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of this age--the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of children by physical and spiritual night--are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
Consider the message. The purpose of fantasy is to build a world so plausibly imaginable that we are able to check our skepticism at the door and suspend our disbelief and become enraptured by this world and build it in our minds for the purpose of wish-fullfillment, escape, or to criticize an established order in real life, and it is possible it was written to help the author work through their own problems with dealing with everyday life. The fantasy used in fiction is hardly ever ideologically innocent or free of an agenda and because of its use as wish fulfillment, escape, critiquing, and use as a stress relief for the author so it makes the literary genre open to deep criticism from different people of its time. The Buddha also used fiction and Parable to establish a statement about truth. Fiction is not always wrong, but keep in mind what is true and if what you read is spreading the wrong message it is better abandoned. Like Twilight for example: I disliked it because it spread the wrong message about human relationships. The story made relationships about sensuousness and even subversive abusiveness. I dropped that book like a rock because of the message.
Almost a decade ago, I tried to become a tyrant for myself and "banned" myself from listening to certain kinds of music or reading certain kinds of things. That failed miserably and resulted in a lot of guilt and depression.
I believe that we are far from "perfect" and should be mindful of our own "imperfections"-- they are just aspects of this machine that we call "myself". If you ignore them, the machine will give out on us.
The path is slow and gentle, without violence. So have your fun if it really makes you feel better, as long as it doesn't harm anyone.
I don't know... I think being attached to temporary pleasure, not wanting to do virtue or only little; is opposite to diligence needed to achieve realization.
Ringu Tulku Rinpoche said in his book 'Daring Steps Toward Fearlessness: The Three Vehicles of Buddhism':That "the Buddhist notion of diligence is to delight in positive deeds. Its opposite, called le lo in Tibetan, has three aspects. Le lo is usually translated as "laziness," though only its first aspect refers to laziness as we usually understand it.
The first aspect is not doing something because of indolence, even though we know that it is good and ought to be done.
The second aspect is faintheartedness. This comes about when we underestimate our qualities and abilities, thinking, "I'm so incompetent and weak. It would be good to do that, but I could never accomplish it." Not having the confidence of thinking, "I can do it," we end up doing nothing.
The third aspect refers to being very busy and seeming diligent, but wasting time and energy on meaningless activities that will not accomplish anything in the long run. When we do many things for no real purpose, we fail to focus on what is truly worthwhile and our path has no clear direction.
When we refrain from these three aspects of laziness, we are diligent."
That's no good. You need to use moderation, which is why I said if the message is no good, it's better if it was abandoned.
I believe that mindfulness and concentration requires active diligence.
I don't think that is a good idea. Something that isn't harmful immediately doesn't mean in the long run it isn't harmful.
Take for eg The Shining, a mentally weak guy nearly got all his family killed. Not a bad parable I'd say to remind us to practice mindfulness.
Use your common sense. If reading one of those books makes you want to go out and murder people, don't read them. If porn makes you want to go rape someone, don't watch it. if racing video games make you want to drive at 200 MPH (KPH if you're not in the US), then don't play them, unless there's no speed limit, nobody on the road, and you want to tempt death.