[Buddha-l] Re: Vinaya and mobile phones

[Dhammanando Bhikkhu]

Stefan wrote:

> In the monastery, as we might assume, material possessions not 
> mentioned in the Vinaya Allowed Luggage List are forbidden.

But that would be a mistaken assumption. When a monk is offered an item 
which the Vinaya doesn't specify as being either allowed or forbidden, 
he is supposed to make a judgment by comparing it with those items 
which are so specified and deciding which it more closely resembles. As 
the four great standards (common to all extant Vinayas) put it:

1. "Bhikkhus, whatever I have not objected to, saying, 'This is not 
allowable,' if it fits in with what is not allowable, if it goes 
against what is allowable, that is not allowable for you.
2. "Whatever I have not objected to, saying, 'This is not allowable,' 
if it fits in with what is allowable, if it goes against what is not 
allowable, that is allowable for you.
3. "And whatever I have not permitted, saying, 'This is allowable,' if 
it fits in with what is not allowable, if it goes against what is 
allowable, that is not allowable for you.
4. "And whatever I have not permitted, saying, 'This is allowable,' if 
it fits in with what is allowable, if it goes against what is not 
allowable, that is allowable for you."
(Mv.VI.40, Thanissaro trans.)

In practice, if the item in question starts being offered to the sangha 
with some frequency, then a collective decision as to its allowability 
will usually be made, either by the bhikkhus residing in a particular 
monastery, or else the central council of some national sangha.

> Yet in this monastery one of the senior monks was being phoned all the 
> time throughout an interview he was giving, not bothering with the 
> extremely loud jingle he had set his phone to. When asked about this, 
> a younger monk said you are allowed to possess a mobile phone when you 
> are ten years or more in the monastery. For this particular monk it 
> was waiting another 3 years before he too could start phoning around. 
> That's an interesting given: I now have the impression that Vinaya 
> rules are being given a modern interpretation which would allow for 
> such 'adaptations' or 'recontextualisation' - as some postmodernist 
> apologists love to call it. I suppose 'ancienité' plays an important 
> role here, too, meaning it has probably been a decision of senior 
> monks to introduce this new understanding of the Vinaya. Maybe Charles 
> Prebish who's known to know the Vinayas thoroughly knows where this 
> comes from, but if someone else can trace this juridical relaxation, 
> I'd love to hear it.

I suspect that the monks would view it as merely the establishment of 
an in-house rule applicable only to themselves, not an attempt to add 
to the corpus of Vinaya binding upon all monks (something the Buddha 
discouraged).

Best wishes,
Dhammanando