[Buddha-l] Temporary renouncing of the precepts.

[Barnaby Thieme]

I line I've heard from Tibetans, which I believe comes from Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosha, is that a monk may give back their vows a maximum of three times in a life. Each time they give back their vows they're completely unordained, and you have to be completely re-ordained. It's not like taking a vacation from your vows. Vasubandhu believed vows form a kind of energy lattice and are very real things, not just ideas. 

I believe the idea is that it might happen in the midst of a profound personal upheaval or extreme circumstances. It seems contrary to the whole idea of taking monastic vows in that tradition to think that you can effectively put them on hold for a few weeks here or there. 

These monks obviously aren't very serious. They should be good Buddhists and die at the hands of the bandits. They should be thankful for the opportunity to die violently, like the bodhisattva giving himself to the hungry mother tiger in the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish. They believe in reincarnation, don't they? 

B~


_________________________________



More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path
leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen



> Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 15:59:06 -0400
> From: azuban at gmail.com
> To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> Subject: [Buddha-l] Temporary renouncing of the precepts.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm rereading my copy of "The Buddhist Pilgrim at the Holy Sites in
> Tibet" by G.C. Cybikov that I bought years ago. Among other quite
> entertaining pieces, there was this paragraph I translated below from
> it's original Russian:
> 
> "On this day some Amdos lamas went hunting and killed three antelopes
> [...]. Bringing meat to the camp, they cooked it and treated all the
> fellow travelers. [...] I asked them why they, being lamas, kill
> animals. To this they replied that when still at home they renounced
> their spiritual vows and will take them back only after returning
> there because during the arduous journey to Tibet, where there may be
> random battles with robbers, it is impossible to observe the monastic
> rules."
> 
> I wonder how widespread this practice was? Were there any other
> instances of it in the history of Buddhism?
> 
> Thank you,
> Andre Zuban
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