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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: icy on June 28, 2014, 10:27:37 AM
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Can nuns drive Porsche?
The National Office of Buddhism has sent a warning to a nun, pictured driving a brand new Porsche, to adopt a more austere and frugal lifestyle.
(http://www.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20140626/646087.gif)
Nopparat Benjawatananun, director-general of the office, said on Thursday the nun was based at Wat Tham Khwan Muang in Sawi district of Chumphon province and the office had asked the abbot of the temple to tell the nun to adhere to the sufficiency way of life.
Mr Nopparat said a disciple had bought the Prsche and donated it to the nun. He urged Buddhists to make more appropriate donations to monks, novices and niuns - they should not buy products like luxury cars.
He said Buddhist monks, novices and nuns must live in a sufficiency fashion and behave respectably.
The issue became the talk of the town after a Facebook user, identified in Thai as Samart Thongmee, recently posted a picture of the white-clad nun in the driver's seat of the while Porsche, apparently a Caymen series priced at 6.3 million baht.
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In Samsara, a situation as such would be scorned at. Everyone has the "expectation" that a monk or nun or anyone who is holding spiritual vows must only live humbly or in this case "adhere to sufficiency way of life". Many will hold on to the view that it is inappropriate for them to have the finer things of life because religion speaks of non-attachment, renunciation, letting go etc, as the way of life. But for those who have no vows and has the means, it is rightful to enjoy the finer things of life ! How ironic is that !
There is this story of 2 men and 2 pieces of fruit. One man picks the ripe fruit and left the unripened one to the other. Hence the other man got angry. This anger comes from the thought that he has been treated unfairly; also that he wanted the ripe fruit too and did not get it. If his thought was more pure, that a fruit is a fruit and as long as he does not grasp at the thought of that "HE" is more important , then the anger would not arise. This grasping of "I"(must always have the "best") is the cause of the anger.
So ..... if we don't hold to the fact that only certain people are "entitled" to drive a Porche, then such controversies will not arise. If we look at the Porche as just another car, it was gifted to the Nun with good intentions, the Nun did not obtain it is using it with pure motives, then she is pretty much entitled to drive it too !
The general rule is that offerings must be given or received without DECEIT. Deceit with respect to the object being offered, and deceitful motives. Deceit with respect the the object being offered means that some faulty actions was committed whilst one obtained the things to be offered. Deceitful motives are wrong intentions .
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Cookie's answer is fantastic! Why have such expectations of what an ordained person can or cannot do. There are no rules on the Vinaya about not driving around in fancy vehicles (as far as my extremely limited understanding is). What is the point here? Is it that the ordained sangha should conform to ideals forced upon them. Who would know what living by keeping the vinaya rules would look like, an official, a lay person, or the ordained sangha member themselves who has studies the vinaya.
So the nun received a Porche from a student. Did anybody think about this student when debating this issue? In my opinion a real student of the Dharma would give the nun what she really needed and not some fancy car. Did you ever think that this student actually thought that this would be a good offering to the nun, and made it from the heart. I'm not sure of this, as it is not stated in the article, but it could be a motivating factor, why the gift was given.
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I have not seen any monk or nuns driving a Porsche before.Most of them don't own anything.
But what if it was borrowed or rent?
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Samart Thongmee could have been more skilful than to donate a Porshe to a novice nun! Similarly the nun or the abbot of her temple could have stopped this extravaganza before it caused a disrepute to Thai Buddhism.
The image of Thai Buddhism had suffered tremendously of late due to various misdeeds of a few monks. It is commendable that The National Office of Buddhism had warned the nun , her temple and the sangha generally to adopt a more frugal lifestyle appropriate to the sangha community.
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As per the 50 verses of guru devotion, a student that want to achieve the Buddha's wisdom body, should be making material offering from the cheapest to the most expensive and the guru should accept it. This is a way for the guru to help the disciple to let go of attachment. Therefore I think the disciple is not wrong in offering a Porche to the nun. He is offering something that he like and is the best quality. I rejoice on the generosity of the disciple to be able to make such an offering to the nun.
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A Sangha member is not supposed to own any worldly possession. Spiritual practice is a practice of letting go and non-attachment. Sangha members are the ultimate examples of this virtue.
Attachment or clinging or desire to all these world conditioned things is one of the main causes for sufferings and the continuous rebirth in this vicious chain of samsara.
Although the Porsche was a gift from a disciple, the nun should have advise the disciple to donate the money to projects that can benefits many people. As we know Thailand is no different from any other countries in South East Asia where there are many poor and homeless people that don't even have enough to eat. Hence the act of this nun driving around such an expensive car is like a total opposite to the teaching a Sangha member supposed to spread.
Then again we are not supposed to judge or to criticize without knowing the real reason behind this issue, nevertheless, by driving around in this luxury car, the nun had caused uneasiness among the society and caused suspicious on proper conduct of Sangha community. So it is better for the temple to sell the car and use the money for the benefits of others.
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This is not the first time of news of monks or nuns in expensive cars. Such gifts are becoming more common nowadays. If lay people can have wrong thoughts when they see monks or nuns in expensive car they can choose not to sit in the car.
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As per the 50 verses of guru devotion, a student that want to achieve the Buddha's wisdom body, should be making material offering from the cheapest to the most expensive and the guru should accept it. This is a way for the guru to help the disciple to let go of attachment. Therefore I think the disciple is not wrong in offering a Porche to the nun. He is offering something that he like and is the best quality. I rejoice on the generosity of the disciple to be able to make such an offering to the nun.
While I agree with angelica on making the best offerings to the Guru and I may add to the Sangha, I would like to point out that being a nun or a sangha, the image and the skillful method of practice is that of renunciation. The inner renunciation is that of leaving the cyclic existence but to practice that the sangha practices both inner and other renunciation, which is to live a simple life. So for me, this nun driving a Porsche,is not appropriate at least from an outer point of view.
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In the Thai’s “forest tradition” most monks or nuns the sole procession allowed are three robes and a begging bowl. By offering an expensive sport-car to a nun is truly unwise as it would cause a lot of misconception the public would have on the Sangha following the “Forest Tradition”. There’re many ways to support the Sangha why choose the one that will stir up outcry from the public? But if we were to discuss this topic here based on the Mahasiddha level, then everything would be justifiable. ::)
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(http://www.thailandnews.co/wp-content/uploads/Thai-Nun-Porshe.jpg)
If I have the money, I would definitely gift my Guru the best that I can offer but we must also use a more skillful way to do so. There are so many people out there who have wrong views and if I didnt know better, I would also have the wrong view. If I were to offer a car to my Guru, I would get someone to drive and a few other people to accompany so that it wouldnt be so 'offensive' to some people and not let people have any negative things to ay.
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We should never judge what others offer to the sangha. As long as the motivation from the lay person is good, it's good enough to generate the merits. Sangha is a merit field for lay people like us to generate merits. Sangha should accept the offering because of this.
On the side of the nun, if her motivation is good, she generate merits as well. Whatever it is, they will be answerable to their own karmas. So please do not judge.
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The "nun" in question is a Mae Chees in the Thai Buddhist tradition. Mae Chees are not nuns in the strict sense of the word. There is no Bhikkhuni sangha in Thailand. These women have taken the eight precepts, live in monasteries or in dedicated communities of female renunciants. Although they are not lay people, they are not recognised as monastics by the Thai Government and do not receive the benefits that are given to monks, for example they do not get free public transport that is allowed for monks.
It is possible that people have a confused idea of how a Mae Chee should behave. They probably think Mae Chees should behave like monks since they live in monasteries. The rules of moral conduct regarding Mae Chees are not very clear. The Mae Chee in question could have thought that accepting a gift from a lay disciple was all right. After all did she break any vows?
The monastic communities and the Government in Thailand must discuss this and come up with guidelines for the Mae Chee community. I feel that the Thai Government must also help this group of female renunciants to have a better life by providing for their needs and giving to them the same benefits they give to monks, like free public transport.
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Can nuns drive Porsche?
To that, I say why not? Is there anything wrong in driving a Porsche or Lamborghini or Ferrari? Whilst it may appear to be wrong, why do we want to judge? We may think that she should be frugal and not splurge on this, but the car could have been a gift from the students?
We should learn from this not to judge others when we do not know the actual situation.
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Human being are born to be very judge mental and this can be good and if we expect certain things or behaviour did not turn out to be what we have expected, then it is bad. Well, if a monk or nun chose to drive in an expensive car, i am sure they have thought of all the potential news or feed back they will get from the public.
I am not sure about the actual situation but if i can afford such an expensive offering, i would offer it up to my Guru.
And if someone do offer an expensive offering to her, Hey she must be good in what she is doing.
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In my opinion, it is most fine for a nun to drive a Porsche or any other car that was sincerely offered to the monastery by devotees. Since we are not in the full knowledge of the situation when these pictures were captured, it is best not to judge.
I agree with the opinion of Midakpa that states that people might have a confused idea on how they expect people like Mae Chees should behave. It is so pitiful that the religious people are the targets of meddling parties who are always on the watch to catch some malicious gossips to share in their Facebook.
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Monk or nun can be offered expensive gifts by their devoted students. Expensive gifts like house, land, car, extravagant hotels etc. are offered to monk or nun due to devotion of their students.
What is wrong with that? It is the people who perceive these gifts as inappropriate to a sangha member and may mislead to wrong perception towards them. The warning by the government was to exert control over the "public behavior" of the sangha member and avoiding wrong view of them.
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We should never judge what others offer to the sangha. As long as the motivation from the lay person is good, it's good enough to generate the merits. Sangha is a merit field for lay people like us to generate merits. Sangha should accept the offering because of this.
On the side of the nun, if her motivation is good, she generate merits as well. Whatever it is, they will be answerable to their own karmas. So please do not judge.
Very well said Klien. Motivation is the most important thing when we do offerings. We are not the person who makes the offerings. So, it is not to us to judge him / her. Although for some tradition of Buddhism, Sangha is not supposed to own any worldly possession especially luxuries. However, there are text according the 50 verses of Guru devotion, a disciple should make material offering from the cheapest to the most expensive to the Guru. This is to train us on generosity as well as to give us a chance to generate a lot of merits.
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There are always two sides to a coin. In Buddhist teachings, we learn that for as long as the motivation of the offering is pure, then the act is good. In this case, the sponsor may want the nun to have a strong reliable vehicle so that she can move around faster and more comfortably to do her dharma work. From the part of the nun, she accepted the offering so that her sponsor can collect merits and also not to offend the sponsor and not out of desire or attachment.
Another example is most Tibetan monks are non vegetarian. But on the other hand, we are also taught not to kill. However, due to the landscape of where most monasteries are located , it is not possible for vegetables to grow hence eating meat for sustenance is the only option. It is not out of attachment or desire from the part of the monk. But if this is taken out of context, and someone takes a photo of a monk eating Yak meat, for example, then it would be seen as a wrong act by the monk.
Having said that, as it is the mass perception that Buddhism teaches simplicity and non-attachment to worldly things, I think from the part of the giver and receiver they should be more sensitive so as not to disturb the minds of the people around them.
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The answer as to whether a monastic member should be driving a Porsche has many views and different answers but I like this one from cookie best.
"In Samsara, a situation as such would be scorned at. Everyone has the "expectation" that a monk or nun or anyone who is holding spiritual vows must only live humbly or in this case "adhere to sufficiency way of life". Many will hold on to the view that it is inappropriate for them to have the finer things of life because religion speaks of non-attachment, renunciation, letting go etc, as the way of life. But for those who have no vows and has the means, it is rightful to enjoy the finer things of life ! How ironic is that !
There is this story of 2 men and 2 pieces of fruit. One man picks the ripe fruit and left the unripened one to the other. Hence the other man got angry. This anger comes from the thought that he has been treated unfairly; also that he wanted the ripe fruit too and did not get it. If his thought was more pure, that a fruit is a fruit and as long as he does not grasp at the thought of that "HE" is more important , then the anger would not arise. This grasping of "I"(must always have the "best") is the cause of the anger.
So ..... if we don't hold to the fact that only certain people are "entitled" to drive a Porche, then such controversies will not arise. If we look at the Porche as just another car, it was gifted to the Nun with good intentions, the Nun did not obtain it is using it with pure motives, then she is pretty much entitled to drive it too !
The general rule is that offerings must be given or received without DECEIT. Deceit with respect to the object being offered, and deceitful motives. Deceit with respect the the object being offered means that some faulty actions was committed whilst one obtained the things to be offered. Deceitful motives are wrong intentions ."
Personally as a laity I would give the best I can to my teacher may my teacher be a monk or nun. And out of kindness, our teacher will accept what we offered and not be offended may the offering be a Porsche or a small cheap car.
It is our sincere devotion that we offer what we can.
Therefore is not whether a nun should drive a Porsche but rather the giver should have given something more appropriate. Then is this not another judgement of our dualistic mind.