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Monks read email? A big part of Buddhism is getting rid of all materialism.
by overcast 11y ago
Monks read email? A big part of Buddhism is getting rid of all materialism.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoSame as priests and rabbis.
- nkrisc 11y agoSure, they're not cavemen.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoAlthough some are men who live in caves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cave_monasteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cave_monasteries
- overcast 11y agoThis was a legitimate question. A big part of Buddhism is getting rid of all materialism. They aren't even allowed to cook their own food, and can only eat before noon!
- yitchelle 11y agoWhy not, he even carries a MacAir with him.
- jmagoon 11y agoWhat about email implies materialism? You're also mixing different traditions here, that all have their own perspectives on what monks can and can't do. Materialism in the Buddhist sense is about mental attachment. Desire (attachment) stems from the mind, not the object itself (attachment is not a property of the object), and different meditation practices have different techniques to work with that mental attachment. Reducing your possessions is a very effective strategy in reducing attachment--but it certainly doesn't do anything without developing mental renunciation simultaneously. I'm curious if this is an American or Western perspective on poverty--that poverty itself is somehow liberating. In terms of email, there's nothing luddite about Tibetan Buddhism. Technology is embraced as another avenue for speech, which the mind can be attentive to.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- DINKDINK 11y agoI'm not sure each sect's restrictions but in Herzog's "lo and behold reveries of the connected world" it showed a group of Eastern monks using cellphone in the US
- reustle 11y agoI see monks all over se asia with smartphones
- JibberMeTimbers 11y agoConan recently went to a Korean Buddhist Temple and a monk there has two cell phones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMLnPeiwlR8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMLnPeiwlR8
- xkiwi 11y agoNot only they read emails. They also known driving Porsche, buying jewelry and more. http://www.19lou.com/forum-269-thread-38651591-1-1.html http://www.19lou.com/forum-269-thread-38651591-1-1.html http://career.51youcai.com/yule/2011/0706/124927.html http://career.51youcai.com/yule/2011/0706/124927.html http://news.thmz.com/col89/2012/04/2012-04-101102220.html http://news.thmz.com/col89/2012/04/2012-04-101102220.html
- overcast 11y agoSeems like today's Buddhist monks are nothing more than just an attraction for tourists at this point.