Post by: Dhammañāṇa on July 05, 2013, 11:28:18 AM
Quote from: Bhikkhu Sujato (https://sujato.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/the-first-jataka/#comment-15176)
Bhikkhu Sujato
You mentioned about the copyright. Actually, we have a copyright page ready, it is just not uploaded yet. Essentially our policy is this:
1. Ancient texts are in public domain.
2. Anything created by SuttaCentral is released under CC0 (equivalent to public doman).
3. Translations are in accordance with the pre-existing copyright licence, if there is one.
Since there is a list of contributors I also feel the need to make this public. So you are able to inform them (as it might be that they are not aware what happens with their gifts) or to abstain, to give them teachings of the Buddha, since they seem to work against right view and basics like "'There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions." and seek refuge in "righteous taken" rather to teach people not to take what is not given.
Quote
“And how is one made pure in three ways by mental action? There is the case where a certain person is not covetous. He does not covet the belongings of others and just takes what is in public domain, thinking, ‘O, that what belongs to others would be mine!’ He bears no ill will and is not corrupt in the resolves of his heart. [He thinks,] ‘May these beings be free from animosity, free from oppression, free from trouble, and may they look after themselves with ease!’ He has right view and is not warped in the way he sees things: ‘There is whatNote: this is a not allowed modification, but since it might make some irritation visible, I guess the author will have no problem with such a showcase. Bold text is added.is giventaken under public domain, what isofferedgiven to public domain, what issacrificedcommon possession. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions and no fruits form taking what is under public domain. There is this world & the next world, but who cares, we will not remember. Carpe diem as long there is something left!. There is mother & father but we have not ask them for anything and what they did is there stuff.. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are have maybe been maybe brahmans & contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’ This is how one is made pure common in three ways by mental action.”
— AN 10.176 (http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-sankappo/index_en.html)
This is the list of "co-workers" and supporter of the "getting Dhamma under Public Domain" undertaking of the Sutta(de)central project:
Bhante Sujato
John Kelly
Bhante Jhanarato
Bhante Nandiya
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Bhikkhu Anālayo
Bhikkhu Pāsādika
Bhikkhu Ñāṇatusita
Buddhist Studies Review
Sāmaṇerī Dhammadinnā
Bhikkhu Khemacāro
Bhikkhu Yuttadhammo
Bhikkhu Jaganātha
Bhikkhunī Nibbidā
Bhikkhu Araṇavihārī
Shravasti Dhammika
Bhikkhu Ānandajoti
Marcus Bingenheimer
Binh Anson
Alex Genaud
Charles Muller
Kumarī Jayawardena
Buddhist Society of WA
Buddhist Library (Sydney)
John Nishinaga
Amaradasa Liyanagamage
So please inform them, and/or stay away from them, if they even don't understand what they are doing.
Remakable is that most of them are also Dhamma seller, dealer or people who make a livelihood out of translation and teaching Dhamma... or simply social workers and slaves. Effect has its cause.
Note! That some are listed here, does not really mean that they are on the wrong path or reject Buddhas teachings, but they are involved and maybe not aware of it.
:-*
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on July 05, 2013, 05:33:00 PM
Quote from: sujato / Jul 5 2013 5:39 pm (https://sujato.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/the-first-jataka/#comment-15185)
Hi Johann,
I’m not sure what your problem here is. “Public Domain” just means that anyone can use it for anything, there is no control or ownership. CC0 is an attempt to come as close to Public Domain as current laws allow.
Quote from: Johann (Hanzze) / Jul 5 2013 8:11 pm (https://sujato.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/the-first-jataka/#comment-15185)
Dear Bhikkhu Sujato,
Yes, I am sure that you don’t understand the problem. People do not understand the different between given and taken. There are agreements within ordinary people (hunters and collectors) how to share the taken from common resources and of cause they need a field of common hunting ground. But in regard to right view, next to what is taken and thrown away , there are gifts, there is what is scarified.
If you just take form common hunting ground, of course you might be only able to share for the common hunting grounds. If you have received a gift (Note: not everybody as capable to receive a gift), that you will feel responsible for it, take care of it, and share as good possible if you like to share.
So if you work is dedicated for the common possession, fine. But if you throw all the valued things in the steam of common sense and common use, then you will not receive much valued gifts in the future.
I don’t know what should be the problem, if you put your work under your “domain” and share it as a gift and not declare it as something free to take.
The teachings of the Buddha are at least in the “domain” of the Sangha (8 pairs) and you should think twice, if you can act with that possession in this way. If your work is just a worldly work, directed to the world, that everything might be fine and it will stay and lead further in the world.
If you consciously dedicate your work for the noble Sangha, your mind directed to Nibbana and gratitude for your parents, ancestor, teachers and spiritual teachers as well as object of dedication, your work would be according what you should work for as a Bhikkhu and it would be work and gifts which are acceptable by people who abstain from what is not given. You could even, step by step, clean dirty things, so that a real literary SuttaCentral might be reestablished.
You should request (which you can not do in direction of everybody, specially lay people) the use, receive it consciously and dedicate it proper.
How can you ever teach basics to laypeople, if you do not value basic things for your self?
It would be not easy to recollect the teachings in a righteous way but it is the not easy that makes a person and an undertaking a special.
Of course, that all does not mean that we will forget about the hungry ghost and of course everything is dedicated for them as well. Those who have given in previous existences will be able to nourish on it as well.
Bhikkhu! Receive consciously and share and give consciously with whom you are ever allowed!! These are furthermore not all!
One fault causes 100 other faults and the stream will not end till we don’t abstain from the fault at first place.
I would really be happy to be able to dedicate all my work for SuttaCentral if it would be not clearly outside the frame of the Sangha and clearly dedicated in direction of the world and not Nibbana.
If you give,
give with mudita dedicated for Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha and the direction Nibbana
give with karuna dedicated for those who do not have found refugee in the 3 gems yet
give with metta dedicated for those not capable to receive your gift
give with upekkha dedicated for those who even develop ill will out of your gift.
It is not possible to make a dirty stream clear with a little cup of clear water, but it is possible to scoop, with patient and step by step, some clean water on the fordable and silent places of a dirty stream.
And if people recognize your good work, they will even share there stored water bottles, thinking: “This righteous acting person with understanding the basics of right view, is worthy to receive gifts”, let us dedicate it for the Sangha and let us assume him as a part of them.
Stay on earth and leave stupid ideas of common rights and equality.
Let me know as soon as Stutta – de – central has grown to SuttaCentral, has an owner and a worthy object to dedicate gifts. It would be really outstanding to find such in our now day wired grown world. “You can!…”
_()_
Quote from: Johann (Hanzze) / Jul 5 2013 8:27 pm (https://sujato.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/the-first-jataka/#comment-15185)
Maybe useful for one and the other, to understand the basics. I once wrote some words and they have been generously translated by Moritz R. into English as well: “Labour makes (you) free!?” Giving, taking and the “new” world. (http://forum.sangham.net/index.php?topic=622.msg1703#msg1703) May you be able to receive this gift even it is not the cream but still can nourish you well.
Don’t forget after you have done some work the traditional dedication, and if it does not fit to your work, don’t share it.
Puññassidāni katassa
Yānaññāni katāni me
Tesañca bhāgino hontu
Sattānantāppamāṇaka.
May all beings — without limit, without end —
have a share in the merit just now made,
and in whatever other merit I have made.
Ye piyā guṇavantā ca
Mayhaṃ mātā-pitādayo
Diṭṭhā me cāpyadiṭṭhā vā
Aññe majjhatta-verino;
Those who are dear & kind to me —
beginning with my mother & father —
whom I have seen or never seen;
and others, neutral or hostile;
Sattā tiṭṭhanti lokasmiṃ
Te-bhummā catu-yonikā
Pañc’eka-catuvokārā
Saṃsarantā bhavābhave:
beings established in the cosmos —
the three realms, the four modes of birth,
with five, one, or four aggregates —
wandering on from realm to realm:
Ñātaṃ ye pattidānam-me
Anumodantu te sayaṃ
Ye cimaṃ nappajānanti
Devā tesaṃ nivedayuṃ.
If they know of my dedication of merit,
may they themselves rejoice,
And if they do not know,
may the devas inform them.
Mayā dinnāna-puññānaṃ
Anumodana-hetunā
Sabbe sattā sadā hontu
Averā sukha-jīvino
By reason of their rejoicing
in my gift of merit,
may all beings always live happily,
free from animosity.
Khemappadañca pappontu
Tesāsā sijjhataṃ subhā.
May they attain the Serene State,
and their radiant hopes be fulfilled.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on November 06, 2013, 07:15:17 PM
Quote from: suttacentral - copyright (http://suttacentral.net/copyright)
(https://forum.sangham.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcreativecommons.org%2Fimages%2Fdeed%2Fseal.png&hash=eef0b76ef1170eefd308ac64cb6631e48ac4e668)
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
Public Domain Dedication
No Copyright
This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works.
The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.
You can copy, modify [2], distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes [1], all without asking permission. See Other Information below.
Other Information
In no way are the patent or trademark rights of any person affected by CC0, nor are the rights that other persons may have in the work or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
Unless expressly stated otherwise, the person who associated a work with this deed makes no warranties about the work [3], and disclaims liability for all uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
When using or citing the work, you should not imply endorsement by the author or the affirmer. [4]
So that is what you got by giving to people who serve the world.
[1] An approve and encouragement that Sangha Donations are at least to be sold and placed on the marked and all the other instances the wold offers for worldly gain.
[2] Approve and encouragement to do what ever you like with it modify it and call it the teachings of the Buddha, legally and approved
[3] They reject any, any responsibility for the work and wasted energies for their work. So its just for "lain" (game, playing around in Thai/Khmer language)
[4] naturally are ashamed and don't like to bothered, of course.
After all, it is suttacentral who gives and takes, no one knows what and who sutta central is at least. A legal person? A myths? A reincanation of Robin Hood?
And like all people who encourage others to have rights to take, rather to teach them abstain from what is not given and gratitude, they encourage people to reject the owner rights of others:
Quote
The original texts of Buddhism in Pali, Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other languages, are in the public domain. We believe that copyright assertions regarding such material have no legal basis. Nevertheless, we endeavor to use all materials with permission.
Maybe they believe that he texts have been carved in stone tablet by a supernatural being and so there is naturally no labor of others involved, who maybe don't give things.
This two fractions of Brahmans are really hopeless lost in their try to make Dhamma an worldly common creative or legal trademark.
I am not sure it they are aware, but it, it really does not look good and they don't like to lend an ear.
Friends! So much great work, so much money support and faith and finally such silly decisions. But that away, you are doing great work, so stand straight and give it with two hands consciously and with a dedication.
Dhamma does not keep people in the world so, don't fear to let go of common suffering and its roots.
To throw the Dhamma into to jungle, is really not a great idea. Is that all gratitude use you are able to develop in regard of it? It's really not about what others do, its about your intention and not of those who take not to speak of those who would receive what is given.
As for a Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni, he/she would be not able to touch something that is in Public domain. Even the most do not care about it, still there could be some left.
Friends! <.I.>
Quote
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1. means that you approve that this Dhamma is placed on porn sites of, in Disco's, in amusement medias as well
2. means that the work is of no moral value and the producer are not of special virtue
3. you approve a deliberated wrong imagination of author (Dhamma, Buddha)
4. You give it sectarians and slanderer free to use and ans modifiable, you approve such
5. Actually you limit the "extraction, dissemination, use and reuse" for people who don't approve such ways
6. You give it free to any use at all in the database industrie
7. You approve ever use (including misuse!) with it
Quote
Affirmer offers the Work as-is and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the Work, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including without limitation warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non infringement, or the absence of latent or other defects, accuracy, or the present or absence of errors, whether or not discoverable, all to the greatest extent permissible under applicable law.
As for Laws in some European countries, such a point is even for a law side not legal, thinking on consumer protection and capital laws, even if popular in internet, such has no foothold anywhere.
I don't need to speak about rejecting responsibility from a Dhammic side and its a sign for people of integrity that you take up responsibility for their work, full and even more as worldly laws would demand.
Not to speak about the end of "Evam", maybe we can change it in "googlam me sutaṃ", or "this have I found"...
samsaraṇaṃ gacchāmi...
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on November 06, 2013, 08:08:47 PM
Could not find any information as a very vague:
"The original texts of Buddhism in Pali, Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other languages, are in the public domain." and a link to the game-masters legal resource."
Is it really like that, or are they just taken and put as such?
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on November 06, 2013, 08:38:12 PM
Very important is also the relation to Sangha-property, which is not counted as given and so after all, can not be taken and handed out by single Bhikkhus.
As for putting "other" legal measures under something, it is actually the same like moving border stones.
Quote from: Buddhist Monastic Code I - Chapter 4 - ZzE (http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch04_en.html)
Pārājika
2. Should any bhikkhu, in what is reckoned a theft, take what is not given from an inhabited area or from the wilderness — just as when, in the taking of what is not given, kings arresting the criminal would flog, imprison, or banish him, saying, "You are a robber, you are a fool, you are benighted, you are a thief" — a bhikkhu in the same way taking what is not given also is defeated and no longer in affiliation.
This rule against stealing is, in the working out of its details, the most complex in the Pāṭimokkha and requires the most explanation — not because stealing is a concept especially hard to understand, but because it can take so many forms. The Canon treats the issue in a case-by-case fashion that resists easy summary. To further complicate matters, the Commentary's discussion of this rule is extremely prolix and deviates frequently from the Canon's in both major and minor ways. Because the deviations are so numerous, we will focus solely on the major ones.
The Vibhaṅga defines the act of stealing in terms of four factors.
1) Object: anything belonging to another human being or a group of human beings.
2) Perception: One perceives the object as belonging to another human being or a group of human beings.
3) Intention: One decides to steal it.
4) Effort: One takes it.
Stealing under any circumstances is always an offense. However, the severity of the offense depends on another factor, which is —
5) The value of the object.
Object. For an object to qualify as what is not given — the rule's term for anything that may be the object of a theft — it must belong to someone else: "not given, not forfeited, not abandoned/discarded; guarded, protected, claimed (§ — literally, 'viewed as "mine"'), possessed by someone else." In all of the Vibhaṅga's cases under this rule, that "someone else" is either an individual human being or a group of human beings. The question of property belonging to the Saṅgha logically fits here, but because the topic is fairly complex we will discuss it as a special case below.
Because items that have been given away or discarded do not fulfil the factor of object here, there is no offense for a bhikkhu who takes a discarded object — such as rags from a pile of refuse — or unclaimed items from a wilderness. The Commentary, in some of its examples, includes items given up for lost under "abandoned," but this interpretation has to be heavily qualified. If the owner retains a sense of ownership for the lost item, it would fall under the term claimed, and thus would still count as not given. Only if the owner abandons all sense of ownership would it genuinely count as abandoned.
The Vinita-vatthu mentions an interesting case in which the groundskeeper in an orchard permits bhikkhus to take fruit from the orchard, even though he was not authorized to do so. The bhikkhus committed no offense.
The Commentary adds that if people are guarding an object as the property of a location — for example, an offering to a Buddha image, cetiya, or other sacred place — the object would also qualify as "not given" under this rule. Although the Vibhaṅga mentions property of this sort under NP 30 and Pc 82, for some reason it doesn't mention it here. Nevertheless, the Commentary's judgment on this point reflects a custom that had become widespread by its time, that of giving valuable items to a cetiya (this includes Buddha images) and dedicating them not to the Saṅgha but to the cetiya. Some medieval Indian Buddhist inscriptions express the idea that the cetiya or the Buddha relics (if any) within the cetiya actually own such objects, but the Commentary states that these objects have an owner simply in the sense that human beings are watching over them for the purpose of the cetiya. The jewels decorating the reliquary of the Sacred Tooth in Kandy or the offerings to the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, for example, would fall under this category. According to the Commentary, the Saṅgha is duty-bound to care for such items but has no rights of ownership over them. In its discussion both of this rule and of Pv.XIX, it states that items given to the Saṅgha may be used for the purpose of the cetiya — for example, to contribute to its decoration or upkeep — but items given to the cetiya may not be used for the purpose of the Saṅgha.
From the Commentary's discussion of this type of ownership, it would appear that if there are no longer any human beings watching over a cetiya, the items donated to it would no longer count as having an owner and thus could be removed for safekeeping, preferably to another cetiya. Any bhikkhu who took such items for himself, however, would be risking the wrath of the devas who might be guarding the cetiya. This is why it is traditional in such cases to conduct a ceremony formally requesting the permission of any guardian devas, at the same time promising not to take such items for one's own use.
Items belonging to common animals or petas are not covered by this rule. On this point, see the discussion under Non-offenses, below.
Perception. For the act of taking what is not given to count as theft, one must also perceive the object as not given. Thus there is no offense if one takes an object, even if it is not given, if one sincerely believes that it is ownerless or thrown away. Similarly, if a bhikkhu takes an object mistaking it for his own or as belonging to a friend who has given him permission to take his things on trust, there is no offense even if the assumption about the trust proves to be a misperception. Also, a bhikkhu who takes things from the Community's common stores, on the assumption that he has the right to help himself, commits no offense even if the assumption proves false.
The Vinita-vatthu contains a case in which a bhikkhu, spotting some objects during the day, returns to steal them at night. However, instead of taking the objects he spotted, he ends up taking some possessions of his own. He earns a dukkaṭa for his efforts.
None of the texts discuss the possible case in which one might be in doubt as to whether the object in question is not given, perhaps because the compilers felt that the factor of intention, discussed next, would not apply in such cases. Thus it would not be an offense under this rule. However, the wise policy when one is in doubt about an item's ownership would be not to take the item for one's own, or at most to take it on loan, as explained below.
Intention. The act of taking what is not given, even when one perceives it as not given, counts as theft only if one's intention is to steal it. Thus, as the non-offense clauses say, a bhikkhu incurs no offense if he takes an object temporarily or on trust. On these points, see the discussion under Non-offenses, below. Also, the Vinita-vatthu rules that a bhikkhu who, seeing an article left in a place where it might be damaged, puts it in safe keeping for the owner, commits no offense.
The Commentary discusses two cases of taking an item with a conditional intent (parikappāvahāra): placing a condition on the article, and placing a condition on the place. It illustrates the first case with the example of a bhikkhu entering a dark storeroom and taking a sack full of items, thinking, "If the sack contains cloth, I'll steal it; if it contains just thread, I won't." In this case, if the sack does indeed contain cloth, then it was stolen the moment the bhikkhu moved the sack from its place (see below). If it contains just thread, and he returns it to its place, he commits no offense. If, however, the bhikkhu takes the sack thinking, "I'll steal whatever is in the sack," the Commentary maintains that he is not guilty of stealing until he finds out what the sack contains and then picks it up again, but this case does not really fit under this category, as the bhikkhu has actually placed no condition on the article and so stole it when he first picked it up.
Placing a condition on the place means thinking, "If I can take this item past such-and-such a place (such as a gateway), I'll steal it; if anyone sees me beforehand, I'll pretend that I'm just looking at it and will return it to its place." Because one has not definitely decided to steal it when first picking it up, the theft is committed only when one takes the item past the determined place.
Effort. Assuming that all of the above conditions are met — the object belongs to someone else, one perceives it as belonging to someone else, and one intends to steal it — if one then takes it, that constitutes stealing. The question then arises as to precisely what acts constitute taking.
The Vibhaṅga, instead of giving a systematic answer to this question, provides a long list of possible situations and then defines how taking is defined in each case. Simply reading through the list can require some patience, and it's easy to sympathize with the bhikkhus in the past who had to memorize it. Here, to shorten the discussion, we will reverse its order, listing first the actions that qualify as taking and then the situations to which the actions apply. Actions requiring only minor clarification will be explained in the list; those requiring extended discussion will be explained below.
Moving the object from its place: objects buried in the ground; sitting on the ground; sitting on another object sitting on the ground; hanging from a place above ground, such as a peg or clothesline; floating, flying, or dropping in mid-air; sitting in a boat; sitting in a vehicle; an object that one has caused another person to drop; footless animals, animals that one might pick up or push from their place (according to the Commentary, this also covers larger footed animals that are lying down); objects that one has been asked to guard. The Vibhaṅga makes clear that items in a vehicle also count as taken when the vehicle is moved from its place.
"Cutting off" a fistful: objects inside a container. According to the Commentary, this means reaching into the container and grabbing, say, a fistful of coins in such a way that the coins in the fist do not touch any of the other coins in the container. In this case, the taking would be accomplished before the object was removed from the container.
Sticking a vessel into a pool of liquid or pile of objects and causing some of the pool or pile to enter the vessel: objects inside a container; water or any liquid, whether in a container or not. Again, the Commentary states that the objects or liquid in one's vessel must not touch the remaining objects or liquid outside the vessel. And, again, in the case of taking objects or liquid situated in a container in this way, the taking would be accomplished before the objects or liquid were removed from the container.
Removing entirely from the mouth of a container: objects too long or large to be taken from a container in a vessel or fistful.
Drinking liquid from a container: This would apply to drinking from the container without moving the container from its place. If the container is moved from its place, that would constitute the taking. As with the fistful, the Commentary argues that the liquid is taken only when the liquid ingested does not make contact with the liquid not ingested. This can be done either by swallowing, by closing one's lips, or by removing one's mouth from the container.
Moving the object from one part of one's body to another: an object that one is already carrying before deciding to steal it. The Vibhaṅga recognizes five body parts here: head, upper torso, hip, and each of the hands. The Commentary defines head as anything above the neck; upper torso as anything below the head down, on the torso, to the level of the sternum, and on the arm, to the elbow; hip as the remainder of the body below the upper torso; and hand as the arm from the elbow on down. The Commentary notes that this definition applies only to cases where the owners have not asked one to carry the article for them. Neither the Commentary nor the Sub-commentary explains this condition, but a possible reason might be that if they have asked a bhikkhu to carry the article for them, without their intending for him to give it to someone else, it would count as guarded by him or deposited with him for safe keeping, and thus would fall under another category. If, on the other hand, they asked him to carry the object to give to someone else and he decided to take it for himself, the case would come under Deceit, discussed below.
Dropping the object: an object one is already carrying before deciding to steal it.
Causing the object to move a hairbreadth upstream, downstream, or across a body of water: a boat or any similar vessel floating in water.
Breaking an embankment so that water flows out: water in a lake, canal, or reservoir.
Causing an animal to move all its feet: two-footed (this includes human beings, i.e., slaves), four-footed, many-footed animals. According to the Commentary, this applies whether one touches the animal or simply lures it or threatens it without touching it. If the animal is lying down, simply getting it to get up on its feet counts as taking it. In the case of helping a slave to escape from slavery, if the slave follows one's order or advice to escape, one is guilty of taking; but if one simply informs the slave of good ways to reach freedom or offers food or protection along the way, one incurs no offense.
Cutting down: plants growing in place, whether on dry land or in a body of water. The Commentary states that once the plant is cut totally through, then even though it doesn't yet fall down — as when a tree is entangled in the branches of neighboring trees — it is nevertheless taken.
Causing the owner to give up efforts (§) to regain possession: pieces of land (fields, orchards, building sites), buildings, objects deposited with a bhikkhu for safekeeping. (According to the Commentary, items loaned to a bhikkhu also fall into this category.) According to the Vibhaṅga, if a case of this sort goes to court, this type of taking is completed when the owner finally loses the case. The Vinaya-mukha adds that if the owner appeals the case after the first hearing, the taking is accomplished when the owner loses in the highest court to which he/she makes an appeal.
The discussion in the Commentary and Sub-commentary indicates that the two categories of "objects a bhikkhu has been asked to guard," and "objects deposited with a bhikkhu for safe keeping" differ in that in the latter case the object has been handed to the bhikkhu, whereas in the former it hasn't. This, however, does not fit with the Vibhaṅga, which in defining "deposited" uses the word upanikkhitaṃ, which in NP 18 means "placed down next to." A way to distinguish the two categories more closely in line with the Vibhaṅga would be to say that, in the latter case, the object is in such a location that the owner, in order to retrieve it, would have to ask the bhikkhu's permission to do so, whereas in the former he/she wouldn't. For example, an item placed in the bhikkhu's hut or a monastery storeroom would count as deposited with the bhikkhu — regardless of whether it had been handed to him — whereas an item set by the side of a public road — with the bhikkhu simply asked to watch over it for a short period of time — would count as an object he has been asked to guard.
Shifting a boundary marker: pieces of land. The Vinaya-mukha notes that this contradicts the preceding definition of how one takes a piece of land, as the owner might not even know that the marker had been moved, and would not necessarily give up ownership even if he/she saw a bhikkhu moving it. The Sub-commentary tries to explain the discrepancy by maintaining that shifting a boundary marker fulfils the factor of effort here only if the act of shifting the marker, in and of itself, induces the owner to give up any efforts to reclaim the land, but that would make this category superfluous. A better explanation would be that this definition of taking applies to attempts to lay claim to Saṅgha land, for otherwise — if land can be stolen only when the owner abandons ownership — then Saṅgha land could not be stolen, because there is no one acting for the Saṅgha of the Four Directions who could renounce once and for all any efforts to reclaim the land.
Exchanging lottery tickets: See Swindling, below.
Taking a dutiable item through a customs area without paying duty: See Smuggling, below.
Of these various ways of taking, the Commentary devotes the most space to the first, "moving the object from its place." Its discussion is at odds with the Canon on many points, most notably in striking out the separate categories for taking large objects from a container (removing it entirely from the mouth of a container) and boats (causing them to move a hair-breadth upstream, downstream, or across a body of water), and simply subsuming them under this category. Although it may have regarded these separate categories as arbitrary, it introduces many arbitrary distinctions and inconsistencies of its own. Apparently its distinctions come from the ancient commentaries, for even Buddhaghosa expresses despair at trying to commit them all to writing. Here we will stick with the Canon's scheme for defining the act of taking, and focus on the parts of the Commentary's discussion that accord with the Canon. As for those that deviate from the Canon, only important deviations will be noted.
In general, the Commentary defines an object's place in terms of the directions in which it can be moved: up, down (as when an object sitting on sand can be pushed down into the sand), left, right, forward (toward the person taking it), and away. With reference to the last five of these actions, the place of the object is defined in three-dimensional terms: the space it occupies. Thus to take an object in any of these directions, one must push or pull it entirely outside of the coordinates of the space it initially occupied. However, with reference to lifting the object up, the place is defined in two-dimensional terms: the area of contact between the object and its support, whether that support is another object or the ground. Thus to take an object by lifting it, one only need lift it a hairbreadth from its support.
For example, a television set on a shelf is taken either when it is slid left along the shelf to the point where its right side is just left of where the left side used to be, or slid right to the point where its left side is just right of where the right side used to be, or lifted a hairbreadth off the shelf.
Because objects in the air have no support, the Commentary defines their space in three-dimensional terms no matter which direction they are moved. For instance, if one catches a piece of cloth being blown by the wind, its place is the three-dimensional space it occupies at the moment one catches it. If one stops a flying peacock without touching it, its place is the three-dimensional space it occupies at the moment it stops to hover. In either case, the object is taken when displaced any direction outside the coordinates of that space. In the case of the cloth, this could be done simply by dropping it. In the case of the peacock, it could be done by waving one's hands and getting it to fly in the desired direction. If the peacock happens to land on one's arm, it is taken when one moves it to another part of one's body or puts it down.
For animals swimming in water, it would make sense to define place in the same terms as birds flying in the air, but the Commentary insists that the entire body of water in which they are kept constitutes their place.
Objects on a living person — such as a bracelet on the person's arm — have the person's body as their place. Thus if, in trying to remove the bracelet, one pulls it up and down the arm, it is not yet taken. It is taken only when one removes it entirely from the hand. If one is stealing the person's clothes, they are taken only when removed from his/her body. If the person, stripped of the clothes, is still holding onto them, they are taken only when pulled from his/her hand.
For some objects, the Commentary defines place in terms that seem rather arbitrary. For instance, a robe on a line is taken when it is lifted a hairbreadth off the line, but for some reason if it is moved along the line it is not taken until it is ten or twelve fingerbreadths away from the area it originally occupied on the line. An object leaning against a wall has two places: the spot where it sits on the ground and the spot it touches on the wall. A vehicle's place is defined two-dimensionally: the spots where its wheels touch the ground (perhaps this is defined on analogy with the feet of an animal). An object tied to a post has that connection as an extra part of its place. Thus a pot tied by a chain to a post is not taken until it is removed from the area it occupied under the general definition above and either the chain is cut or the post pulled up. Although there is a certain logic to each of these cases, the added distinctions seem unnecessary complications added to an already complicated issue. For simplicity's sake there would seem every reason to stick with the general definition of place even in these special cases, although there is nothing in the Vibhaṅga to prove or disprove the Commentary here.
However, as noted above, several of the Commentary's definitions of place clearly contradict the Vibhaṅga. In some cases, the contradiction is simple, as when the Commentary insists that an animal kept in an enclosure — a cow in a pen, a peacock in a garden — is taken not when its feet are moved, but only when removed from the enclosure. In other cases, the contradiction is more complex, in that the Commentary tries to define taking as "moving the object from its place" in cases where the Vibhaṅga defines the act of taking in other terms. For example, with an object sitting in the bottom of a container, it says that the object is taken when lifted a hairbreadth from the bottom, there being no need to remove the object from the container before it is considered taken. In the case of a boat, the Commentary defines the place of the boat in modified three-dimensional terms: the entire space where the boat displaces water. To take it by pushing it down in the water, the top of the boat has to sink lower than the level where the keel originally was; to take it by lifting it up, one need only lift it a hairbreadth above the water, there being no need to lift the keel to a point higher than where the highest point of the boat was. However, because the Vibhaṅga does not define the taking of boats or objects in containers in terms of "moving the object from its place," the Commentary's analysis of these possibilities is beside the point.
Other special cases in the Vibhaṅga include the following:
a. Swindling: Objects are being distributed by lot to the Community, and a bhikkhu takes the portion rightfully going to another bhikkhu. The Vibhaṅga offers no further explanation, but the Commentary states that the taking can be accomplished in various ways. If, after the drawing of the tickets, X puts his ticket in the place of Y's ticket before picking up Y's, the taking is accomplished when he picks up Y's. If he picks up Y's before putting his own ticket in its place, the taking is accomplished when he lets go of his own. If both tickets don't appear (they've been concealed?) and X gets Y to take X's portion, the taking is accomplished when he then picks up Y's portion. The underlying assumption in all this is that Y's portion belongs to him as soon as he has drawn the ticket for it. The Commentary adds that this exchange counts as theft regardless of whether X's portion is worth more than Y's, less than Y's, or the two portions are of equal value.
The Commentary to Mv.I.62 adds that if a bhikkhu claims higher seniority than is actually his in order to obtain better donations, he should be treated under this rule when, through this ruse, he obtains donations that should have gone to another bhikkhu. However, this type of action would appear to fall under Deceit, discussed below.
b. Smuggling: A bhikkhu carrying items subject to an import duty hides them as he goes through customs. The taking is accomplished when the item leaves the customs area. The Vibhaṅga calculates the value of the object here, for the purpose of determining the seriousness of the offense, by the duty owed on it, and not its actual selling price.
The Vinita-vatthu states that there is no penalty if the bhikkhu goes through customs not knowing that he has an item subject to import duties among his effects. The Commentary adds that if a bhikkhu informs the customs official that he has an item subject to customs duty and yet the official decides not to collect the duty, the bhikkhu incurs no penalty. It also states that if a bhikkhu goes through customs with a conditional intent — "If they ask to see my belongings, I'll pay the fee, but if they wave me through I won't" — then if the officials do wave him through without asking to see his belongings, he incurs no offense. At present, when people entering a country are asked to choose different passageways through a customs area, marked "Goods to declare" and "Nothing to declare," a bhikkhu with goods to declare who enters the "Nothing to declare" passageway cannot take advantage of this allowance for conditional intent, as he has already indicated an unconditional intent through his choice of a passageway.
The Vibhaṅga states that if, to avoid paying an import duty at a frontier, one crosses the frontier in such a way as to evade the customs area (§), one incurs only a dukkaṭa. At present, the civil law judges this sort of behavior as more reprehensible than slipping an item through customs, but from the point of view of the Vinaya the lesser penalty still holds. The Commentary says that this allowance applies only in cases when one evades the customs area by a distance of more than two leḍḍupātas — approximately 36 meters. (A leḍḍupāta is a unit of measure that appears frequently in the Canon and is defined as the distance a man of average stature can throw a clod of dirt underarm.)
The Vibhaṅga's position here is important to understand, for it has implications concerning the extent to which the evasion of other government fees and taxes would fall under this rule. The underlying assumption here seems to be that a dutiable item carried into a customs area is impounded by the king (or government). The payment of the duty is thus an act of recovering full ownership of the item. An item carried across the frontier without entering the customs area would not count as impounded, even though the king would probably claim the right to impound or even confiscate it if his agents apprehended the smuggler. Translated into modern terms, this would indicate that the evasion of other taxes claimed by the government — such as inheritance taxes — would incur the full penalty here only if the item being taxed was impounded on government property, and one evaded the tax by taking the item out of impoundment without paying the required fee. Otherwise, the penalty for tax evasion would be a dukkaṭa.
None of the texts discuss the question of contraband, i.e., articles that a customs official would confiscate outright rather than allow into a country after the payment of a fee. Apparently, such goods smuggled through a customs house would fall into this category, although — as even the payment of a fee would not legally get them through customs — their selling value would be the determining factor in calculating the seriousness of the offense.
c. Malfeasance: The Vinita-vatthu includes an unusual case in which a wealthy man with two heirs — a son and a nephew — tells Ven. Ajjuka, "When I am gone, show the place (where my treasure is buried) (§) to whichever of my heirs has the greater faith." After the man's death, Ven. Ajjuka sees that the nephew has the greater faith and so shows the place of the treasure to him. The nephew awards the Saṅgha with a large donation; the son accuses Ven. Ajjuka of having wrongfully deprived him of his rightful inheritance. On hearing this, Ven. Ānanda first accuses Ven. Ajjuka of a pārājika, but when the wealthy man's wishes are revealed, Ven. Upāli convinces Ven. Ānanda that Ven. Ajjuka committed no offense.
None of the texts discuss the details of this case, which seems to have postdated the Buddha's parinibbāna. The apparent assumption underlying the ruling is that when X dies, the inheritance he leaves to Y belongs to Y from the moment of X's death. Otherwise, the items in question would be ownerless until apportioned out among the heirs, and thus would not fulfill the factor of object under this rule. Also, the taking in this case would be accomplished in line with the Vibhaṅga's standard definition for taking with regard to the objects involved — and not necessarily when the cheated heir gives up trying to reclaim the inheritance — for in Ven. Ajjuka's case Ven. Ānanda was ready to impose a pārājika even though the son had not abandoned his claim.
d. Destruction of property: The Vibhaṅga states that if a bhikkhu breaks, scatters, burns, or otherwise renders unusable the property of another person, he incurs a dukkaṭa. Thus the simple destruction of property does not fulfill the factor of effort under this rule. The Vinita-vatthu contains a case in which a bhikkhu intends to steal some grass belonging to the Community but ends up setting fire to it instead, thus incurring a dukkaṭa. The Commentary notes that this ruling applies only because the bhikkhu did not move the grass from its place. What this means is that if he had first taken the grass from its place and then destroyed it in any way, the factor of effort under this rule would have been fulfilled and — all other factors of a pārājika offense being present — he would have been guilty of the full offense.
Special cases cited in the Commentary include the following:
a. False dealing: A bhikkhu makes counterfeit money or uses counterfeit weights. The taking is accomplished when the counterfeit is accepted. This case, however, would seem to fall under the category of Deceit (see below), in that the counterfeit is a form of a lie. If the owner of an object accepts the counterfeit and hands over an object in return, the object cannot be described as stolen. However, the object obtained in trade in this way would have to be forfeited under NP 20, and the Community, if it felt so inclined, could impose a disciplinary transaction on the offender (see BMC2, Chapter 20).
b. Robbery: Using threats, a bhikkhu compels the owner of an object to give it to him. The taking is accomplished when the owner complies. This would not count as giving because the owner is not giving the item willingly.
c. Concealing: A bhikkhu finds an object left on the ground and, to deceive the owner, covers it with dirt or leaves with the intent of stealing it later. If the owner, after searching for the item, temporarily abandons the search and the bhikkhu then picks it up, it is stolen when removed from its base. If the owner, deciding that the item is lost, abandons it for good before the bhikkhu picks it up, the Commentary says that the bhikkhu is not guilty of theft but owes the owner compensation. We have discussed the topic of lost items above, under Object, and will discuss the topic of compensation below.
The value of the object. As stated above, any case of stealing counts as an offense, but the gravity of the offense is determined by the value of the object. This is the point of the phrase in the rule reading, "just as when there is the taking of what is not given, kings... would banish him, saying... 'You are a thief.'" In other words, for a theft to entail a pārājika it must be a criminal case, which in the time of the Buddha meant that the goods involved were worth at least five māsakas, a unit of money used at the time. Goods valued collectively at more than one māsaka but less than five are grounds for a thullaccaya; goods valued collectively at one māsaka or less, grounds for a dukkaṭa. As the Commentary notes, the value of the articles is determined by the price they would have fetched at the time and place of the theft. As stated above, in the case of smuggling the Vibhaṅga measures the value of the object, for the purpose of this rule, as the duty owed on it, not the value of the object itself.
This leaves us with the question of how a māsaka would translate into current monetary rates. No one can answer this question with any certainty, for the oldest attempt to peg the māsaka to the gold standard dates from the V/Sub-commentary, which sets one māsaka as equal to 4 rice grains' weight of gold. At this rate, the theft of an item worth 20 rice grains' (1/24 troy ounce) weight of gold or more would be a pārājika offense.
One objection to this method of calculation is that some of the items mentioned in the Vinita-vatthu as grounds for a pārājika when stolen — e.g., a pillow, a bundle of laundry, a raft, a handful of rice during a famine — would seem to be worth much less than 1/24 troy ounce of gold. However, we must remember that many items regarded as commonplace now may have been viewed as expensive luxuries at the time.
In addition, there is one very good reason for adopting the standard set by the V/Sub-commentary: It sets a high value for the least article whose theft would result in a pārājika. Thus when a bhikkhu steals an item worth 1/24 troy ounce of gold or more, there can be no doubt that he has committed the full offense. When the item is of lesser value, there will be inescapable doubt — and when there is any doubt concerning a pārājika, the tradition of the Vinaya consistently gives the bhikkhu the benefit of the doubt: He is not expelled. A basic principle operating throughout the texts is that it is better to risk letting an offender go unpunished than to risk punishing an innocent bhikkhu.
There is a second advantage to the V/Sub-commentary's method of calculation: its precision and clarity. Some people have recommended adopting the standard expressed in the rule itself — that if the theft would result in flogging, imprisonment, or banishment by the authorities in that time and at that place, then the theft would constitute a pārājika — but this standard creates more problems than it would solve. In most countries the sentence is largely at the discretion of the judge or magistrate, and the factor of value is only one among many taken into account when determining the penalty. This opens a whole Pandora's box of issues, many of which have nothing to do with the bhikkhu or the object he has taken — the judge's mood, his social philosophy, his religious background, and so forth — issues that the Buddha never allowed to enter into the consideration of how to determine the penalty for a theft.
Thus the V/Sub-commentary's method of calculation has the benefits that it is a quick and easy method for determining the boundaries between the different levels of offense in any modern currency; it involves no factors extraneous to the tradition of the Vinaya, and — as noted above — it draws the line at a value above which there can be no doubt that the penalty is a pārājika.
The Commentary, arguing from two cases in the Vinita-vatthu, states that if a bhikkhu steals several items on different occasions, the values of the different items are added together to determine the severity of the offense only if they were stolen as part of a single plan or intention. If they are stolen as a result of separate intentions, each act of stealing is treated as a separate offense whose severity depends on the value of the individual item(s) stolen in that act. This point is best explained with examples:
In one of the Vinita-vatthu cases, a bhikkhu steals ghee from a jar "little by little." This, according to the Commentary, means that first he decides to steal a spoonful of ghee from a jar. After swallowing the spoonful, he decides to steal one more. After that he decides to steal another, and so on until he has finished the jar. Because each spoonful was stolen as a consequence of a separate plan or intention, he incurs several dukkaṭas, each for the theft of one spoonful of ghee.
If, however, he decides at one point to steal enough lumber to build himself a hut and then steals a plank from here and a rafter from there, taking lumber over many days at different places from various owners, he commits one offense in accordance with the total value of all the lumber stolen, inasmuch as he took all the pieces of wood as a consequence of one prior plan.
Derived offenses. In addition to the lesser offenses related to the value of the object, the Vibhaṅga also lists lesser offenses related to two factors of the full offense under this rule: effort and perception.
With regard to effort, the Vibhaṅga states that the derived offenses begin when one walks toward the object with the intent of stealing it, with each separate act — and in the case of walking toward the object, each step — incurring a dukkaṭa, up to a point just prior to the actual stealing where the offenses turn into thullaccayas. Where this point occurs depends on the act constituting the actual taking, as follows:
Moving the object from its place: all steps up through touching the object: dukkaṭas. Making the object budge without fully moving it from its place: a thullaccaya.
"Cutting off" a fistful: all steps up through touching the object: dukkaṭas. Making the object budge without fully cutting off a fistful: a thullaccaya.
Sticking a vessel into a pool of liquid or pile of objects and causing some of the pool or pile to enter the vessel: all steps up through touching the pool or pile: dukkaṭas. Making the pool or pile budge without fully getting five māsakas worth separated from the pool or pile and inside the vessel: a thullaccaya.
Removing entirely from the mouth of a container: all steps up through touching the object: dukkaṭas. Lifting the object: a thullaccaya. Bringing it up to the level of the mouth of the container: another thullaccaya.
Drinking liquid from a container: all steps up through drinking one māsaka worth of liquid as part of one prior plan (§): dukkaṭas. Drinking between one and five māsakas' worth of liquid: a thullaccaya.
Moving the object from one part of one's body to another or dropping it: all steps up through touching the object with the intent to move it or drop it: dukkaṭas. Moving it but not to the point of putting it on another part of the body or dropping it: a thullaccaya.
Causing a boat to move a hair-breadth upstream, downstream, or across a body of water: all steps up through loosening the moorings and/or touching it: dukkaṭas. Making the boat rock without causing it to move a hair-breadth upstream, downstream, or across a body of water: a thullaccaya.
Breaking an embankment so that water flows out: all steps up through breaking the embankment and letting up to one māsaka's worth of water flow out: dukkaṭas. Letting between one and five māsakas' worth of water flow out: a thullaccaya.
Causing an animal to move all its feet: all steps up through touching the animal: dukkaṭas. Getting it to move any of its feet prior to its moving its last foot: a thullaccaya for each step.
Cutting down: all steps prior to the next to the last chop needed to cut the plant through: dukkaṭas. The next to the last chop: a thullaccaya.
Causing the owner to give up efforts (§) to regain possession of objects handed to one for safe keeping: all steps up through telling the owner, "I didn't receive (§) it": dukkaṭas. Inducing doubt in the owner's mind as to whether he/she will get the object back: a thullaccaya. If the case goes to court and the bhikkhu loses, he incurs another thullaccaya.
Causing the owner to give up efforts (§) to regain possession of land: all steps us to laying claim to the land: dukkaṭas. Inducing doubt in the owner's mind as to whether he/she will lose the land: a thullaccaya. Again, if the case goes to court and the bhikkhu loses, he incurs another thullaccaya.
Shifting a boundary marker: all steps up through removing the boundary marker from its original place: dukkaṭas. Any steps between that and putting the boundary marker in a new place: thullaccayas.
Taking a dutiable item through a customs area without paying duty: all steps up through touching the object with the intent of taking it out of the customs area: dukkaṭas. Making the object move without fully moving it from the customs area: a thullaccaya.
The commentaries state that when a heavier penalty is incurred in offenses of this sort, only that penalty is counted, and the preceding lighter ones are nullified. They derive this principle from a passage in the Vibhaṅga to Sg 10-13 and, using the Great Standards, apply it to all the rules. Thus, for example, if a bhikkhu trying to steal a book simply touches it, he incurs a string of dukkaṭas for each step in walking up to the book and taking hold of it. If he budges the book slightly but not so much as to move it completely from its place, the dukkaṭas are nullified and replaced with a thullaccaya. If he actually takes the book, that nullifies the thullaccaya and replaces it with a pārājika.
There is some question, though, as to whether the compilers of the Canon intended the passage under Sg 10-13 to be taken as a general principle. They don't mention it under any of the other saṅghādisesa rules or in the otherwise parallel passage in the Vibhaṅga to Pc 68. Thus, the principle seems intended only for those four rules. To be on the strict side, it seems best to say that, unless otherwise noted, a bhikkhu who completes an act must make amends for all the offenses incurred in leading up to it. Under the pārājika rules this is a moot point, for once the pārājika is committed the offender is no longer a bhikkhu. But under the lesser rules this principle is still relevant.
As for the derived offenses related to the factor of perception, these deal with the situation in which an article does not qualify as not given under this rule — e.g., it has no owner, or the owner has given it up or thrown it away — and yet the bhikkhu perceives it as not given. If he takes it with intent to steal, he incurs a dukkaṭa for each of the three stages of effort. In the case of an object that can be stolen by moving it from its place, these would be: touching the object, making it budge, moving it from its place. A similar set of offenses would apply in the stages appropriate for taking any of the other types of objects listed above.
Accomplices. A bhikkhu can commit an offense not only if he himself steals an object, but also if he incites another to steal. The offenses involved in the acts leading up to the theft are as follows:
If a bhikkhu tells an accomplice to take an object that would be grounds for a pārājika, he incurs a dukkaṭa. When the accomplice agrees to do so, the instigator incurs a thullaccaya. Once the accomplice succeeds in taking the object as instructed — regardless of whether he gets away with it, and of whether he shares it with the instigator — the instigator incurs a pārājika. If the accomplice is a bhikkhu, he too incurs a pārājika. If the object would be grounds for a thullaccaya or a dukkaṭa, the only penalties incurred prior to the actual theft would be dukkaṭas.
The Commentary insists that if the accomplice is sure to take the item, the bhikkhu incurs a pārājika as soon as the accomplice agrees to take it. However, as the Vinaya-mukha notes, this contradicts the Canon, and there is no way to measure whether a proposed theft is a sure thing or not.
If there is any confusion in carrying out the instructions — e.g., if the accomplice, instead of taking the object specified by the instigator, takes something else instead; or if he is told to take it in the afternoon but instead takes it in the morning — the instigator incurs only the penalties for proposing the theft and persuading the accomplice, and not the penalty for the theft itself. The same holds true if the instigator rescinds his order before the theft takes place, but the accomplice goes ahead and takes the object anyway.
According to the Vibhaṅga, an instigator who wishes to call off the theft before it is carried out but who for one reason or another cannot get his message to the accomplice in time, incurs the full penalty for the completed theft.
The Commentary also adds that the factor of the thief's perception does not affect the penalties. In other words, if Bhikkhu A tells Bhikkhu B to steal object X, and B takes Y, thinking it to be X, A is absolved of any responsibility for the theft. Conversely, if B takes X, thinking it to be Y, A is guilty of the theft.
The Vibhaṅga also notes that if an instigator tells his accomplice to take an item when he (the instigator) makes a sign — such as winking (§) his eye, lifting his eyebrow, or lifting his head — he incurs a dukkaṭa in making this order, a thullaccaya if the accomplice agrees to do as told, and the full offense when the accomplice actually takes the item at the time of the sign. If the accomplice takes the item before or after the sign, though, the instigator incurs no offense. The Sub-commentary, noting that the signs mentioned in the Vibhaṅga are so fleeting that it would be impossible to take the item at the very moment of the sign, interprets this last statement as follows: If the accomplice starts trying to take the item right after the sign, then regardless of how much time that takes, it counts as "at the time of the sign." Only if he makes an appreciable delay before attempting the theft does it count as "after the sign."
We can extrapolate from this discussion and say that any physical gesture that, from the context of events, is intended and understood as an order to take an item, would count under the factor of effort here. This extrapolation will be useful when treating the unauthorized use of credit cards, below.
The Vibhaṅga states that if there is a chain of command involving two or more bhikkhus (not counting the instigator) — for example, Bhikkhu A telling Bhikkhu B to tell Bhikkhu C to tell Bhikkhu D to commit the theft — then when D agrees to commit the theft, the instigator incurs a thullaccaya. Once D takes the object as instructed, all four incur the penalty coming from the theft. If there is any confusion in the chain of command — e.g., Bhikkhu B instead of telling C tells D directly — neither A nor C incurs the penalty for the theft itself. Bhikkhu A would incur a dukkaṭa for telling B, whereas C would incur no penalty at all.
The Commentary notes that the instigator in any of these cases incurs the penalty only if he gives an explicit command to take the item (although this statement has to be qualified to include signs meant as commands, as mentioned above). If he simply tells his accomplice that such-and-such an item is located in such-and-such a place and would be easy to steal, he incurs no penalty even if the accomplice actually commits the theft. This point applies to many of the rules in which giving a command to do an action that would break the rule would also fulfil the factor of effort: A statement counts as a command only if it is a clear imperative to do the action. Under the few rules where this is not the case, we will note the exception.
None of the texts mention the scenario in which Bhikkhu A tells Bhikkhu B to take an item for him without letting B know that he is committing a theft — for instance, telling B that the item belongs to him (A), that it is ownerless, or letting B come to either conclusion on his own. Nevertheless, it would appear that if B then actually takes the item as told, all of the factors for an offense would be fulfilled for A: He gives the command to take (the imperative the Vibhaṅga uses in illustrating commands to "steal" — avahara — can also simply mean to "take"), he knows that the item belongs to someone else, he intends to have it taken, and it is taken as a result of his command. As for B, he would not be committing an offense, as his state of mind would not fulfil the factors of perception and intention for a theft.
Cases of this sort would not fall under Deceit, discussed below, because that category covers only cases where one deceives the owner of the item, or his agent, into giving the item, and thus technically the item counts as given. Here the item is not given, for the person deceived into taking it is not responsible for it at all.
As with the extrapolation from the discussion of signs, this application of the Great Standards will also be useful when we discuss unauthorized use of credit cards, below. It will also prove useful in our discussion of the following rule.
Shared responsibility. If bhikkhus go in a group to commit a theft but only one of them does the actual taking, all still incur the penalty coming from the theft. Similarly, if they steal valuables worth collectively more than five māsakas but which when divided among them yield shares worth less than five māsakas each, all incur a pārājika. According to the Commentary, any bhikkhus who assist a bhikkhu in a fraudulent case also incur the same offense he does: a pārājika if he wins, a thullaccaya if he loses. This judgment, however, must be qualified by noting that the assistant incurs these penalties only if he perceives the case to be fraudulent.
Special cases. As mentioned above, the notion of stealing covers a wide range of actions. To delineate this range, the texts discuss a variety of actions that border on stealing, some of them coming under this rule, some of them not.
Belongings of the Saṅgha. According to the Commentary to NP 30, an item belongs to the Saṅgha when donors, intending for it to be Saṅgha property, offer it to one or more bhikkhus representing the Saṅgha, and those bhikkhus receive it, although not necessarily into their hands. Saṅgha property thus counts as "what is not given" as far as individual bhikkhus are concerned, for it has an owner — the Saṅgha of all times and places — and is guarded by the individual Community of bhikkhus.
Saṅgha property is divided into two sorts: light/inexpensive (lahu-bhaṇḍa) and heavy/expensive (garu-bhaṇḍa). Light property includes such things as robes, bowls, medicine, and food; heavy property, such things as monastery land, buildings, and furnishings (see BMC2, Chapter 7). The Buddha gave permission for individual Communities to appoint officials to be responsible for the proper use of Saṅgha property. The officials responsible for light property are to distribute it among the members of the Community, following set procedures to ensure that the distribution is fair (see BMC2, Chapter 18). Once an individual member has received such property, he may regard it as his own and use it as he sees fit.
In the case of heavy property, though, the officials are responsible for seeing that it is allotted for proper use in the Community, but the individual bhikkhus allowed to use it may not regard it as their own personal property. This is an important point. At most, such items may be taken on loan or exchanged — with the approval of the Community — for other heavy property of equal value. A bhikkhu who gives such items away to anyone — ordained or not — perceiving it as his to give, incurs a thullaccaya no matter what the value of the object (Cv.VI.15.2 — see BMC2, Chapter 7). Of course, if he knows that it is not his to give or take, then in appropriating it as his own he incurs the penalty for stealing.
The Buddha was highly critical of any bhikkhu who gives away heavy property of the Saṅgha. In the origin story to Pr 4, he cites the case of a bhikkhu who, hoping to find favor with a lay person, gives that person some of the Saṅgha's heavy property. Such a bhikkhu, he says, is one of the five great thieves of the world.
However, the Vinita-vatthu includes a case where bhikkhus visiting a monastery arrange for a lay person to pick and give them some of the fruit growing in the monastery. The Buddha, in judging the case, states that they committed no offense as they were taking the fruit just for their own consumption. This implies that if they were to take the fruit for other purposes — to have it sold, for instance — they would be guilty of an offense. The Commentary adds that visiting bhikkhus have this right only if the resident bhikkhus are not caring for the fruit trees, if the trees had not been donated to provide funds for a particular purpose in the monastery, or if the resident bhikkhus eat from the trees as if they alone were the owners and are not willing to share. In other words, the visiting bhikkhus, as a matter of courtesy, should ask the residents first. If the residents share, one may take what they offer. If they don't, and the trees are not dedicated to another purpose, one may take just enough for one's own consumption. The Commentary also adds that if the monastery is vacant, one may go ahead and take the fruit, for it is meant for all bhikkhus who come.
The Vinita-vatthu also notes that a bhikkhu who takes heavy property of the Saṅgha donated for use in a particular monastery and uses it elsewhere incurs a dukkaṭa. If he takes it on loan, he commits no offense.
Deceit. If a bhikkhu uses a deliberate lie to deceive another person into giving an item to him, the transgression is treated not as a case of stealing — because, after all, the item is given to him — but rather as a case of lying. If the lie involves making false claims to superior meditative attainments, it is treated under Pr 4. If not, it is treated under Pc 1. The Vinita-vatthu gives seven examples: five cases where, during a distribution of requisites in the Community, a bhikkhu asks for and is given an extra portion for a non-existent bhikkhu; and two where a bhikkhunī approaches her teacher's lay supporter and asks for medicines, saying that they will be for her teacher, although she actually ends up using them herself. In all of these cases, the penalty is a pācittiya for lying under Pc 1.
The Commentary, in its discussion of the bhikkhus taking an extra portion for a non-existent bhikkhu, insists that the penalty for lying applies only to cases where donors have already given the requisites to the Community. If, prior to their giving the requisites to the Community, a bhikkhu asks them directly for a portion for a non-existent bhikkhu, the Commentary says that he has committed a theft under this rule. This, however, contradicts the ruling in the two cases involving the bhikkhunī, who asks directly from the donor. Thus it would appear that in any case where a bhikkhu obtains an article from a donor through deceit, the penalty would be the pācittiya for lying.
The question arises, what about a bhikkhu who, given an item to take to someone else, originally plans to take it to the intended recipient but later changes his mind? It does not seem right to impose a heavier penalty on him than on a person who uses deceit to get the item to begin with, so it seems best to impose on him the dukkaṭa for a broken promise (Mv.III.14.1-14 — see the discussion under Pc 1). For the principles surrounding the courier's right to take an item on trust in the donor or the recipient, see the discussion of trust under the non-offense clauses.
Receiving stolen goods. Accepting a gift of goods or purchasing them very cheaply, knowing that they were stolen, would in Western criminal law result in a penalty similar to stealing itself. However, neither the Canon nor the commentaries mention this case. The closest they come is in the Vinita-vatthu, where a groundskeeper gives bhikkhus fruit from the orchard under his care, even though it was not his to give, and there was no offense for the bhikkhus. From this it can be inferred that there is no offense for receiving stolen goods, even knowingly, although a bhikkhu who does so would not be exempt from the civil law and the consequent proceedings, in the course of which the Community would probably urge him to disrobe.
Compensation owed. The Commentary introduces the concept of bhaṇḍadeyya, or compensation owed, to cover cases where a bhikkhu is responsible for the loss or destruction of another person's property. It defines this concept by saying that the bhikkhu must pay the price of the object to the owner or give the owner another object of equal value to the one lost or destroyed; if the owner gives up his/her efforts to receive compensation, the bhikkhu incurs a pārājika. The Commentary applies this concept not only to cases where the bhikkhu knowingly and intentionally destroys the object, but also to cases where he borrows or agrees to look after something that then gets lost, stolen, or destroyed through his negligence; or where he takes an item mistakenly thinking that it was discarded or that he was in a position to take it on trust.
To cite a few examples: A bhikkhu breaks another person's jar of oil or places excrement in the oil to spoil it. A bhikkhu charged with guarding the Community storeroom lets a group of other bhikkhus into the storeroom to fetch belongings they have left there; they forget to close the door and, before he remembers to check it, thieves slip in to steal things. A group of thieves steal a bundle of mangoes but, being chased by the owners, drop it and run; a bhikkhu sees the mangoes, thinks that they have been thrown away, and so eats them after getting someone to present them to him. A bhikkhu sees a wild boar caught in a trap and, out of compassion, sets it free but cannot reconcile the owner of the trap to what he has done. In each of these cases, the Commentary says, the bhikkhu in question owes compensation to the owner of the goods. (In the case of the mangoes, he must compensate not only the owners but also the thieves if it turns out that they had planned to come back and fetch the fruit.) If he abandons his responsibility to the owner(s), he incurs a pārājika.
In making these judgments, the Commentary is probably following the civil law of its day, for the Canon contains no reference at all to the concept of bhaṇḍadeyya, and some of its judgments contradict the Commentary's. As we noted above, the Vibhaṅga states that if a bhikkhu breaks, scatters, burns, or otherwise renders unusable the property of another person, he incurs a dukkaṭa. When the Vinita-vatthu discusses cases where a bhikkhu takes an item on mistaken assumptions, or where he feels compassion for an animal caught in a trap and so sets it free, it says that there is no offense. Thus it seems strange for the Commentary to assign a pārājika to an action that, according to the Canon, carries a dukkaṭa or no penalty at all. Of course, it would be a generous policy to offer the owner reasonable compensation, but it is by no means certain that a bhikkhu would have the wherewithal or liberty to do so. Because the Canon does not allow a bhikkhu to ask his supporters for donations to pay to another lay person — except for his parents (Mv.VIII.22; see BMC2, Chapter 10) — there is no way a bhikkhu could raise the needed funds. The Canon places only one responsibility on a bhikkhu who causes material loss to a lay person: The Community, if it sees fit, can force him to apologize to the owner (Cv.I.20; see BMC2, Chapter 20). Beyond that, the Canon does not require that he make material compensation of any kind. Thus, as the Commentary's concept of bhaṇḍadeyya is clearly foreign to the Canon, there seems no reason to adopt it.
Enforcement of rules. There is one important area in which even the Commentary does not require compensation, and that is when a bhikkhu sees another bhikkhu using an inappropriate object and arranges to have it destroyed. Here the Commentary draws its argument from the origin story to this rule, in which the Buddha orders the bhikkhus to destroy an inappropriately made hut — a "potter's hut," which was made from earth and then fired like a pot. From this example, the Commentary draws the following judgment: If a bhikkhu starts to build an inappropriate hut in a certain territory, the "owners" of the territory (i.e., the resident senior bhikkhus) should tell him to stop. If he does not heed their decision and actually builds the hut there, then when they are able to assemble a sufficient number of righteous bhikkhus, the resident senior bhikkhus can send him an order to remove it. If, after the order has been sent three times, the hut is still not removed, the bhikkhus are to dismantle it in such a way that the materials can be reused. The original builder is then to be told to remove the materials. If he doesn't, then the resident bhikkhus are not responsible for any loss or damage they may undergo.
The Commentary then derives a further principle from this example to say that if Bhikkhu X, who is knowledgeable in the Vinaya, sees Bhikkhu Y using inappropriate requisites of any sort, he is entitled to get them destroyed or reduced to an appropriate form. He is also not obligated to compensate Y for any loss or inconvenience incurred.
Court actions. As stated above, if a bhikkhu knowingly starts an unfair court case against someone else and then wins it in the final court to which the accused makes appeal, he incurs a pārājika. The Commentary to the Bhikkhunī's Sg 1, however, states that even if a bhikkhu is actually mistreated by someone — defamed, physically injured, robbed, etc. — and then tries to take a just court action against the guilty party, he incurs a pārājika if he wins. Again, this is an instance where the Commentary has no support from the Canon and, as the Vinaya-mukha points out, its assertion cannot stand. However, the training of a bhikkhu requires that he view all losses in the light of kamma and focus on looking after the state of his mind rather than on seeking compensation in social or material terms.
There is no question in any of the texts that if a bhikkhu is asked to give evidence in a courtroom and does so, speaking in accordance with the facts, he commits no offense no matter what the outcome for the others involved. However, Pc 9 would require that he first be authorized to do so by the Community if his testimony involves reporting the wrongdoing of others. See that rule for further details.
Modern cases. The modern world contains many forms of ownership and monetary exchange that did not exist in the time of the Buddha, and so contains many forms of stealing that did not exist then either. Here are a handful of cases that come to mind as examples of ways in which the standards of this rule might be applied to modern situations.
Infringement of copyright. The international standards for copyright advocated by UNESCO state that infringement of copyright is tantamount to theft. However, in practice, an accusation of copyright infringement is judged not as a case of theft but as one of "fair use," the issue being the extent to which a person in possession of an item may fairly copy that item for his/her own use or to give or sell to another person without compensating the copyright owner. Thus even a case of "unfair use" would not fulfill the factors of effort and object under this rule, in that — in creating a copy — one is not taking possession of an item that does not belong to one, and one is not depriving the owners of something already theirs. At most, the copyright owners might claim that they are being deprived of compensation owed to them, but as we have argued above, the principle of compensation owed does not rightly belong under this rule. In the terminology of the Canon, a case of unfair use would fall under either of two categories — acting for the non-gain of the copyright owners or wrong livelihood — categories that entail a dukkaṭa under the general rule against misbehavior (Cv.V.36). They would also make one eligible for a disciplinary transaction, such as reconciliation or banishment (see BMC2, Chapter 20), which the Community could impose if it saw the infringement as serious enough to merit such a punishment.
Copying computer software. The agreement made when installing software on a computer, by which one agrees not to give the software to anyone else, comes under contract law. As such, a breach of that contract would be treated under the category of "deceit," described above, which means that a bhikkhu who gives software to a friend in defiance of this contract would incur the penalty for a broken promise. As for the friend — assuming that he is a bhikkhu — the act of receiving the software and putting it on his computer would be treated under the precedent, mentioned above, of the bhikkhus receiving fruit from an orchard groundkeeper not authorized to give it away: He would incur no offense. However, as he must agree to the contract before installing the software on his computer, he would incur a penalty for a broken promise if he then gave the software to someone else in defiance of the contract.
Credit cards. The theft of a credit card would of course be an offense. Because the owner of the card, in most cases, would not be required to pay for the stolen card, the seriousness of a theft of this sort would be determined by how the thief used the card. NP 20 would forbid a bhikkhu from using a credit card to buy anything even if the card were his to use, although a bhikkhu who had gone to the extent of stealing a card would probably not be dissuaded by that rule from using it or having someone else use it for him. In any event, the use of the card would be equivalent to using a stolen key to open a safe. If the thief hands the credit card to a store clerk to make a purchase, that would count as a gesture telling the clerk to transfer funds from the account of the credit card company. Because such operations are automated, the clerk's attempt to have the funds transferred would count not as an act of deceit but an act of taking. If the credit card company's machines authorize the transaction, then the theft occurs as soon as funds are transferred from one account to another. The seriousness of the theft would be calculated in line with the principle of the "prior plan" mentioned above.
In a situation where the funds, if transferred, would entail a pārājika, then if the machines do not authorize the transaction, the bhikkhu trying to use the card would incur a thullaccaya for getting the clerk to attempt the transfer. If the clerk, doubting the bhikkhu's right to use the card, refuses to attempt the transfer, the bhikkhu would incur a dukkaṭa in making the gesture of command.
Similar considerations would apply to the unauthorized use of debit cards, ATM cards, phone cards, personal identification numbers, or any other means by which funds would be transferred from the owner's account by automated means.
A forged check drawn on a bank where the scanning and approval of checks is fully automated would fall under this category. If drawn on a bank where an employee would be responsible for approving the check, the entire case would come under false dealing, discussed above.
Unauthorized telephone or Internet use would count as theft only if the charges were automatically transferred from the owner's account. If the owner is simply billed for the charges, he/she could refuse to pay, and so no theft would have occurred. This would count, not as a theft, but as promise made in bad faith, which would incur a pācittiya. If, however, the case seemed serious enough, and the pācittiya too light a punishment, the Community could impose a disciplinary transaction on the offender.
Impounded items — such as a repaired automobile kept in a mechanic's shop — would apparently be treated in a similar way to smuggled goods.
Non-offenses. In addition to the blanket exemptions mentioned under the preceding rule, the non-offense clauses here list six exemptions to this rule. Two relate to the status of the object, two to the factor of perception, and two to the factor of intention.
Object. There is no offense if a bhikkhu takes an object belonging (1) to a peta (§) or (2) to an animal (§). Thus there is no offense in taking the remains of a lion's kill, regardless of how possessive the lion may feel, although the Commentary wisely advises waiting until the lion has eaten enough of its kill no longer to be hungry, for otherwise the bhikkhu may become lion's kill himself.
The Commentary classes devas under petas here and states that a bhikkhu may take a deva's belongings with no penalty. It illustrates this point with two examples. In the first, a bhikkhu takes a piece of cloth left hanging on a tree as an offering to a deva. In the second, a bhikkhu with clairvoyant powers gains a vision of Sakka, the king of the devas, who is wearing an expensive cloth. The bhikkhu takes the cloth with the intention of making a robe for himself, even though Sakka keeps screaming, "Don't take it! Don't take it!" This latter example may have been included in the Commentary simply for its shock value in order to wake up sleepy students in the back of the room. Although the bhikkhu in question would not incur an offense, there's no denying he's a fool.
The term peta also includes human corpses. In the early days of the religion, bhikkhus were expected to make their robes from discarded cloth, one source being the cloths used to wrap corpses laid in charnel grounds. (The bhikkhus would wash and boil the cloth before using it themselves.) However, they were not to take cloth from undecomposed bodies, and here is why:
"Now at that time a certain bhikkhu went to the charnel ground and took hold of discarded cloth on a body not yet decomposed. But the spirit of the dead one was (still) dwelling in that body. Then it said to the bhikkhu, 'Venerable sir, don't take hold of my cloak.' The bhikkhu, disregarding it, went off (with the cloak). Then the body, rising up, followed right behind the bhikkhu. Then the bhikkhu, entering his dwelling, closed the door. Then the body fell down right there."
The story gives no further details, and we are left to imagine for ourselves both the bhikkhu's state of mind while being chased by the body and his friends' reaction to the event. As is usual with the stories in the Vibhaṅga, the more outrageous the event, the more matter-of-fact is its telling, and the more its humor lies in the understatement.
At any rate, as a result of this incident the Buddha laid down a dukkaṭa for taking cloth from an undecomposed body — which, according to the Commentary, means one that is still warm.
Perception. There is no offense if a bhikkhu takes an object perceiving it (1) to be his own or (2) to have been thrown away (§). The Commentary states that if the bhikkhu finds out that the object does indeed have an owner, he owes the owner compensation and would be guilty of an offense when the owner abandons his efforts to gain that compensation. As we have already noted, the concept of compensation owed has no basis in the Canon, but if the object still lies in the bhikkhu's possession and he decides not to return it, that decision would count as a thieving intention. The theft of the object could then be treated under the category of a borrowed object, which in practice has the same effect as the Commentary's notion of compensation owed: The theft would be accomplished when the owner abandons his/her efforts to regain possession. However, if the object no longer exists (it was consumed by the bhikkhu or destroyed) or is no longer in the bhikkhu's possession (he lost it or gave it away), the resolution of the issue is purely a individual matter between the bhikkhu and the owner, although as we noted above, the Community, if it sees fit, could force the bhikkhu to apologize to the owner.
Intention. There is no offense if a bhikkhu takes an object (1) on trust or (2) temporarily.
To rightly take an object on trust, Mv.VIII.19.1 states that five conditions must be met:
a. The owner is an acquaintance.
b. He/she is an intimate.
c. He/she has spoken of the matter. (According to the Commentary, this means that he/she has said, "You may take any of my property you want.")
d. He/she is still alive.
e. One knows that he/she will be pleased at one's taking it.
The Commentary to this rule states that in practice only three of these conditions need to be met: the fourth, the fifth, and any one of the first three. As the Vinaya-mukha notes, there are good practical reasons for adopting the Commentary's interpretation here. There is also the formal reason that otherwise the first two conditions would be redundant.
Mv.VIII.31.2-3 discusses how an item can be rightly taken on trust if a bhikkhu, as courier, is conveying it from a donor to an intended recipient. The deciding factor is what the donor says while handing over the item, which apparently determines who exercises rights of ownership over the item while it is in transit. If the donor says, "Give this to so-and-so" (which means that ownership has not yet been transferred to the recipient), one may rightly take the item on trust in the donor but not in the recipient. If he/she says, "I give this to so-and-so" (which transfers ownership to the recipient), one may rightly take the item on trust in the recipient but not in the donor. If, before the courier can convey the item to the intended the recipient, he learns that the owner — as determined by the donor's statement — happens to die, he may determine the item as an inheritance from the owner.
In both cases where the item may be legitimately taken on trust, none of the texts discuss whether the factors listed in Mv.VIII.19.1 also have to be met or whether the allowances here are a special exemption to those factors granted specifically to couriers. However, because the allowances are so particular about who maintains ownership over the article while it is in transit, it would seem that the owner would have the right to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction over the courier's taking the item on trust. This further suggests that the courier would have to take the owner's perceived wishes into account, which implies that the factors listed in Mv.VIII.19.1 still hold here.
The Vinita-vatthu treats the case of a bhikkhu who takes an item mistakenly thinking that he had the right to take it on trust; the Buddha termed this a "misconception as to trust" and did not impose a penalty. The Commentary to this rule adds that if the original owner informs one that he is displeased because he sincerely wanted to keep the item for another use, one should return it to him; but, in line with the Vinita-vatthu, it does not indicate a penalty for not returning it. If the owner is displeased with one for other reasons, the Commentary says, there is no need to return the item.
As for taking an item temporarily, the Commentary says this means taking it with the intention that (a) "I'll return it" or (b) "I'll make compensation." There is support in the Vibhaṅga for including (a) here, but none for (b). If the Commentary included (b) to cover cases where a bhikkhu borrows an object but then happens to lose or destroy it, there is no need to include it, for as we have already explained, a bhikkhu is under no compulsion to compensate people for items lost or destroyed. If the Commentary meant it to cover cases where a bhikkhu takes ownership of an object belonging to a person with whom he has not established trust and with whom he plans to discuss compensation later, it doesn't really fit under this exemption, for one is taking permanent possession of the item. Given the strict conditions that the Canon places on the exemption for taking an item on trust, it seems unlikely that its compilers would have countenanced an exemption for a bhikkhu to go around imposing unilateral trades, taking possession of items on the unfounded assumption that the owners would gladly accept compensation at a later time. If there is any place for this sort of exemption in the Vibhaṅga's framework, it would be as a variant on taking on trust. Thus it would have to meet the following factors: The owner is an acquaintance or an intimate or has spoken of the matter; he/she is still alive; and one knows that he/she would be pleased if one takes the item and gives compensation later.
In addition to the exemptions listed under the non-offense clauses, the Vinita-vatthu contains ten other types of cases that involve no offense under this rule. Some of these have already been mentioned in the above discussions, but it is convenient to have them gathered in one place.
— A bhikkhu, seeing an expensive garment, feels a desire to steal it but does not act on the desire. The commentaries take this as a general principle for all rules, that the mere arising of a mind state does not constitute an offense.
— A bhikkhu, seeing a cloak blown up by a whirlwind, catches it to return it to the owners.
— A bhikkhu takes an item on trust but later discovers that the trust is misconceived.
— A bhikkhu goes through a customs house, not knowing that a dutiable item is among his belongings.
— Visiting bhikkhus, for the sake of food, take fruit from a tree belonging to the Saṅgha.
— Bhikkhus receive fruit from the guardian of an orchard, even though the guardian is not entitled to give the fruit away.
— A bhikkhu, seeing an item left lying about, puts it away so that it won't get lost. The owner comes looking for the item and asks, "Who stole it?" The bhikkhu, perhaps ironically, responds, "I stole it." The owner then charges him with a theft. The case goes to the Buddha, who says that the bhikkhu committed no offense, in that his answer was just a manner of speaking and not an actual acknowledgement of a theft.
— A bhikkhu, out of compassion, releases an animal caught in a hunter's snare.
— Ven. Ajjuka points out a bequest to an heir in line with the original owner's wishes.
— Ven. Pilindavaccha uses his psychic powers to retrieve a pair of kidnapped children. The Buddha states that this entails no penalty because such a thing lies in the province of those with psychic power. The Vinaya-mukha, in discussing this case, takes it as a precedent for saying that if a bhikkhu returns a stolen article to its legal owner, there is no offense. The Buddha's statement, though, was probably meant to discourage bhikkhus without psychic powers from getting directly involved in righting wrongs of this sort. If a bhikkhu without psychic powers happens to learn of the whereabouts of stolen goods, kidnapped children, etc., he may inform the authorities, if he sees fit, and let them handle the situation themselves. However, for safety's sake, a bhikkhu living in a wilderness frequented by thieves would be wise not to be perceived as siding either with the thieves or the authorities.
Summary: The theft of anything worth 1/24 ounce troy of gold or more is a pārājika offense.
Not to speak about Bhikkhus who sell Dhamma or take it form some where in ownership for the sake of being sold.
Post by: turtle on April 22, 2014, 03:19:11 PM
Too bad Johann has left.
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When using or citing the work, you should not imply endorsement by the author or the affirmer. [4]QuoteAffirmer offers the Work as-is and makes no representations or warranties of any kind concerning the Work, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including without limitation warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non infringement, or the absence of latent or other defects, accuracy, or the present or absence of errors, whether or not discoverable, all to the greatest extent permissible under applicable law.
As for Laws in some European countries, such a point is even for a law side not legal, thinking on consumer protection and capital laws, even if popular in internet, such has no foothold anywhere.
I don't need to speak about rejecting responsibility from a Dhammic side and its a sign for people of integrity that you take up responsibility for their work, full and even more as worldly laws would demand.
/.../
I'm coming from the other side - as the dismayed target/user/recipient of this Caveat emptor! kind of spirituality/religion.
There are all these people who claim to be speaking The Truth, who claim to be speaking on behalf of God or the Buddha. And they tell us we must believe them, or we will burn in hell for all eternity, or otherwise face all kinds of horrible things. But at the same time, these people take no responsibility for us. They want to control us, but they refuse to take any responsibility for us.
Here we are, the spiritually lowly, we have no choice but to rely on those who are to be deemed spiritually advanced. Due to our lowliness, we cannot recognize who is in fact spiritually advanced or not, so we are left to the mercy of those who claim to be spiritually advanced, who claim to be speaking on behalf of God or the Buddha. And then those who claim to be spiritually advanced take no responsiblity whatsoever for us.
As if such a person were to say - "I am spiritually advanced. You should believe every word I say. You should worship me. But if you ever end up in any trouble, do not hope for any help from me. Of course, if you do not believe me, you will burn in hell for all eternity / never get to nirvana."
Post by: Sophorn on April 22, 2014, 09:10:18 PM
Don't be sad. Be happy that he continued to walk the next step. :-)
Keep up your good spirit, dear Turtle.
_/\_ _/\_ _/\_
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on September 10, 2014, 10:57:33 PM
Quote from: metadata on theragata, suttacentral http://suttacentral.net/en/thag1.1
This translation of the Theragāthā was made by bhikkhu sujato with jessica walton. It is based on the Mahāsaṅgīti edition of the Pali text.
The translation relies heavily on the translation and notes by k.r. norman for the Pali Text Society, published as Elders’s Verses I, first published 1965. For a few verses we have also consulted translations by Bhikkhu Thanissaro and Bhikkhu Bodhi. In all cases, however, the final translation was made directly from the Pali text.
This translation is published in September 2014. It is released by means of Creative Commons Zero (CC0 1.0 Universal) Public Domain Dedication. The translators waive all rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You are encouraged to do anything you like with this text. You can copy, modify, translate, distribute, print, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
If you notice any mistakes, we would appreciate if you could let us know. We would also like to know if you do anything interesting with the text, so we can support your activities. However, you are under no obligations to do so.
Attma guesses there is no way to make one understand, that one can not rightly sell something what is originated to be not sold or exchanged at all.[/quote]
Attma also wonders how one could build on a lisence of somenbody else without addopting it, which is the case in regard of the pali resourses as well as the works which have been used to make it real.
Attma would be happy to share it further, but as a counciously sangha-property-make-to-a-commercial-product thing, it is actually untouchable.
Still some hope remains.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on April 09, 2015, 04:38:07 PM
Quote from: Translating the Four Nikāyas (http://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/translating-the-four-nikayas/341)
I'd like to take the chance to announce a project that I have been working towards for the past several months. Many people have heard about this already, so it is no great secret, but I haven't taken the chance to formally announce it in public.
I am taking an 18 month sabbatical, during which time I plan to translate the 4 nikāyas from Pali into English; or at least, as much of them as I can.
My aim in doing this is to create an entirely new set of translations, which will differ from previous translations in several ways:
Plain English: I aim to use the simplest, most direct language possible, with a special consideration for people who have English as a second language.
Natively Digital: The translation is intended from the outset to be a digital text, and will be matched sentence by sentence with the underlying Pali.
No Copyright: In accordance with 2500 years of Buddhist tradition [??? Which, Australian?, Sri Lankan-German?, US? Buddhist and the Army? Jewish?, Robin Hoods? ], the translation will be entirely free of copyright restrictions. It will be dedicated to the Public Domain via Creative Commons Zero. [Free to sell - So the "Buddhist Tradition", Mr. Sujato in camouflage of it, makes the heritage a market-product]
Consistent: It will use the same phrasing and terminology across the 4 nikāyas, so you can easily search over the entire corpus.
Straight forward, with all consequences in my position: this (and mind equals) is (are) no Monk (s) any more, but seller (thief) of the Sangha heritage.
Quote from: Mr. Sujato
Today, the Buddha's words, which are so beautiful and so profound, are not freely available in a complete, accurate, readable form. It think this is a dreadful thing, and I want to change it.
The reason for this is, because People used to put it on the Market and Mr. Sujato planes to make it even more unavailable as a part of the practice from the beginning (the gain) till its end.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on April 24, 2015, 12:49:02 PM
Quote from: Mr. Sujatos pages (https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/suttacentral-now-has-donations/)
SuttaCentral now has donations
SuttaCentral is now accepting donations.
Donate to SuttaCentral
In the past we did not set up a donations facility, as we had enough funds for our limited needs. Now, however, we are employing a full time developer, in addition to several other ongoing costs, such as typing the texts in several languages. So we have set this up to guarantee our future stability.
The work behind the scenes has been mainly done by Deepika, who has set up the SuttaCentral Development Trust. Details are on our Donations page.
The facility has been set up using the secure modern payment system, Stripe.
If you think SuttaCentral is amazing, now you can help us make it even better.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on May 05, 2015, 11:59:01 PM
Attma likes the practical explaining at the mainpage (see pictures attached) most... <.I.>
next to this: "For donors of over $100, or over $10/month, we would like to offer as a gift a printed copy of the Theragāthā, the “Verses of the Senior Monks”. This fascinating but little-known text from the Pali Canon has been freshly translated by Bhante Sujato for SuttaCentral." so that one can be sure that it stays Dana and not a deal...
http://suttacentral.net/
https://suttacentral.net/donations
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on May 09, 2015, 11:23:45 PM
Bhikkhu Boddhis (he was personal warned, at the moment SC came to awarness) "In buddhas word" now free available public, from a Russian dhamma-pirate "it should be free!", some years ago shared on DW...
http://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/in-the-buddha-s-words/29/1
desire is much faster as gifts could ever be. That is why patient is the training.
How could a trader feel save, if precepts are not higher as Dhamma and the ongoing wheel?
The (w)link of an DW moderator (http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=23418&p=337634#p337634), Attma followed, to this "ill willed" post... of "hey take care, that has been so much trust of many!"
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on June 01, 2015, 03:54:36 PM
Quote from: by Sujato, Copy this (https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25388)
Copy this Copyright is a big deal. There’s hardly a single computer user who hasn’t faced the possibility of using or creating content that infringes copyright. And it is a huge deal in the area of Buddhist texts, where many texts are protected under some form of copyright law. I’m going to make a somewhat complex argument here, so let me state my conclusions up front.
I think copyright is a bad idea. I think we would be better off without it. But regardless of whether it has certain applications in some areas, it contradicts fundamental Buddhist principles and should never be applied to Buddhist scriptures.
Why is copyright a bad idea? The basic premise of copyright is this: that we can ensure creative incomes by legal means. The purpose of copyright is to provide a legal avenue to ensure the rights of original creators are respected. That is to say, a copyright notice is nothing if it is not an implicit legal threat. It says, if you don’t comply, you are a criminal and we will take you to court. The problem is not just that these threats don’t work, it is that they prevent us from even considering more humane and socially-based measures.
When copyright laws evolved over the past few centuries, we lived in a completely different world. Copying took effort, and it could be reasonably contained. But for the past 20 years or so, the combined effort of human ingenuity and industrial output has created billions of machines that can copy incredibly fast, and has put those machines in the hands of most of the people on this planet.
Then you say to everyone, “Please don’t use these machines for copying!” Have you heard what happened in the Garden of Eden? Let me make a huge leap and guess: people copy stuff anyway.
Have a look at how many copyright takedown notices Google gets:
(https://sujato.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/google_takedown.jpg?w=1008&h=510) (https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/?hl=en)
Yep, that’s over a million requests every day. For one company. And see how it’s soared over the past few years, at the same time as the protectors of copyright have pushed hard for creating ever more draconian laws.
There aren’t that many bad people in the world. If the law says that millions of people are criminals, it’s the law that is wrong, not the people. Any law that is broken this often is ill-conceived.
It seems to me that successful laws are of two kinds. You either have laws that govern things that are very exceptional, only a few people do them, and they fall well outside what are considered acceptable; such as murder, theft, and the like. In such cases, you ban the thing and impose substantial penalties. But other kinds of laws govern things that most people do, or might do. It’s not so much a matter of prohibiting things because they are wrong, but managing them in the interests of the public good. I’m thinking of things like speeding tickets, or building regulations, or non-smoking zones. In such cases we try to nudge people towards a better behavior. You tweak them, making them more stringent, together with an education component, and gradually build a social expectation of acceptable behavior.
The problem with copyright law is that it tries to apply the absolutism which is appropriate for the first kind of law to something that should be managed by the second kind of law. You can’t just make people stop copying things they like. It’s never going to happen. Maybe you could make them modify their behavior, but until you give them a way of doing that it is a losing battle.
Copyright law, it is often believed, may be justified by reference to the economic reality. But if that’s the case, why do the proponents of copyright resort to falsified data to justify their positions? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=GZadCj8O1-0) There are, on the other hand, multiple accounts (http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/cory-doctorow-copyright-tech-media_cz_cd_books06_1201doctorow.html) by authors (http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/509253-when-the-web-started-i-used-to-get-really-grumpy) and formal studies (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0013.101%3Frgn%3Dmain%3Bview%3Dfulltext) that show that publishing books freely on the internet dramatically increases usage and has little effect on book sales (http://phys.org/news/2013-10-publishing-access-usage-effect-sales.html).
The intended purpose of copyright is not to protect corporations, but to protect the work of creators. But here’s the thing. Before I was a monk, I was an original creator. I was a songwriter; and I lived among creative artists. For 6 or 7 years pretty much all my friends were writers, poets, actors, musicians, painters, or dancers. And I can’t recall a single time when copyright law was actually relevant to anyone. True, I made a small amount from song royalties, but it never affected our lives all that much.
And anyway, even if you, as a struggling artist, became aware of a copyright violation, what could you do about it? Take a publisher or record company to court? Good luck with that. What you’d do, if anything, is contact the alleged violator, and if they didn’t do as you asked, you’d grumble about it. You don’t need a legal system for that.
Copyright becomes relevant when you step up into the realm of corporate sponsored art. You sign a contract, giving the copyright ownership to a company. For us it was a record company, otherwise it might be a book publisher, a movie studio or whatever. Then they own the copyright, and you get a small percentage (in our case, about 10%—so much for protecting the rights of creative artists.) If there is a copyright violation, the company goes to court, because they can afford to.
Now, in some cases this can be justified. For example, it’s really expensive to make a movie. You need companies to provide the financing and bear the risk. But this is a purely contingent fact, and it changes depending on technology. In the past, for example, a publishing company was needed to produce books. Gradually, technology has eaten away at the specialist services that publishers can offer. Typesetting, proofreading, design, marketing, printing, distribution: all these can now be done easily by individual authors, who can then keep full copyright control over their works. On Amazon, nearly 50% of creator revenue for genre titles is now from self-published books (http://authorearnings.com/report/the-report/). So the fact that producing some kinds of creative work requires large companies and legal protection does not mean that such protection is necessary everywhere.
The notion that copyright exists to protect creators withers when you consider the devastating impact that the radical expansion of copyright has had on works whose creators have died. Here’s some background on this, from Professor James Boyle of Duke Law School (http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2009/12/31/fahrenheit-451-book-burning-as-done-by-lawyers/):
Congress eliminated the benign practice of the renewal requirement (which had guaranteed that 85% of works and 93% of books entered the public domain after 28 years because the authors and publishers simply didn’t want or need a second copyright term.) And copyright, which had been an opt-in system (you had to comply with some very minor formalities to get a copyright) became an opt out system (you got a copyright automatically when you “fixed” the work in material form, whether you wanted it or not.) Suddenly the entire world of informal and non commercial culture — from home movies that provide a wonderful lens into the private life of an era, to essays, posters, locally produced teaching materials — was swept into copyright. And kept there for the life of the author plus 70 years. The effects were culturally catastrophic. Copyright went from covering very little culture, and only covering it for a 28 year period during which it was commercially available, to covering all of culture, regardless of whether it was available — often for over a century. Unlike Fahrenheit 451, the vast majority of the culture swept into this 20th century black hole was not commercially available and, in most cases, the authors are unknown. The works are locked up — with no benefit to anyone — and no one has the key that would unlock them. We have cut ourselves off from our own culture, left it to molder — and in the case of nitrate film, literally disintegrate — with no benefit to anyone. The works may not be physically destroyed — although many of them are; disappearing, disintegrating, or simply getting lost in the vastly long period of copyright to which we have relegated them. But for the vast majority of works and the vast majority of citizens who do not have access to one of our great libraries, they are gone as thoroughly as if we had piled up the culture of the 20th century and simply set fire to it; and all this right at the moment when we could have used the Internet vastly to expand the scope of cultural access.That this extension of copyright is useless and harmful is not just the opinion of a few radicals. In 2002 a team of 19 economists, including 4 Nobel laureates, submitted an analysis to the US Congress on the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, where they concluded that (http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2002/05/copyright-litan), “Taken as a whole, the authors believe that it is highly unlikely that the economic benefits from copyright extension under the CTEA outweigh the additional costs.” And yet, it is still with us.
Here’s a stunning graphic that shows just how deep a hole in our culture copyright law has dug. It’s from a paper titled “How Copyright Keeps Works Disappeared (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290181)”, by Paul J. Heald of the University of Illinois College of Law. This graphic shows how books published before the magic public-domain date of 1923 are far more available than those published after. Essentially, publishers make texts available for a decade or two, and then they languish unread until they enter public domain.
(https://i1.wp.com/boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/subreddit151.jpg) (http://i1.wp.com/boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/subreddit151.jpg)
The proof is in the pudding. Empirical studies show that creative workers earn an average of around half the median wage, and what income there is is extremely unequal and uncertain. In a survey of 25,000 authors in the UK and Germany, authors Martin Kretschmer and Philip Hardwick of the Bournemouth University Business School wrote that, if the aim of copyright law is to provide reasonable renumeration for writers, “This study shows quite conclusively that current copyright law has empirically failed to meet these aims. (https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/cippm/2007/07/13/alcs-study/)” They added, “After this study, copyright policy cannot remain the same.” And yet not only has there been no reform, things continue to get worse, as in the top secret deals being forged in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/10/17/latest-tpp-leak-shows-even-harsher-copyright-rules/).
If the law doesn’t really protect creative artists, then who does it protect? Copyright law is an instrument of capitalism, and like all instruments of capitalism, it aims to make the rich richer. Who is making all the fuss about copyright? Farmers in Kenya? Street cleaners in Manila? Bus drivers in Brazil? No, it’s the owners of massive, wealthy corporations (https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/owners/?r=all-time).
The practical result of copyright, I allege, is to take money out of the hands of creative artists and their fans, and concentrate it in the hands of the rich, who control the means of production. Think about it: why was copyright law created in the past 300 years or so? Isn’t that the time when the printing press became used? A printing press allows mass copying of writing, but it does so at considerable expense, in terms of the physical machinery and space, but also in terms of time and experience, and carefully learned craftsmanship. When the laws were created, this served a purpose, as the capital—printing presses, distribution networks, and the like—was necessary to propagate work. So a class of company, known as “publishers”, was created to deal with these things and enable the printing and distribution of books. But now, the measurable effect of copyright law is to prevent people from accessing content. And the reason for this is straightforward: the whole idea is based on a state of technology that simply doesn’t exist any more.
Profit arises from the demand for a good whose supply is limited. In the 20th century, the supply of intellectual content was limited, and so it was a valuable commodity. Now it’s not, despite the efforts of content providers to keep it so. Information is the cheapest thing in the world; much cheaper than water. The economic thinking that underlies copyright law is deeply disconnected from the real world.
I have looked for demographic data on the economic effects of copyright law and haven’t been able to find anything, so allow me to make an unsubstantiated hypothesis. If anyone knows of some information, please let me know. But here is my thesis: the flow of money from copyright is, on the whole, from the poor to the rich; from the colored to the white; from the female to the male; from the underdeveloped countries to the developed; and from the young to the old. Prove me wrong!
If we are to retain any form of copyright law, we should develop it like the second kind of law I mentioned above, in a gradual and pragmatic way, together with an education process.
One model would be to make copyright law more like patent law. It would be opt-in, so a creator would have to make an application for copyright, which spelled out the reasons for applying copyright in this instance. If the application was successful, a percentage of earnings, say 10%, would go to the regulatory body, thus providing funding for it. This would ensure that copyright is only applied for substantive works, and works where the creator genuinely expects that they will lose more than 10% of their earnings by copying. The copyright would apply for a reasonable period, say 20 years, as is the case with patents.
As long as humans have existed, they have created. The first signs of human creative activity are nearly 100,000 years old. Creativity is an expression of the human spirit: it doesn’t belong to capitalism. No matter what you do, people will create. People all over the world are creating, writing, painting, playing music, and they couldn’t care less about copyright. Copyright law is not about fostering creativity. It is about keeping alive an economic order based on 20th century technology, which ensures that a small circle of the rich get the bulk of the economic gain from creative activity.
What about Buddhism? You’d think that it wouldn’t need stating, but evidently it does: Buddhism is about letting go, copyright is about holding on.
Even if we can accept a case for certain forms of copyright in certain spheres of life, how should that apply to Buddhism? After all, Buddhism not merely survived, but flourished for thousands of years before copyright came on the picture. Perhaps some historical perspective is in order.
The first question, which can be dealt with swiftly, is whether copying is stealing under the Buddhist precepts. The answer is no. Stealing in Buddhism requires that the owner be deprived of something. Copying is not taking. You could argue that the creator is indirectly deprived of income, but that is irrelevant. There are plenty of ways to indirectly deprive someone of income; I could set up a rival business, for example. I might even do that out of malice, to deliberately harm you. That may not be a nice thing to do, it might even be illegal, but it has nothing to do with stealing. Of course, breaking copyright is against the law, which is a separate matter; but it is not breaking precepts.
Incidentally, many monastics, like most people in developing countries, use pirated software all the time. If copying was stealing, they’d risk falling into an expulsion offence. However, even though there is no expulsion offence for using the software, it is still often illegal. This is one of the many reasons why monastics should use Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), such as Linux. This also highlights one of the often-overlooked details of copyright history. Software is an unusual industry in that extensive copying has existed as long as the industry has. People have been using millions of pirated copies of Windows and other software as long as they have been around. Yet software companies are thriving, and making record profits.
For the Buddhist tradition, as indeed for most ancient traditions, there is no notion of intellectual property. People borrowed and copied all the time. Buddhist texts are full of cases where monks or nuns are quoting verbatim passages from the Buddha or others, and there is never an issue of ownership. That’s because the Dhamma is not about ownership. It’s about helping people let go of suffering.
The Dhamma was felt to be, if anyone’s, the Buddha’s. The Buddha encouraged his students to teach the Dhamma in their own language; so that, from the earliest days, the Dhamma existed in multiple translated forms, all of which were considered to be the words of the Buddha. When the texts were later translated into Chinese and Tibetan, they continued this tradition, regarding these texts as “the word of the Buddha” in exactly the same sense as the “original” scriptures (which were themselves translations from one Indic dialect to another).
However, in modern times agreements such as the Berne convention ruled that translations should be considered to be original creations. I think this is a mistake. I’ve done original writing, and I’ve done translations, and they are very different kinds of things. You can, for example, get a computer to do translation, albeit poorly, but no computer can write a meaningful original article.
Be that as it may, it is clearly contrary to the entire Buddhist tradition. And needless to say, no-one thought to consult Buddhists about this. It was a law made in Europe by some rich white men, who were not even thinking that their acts might affect an ancient spiritual tradition from the East. Yet this law has been adopted by many Buddhists who use it to control how translations are made. No longer are Buddhist scriptures regarded as the “word of the Buddha”, but as the property of individuals, or more likely, of corporations. This tendency is found mostly among western translators; Asian translators mostly stick closer to the original spirit, although they sometimes use restrictive licences of various forms.
Not only are translations regarded as owned by individuals, even the original texts are frequently subject to copyright claims. You’d think that a millenia old text would be pretty firmly in the Public Domain, but apparently many publishers of original texts don’t think so. Going beyond the extremely broad scope of copyright law, they publish licences with their texts, sometimes “releasing” them under various Creative Commons licences. But you can only licence something that you own, and you can’t just go around claiming to own something that you don’t. To make such a claim is, or it should be, illegal. (Since copyright law is written almost entirely to protect the interests of content providers, it is not clear to what extent such a claim is fact illegal. But the principle is clear enough.)
The basic justification for copyright is that if we don’t copyright things, creators won’t get compensation, and the work will not be done. This is a dubious argument in the creative industries generally, since not only, as we have seen, is there no real evidence that copyright ensures a decent living for artists, but because artists are not motivated primarily by money.
This is even more applicable to Buddhism. No-one translates Buddhist texts for money; which is a very good thing, because if you did, you’ll be pretty disappointed. We—the monastics, academics, institutions, or private individuals—who do the work of translation do it out of love. There are vast quantities of translations that have been done and simply put out there, with no attempt at getting recompense. And even in the minority of cases where works are published commercially, the translators, and the many assistants who made these works possible, typically don’t get any income from them. Given this, it seems to me that the best way to produce high quality translations is to make our work freely available, so it can be copied, adapted, and improved. If funding is needed, for example, if someone wants to take time off work to complete a translation, we should rely on the Buddhist culture of dana, which has supported the maintaining and spreading of the texts for so long.
When I suggest that we shouldn’t use copyright on our texts, people say, but how do you stop them being misused? I just don’t get what the problem is. Does anyone really think that there are hordes of malicious people waiting out there to do awful things with Buddhist texts?
If, by some remote chance, someone does do something malicious with my work, such as, say, passing it off as their own, I’ll contact them and ask them to stop. If they don’t, I’ll rely on the power of peer pressure. I’ll write about it, and let people know that there’s a scam afoot. The perps will fade away soon enough. I’d never take someone to court for anything like that, so why issue an empty threat?
To me, it seems that this concern betrays a deeper misunderstanding of what copyright law is all about.
Copyright is not something that you can claim or not claim. It exists by law because you made a creative work. By operating under copyright law you are saying that anyone who violates this law is a criminal, and is potentially subject to very large punishments.
What I am suggesting is that this should not be a legal matter. We should dedicate our works to the Public Domain, via Creative Commons Zero or similar. That doesn’t mean that you necessarily support and encourage anyone to do anything they like with your work. It means that whatever someone does, you will not treat them as a criminal. If you don’t like what they do, contact them and ask them politely to stop. If you would like to issue some guidelines for use, do so. You can ask people to give proper attribution, or to not change anything, or to not use for commercial purposes. But you don’t have to make a legal issue out of these things.
I used to go along with the norm, thinking that it was the right thing to do. So I published my works under restrictive Creative Commons licences. But as I’ve learned more and my understanding of copyright has improved, now I don’t claim anything. I think if someone wants to do something with my work, great. Alexander Duncan of Chroniker Press took my Theragatha translation and made a nice printed edition: it’s terrific, buy one if you like (http://www.chronikerpress.com/)! Markus Echterhoff of DhammaTime just made some modifications to my Open Sanskrit font, itself derived from Open Sans. Cool, download and use it (https://www.dhammatime.com/open-sans-webfont-pali-sanskrit/).
Which brings me back around to something I alluded to earlier. Rather than relying on copyright, we should adapt the millenia-old means of negotiating usage of materials based on social interactions. And this is, once again, an area where technology has completely changed the situation. Creators can stay in touch with their audience to a degree that has not been possible since publishing was invented.
Copyright law is just bad psychology. The people who want your things are your fans. When you invoke copyright law, you are treating your fans like criminals. How do you think that’s going to work out?
The relationship between the creator and their audience is the single, irreducible fact of all public creative activity. You need a creator, and you need an audience. What you don’t need is a middle man. By making a faceless company the middle man, you distance the creator from their audience. When a fan copies a work, they don’t think they are harming the creator. They think of it as avoiding paying “the man”. If the natural creative relationship between artist and audience is restored, there will be a greater degree of respect and mutual support. This is proven by such innovations as Kickstarter, which shows that people are quite happy to pay for creative works, especially if they feel a sense of connection with the creator.
What I am suggesting is that innovative models like Kickstarter, or its Buddhist version dana.io, give us an example of how a new relationship between creator and audience can be forged. Lulu.com, the print on demand service, is another example. Rather than signing over the ownership of your work to Lulu, you retain ownership, and use whatever licence you like. Lulu is more like a contractor. You pay them for various services, basic ones like printing and distribution, and optionally for things like design and marketing. But they never own your work: you do.
Most people don’t realize it, but the internet runs on dana. Most of the servers that power the internet run on Linux, which is Free and Open Source Software. It was created, developed, and is still maintained by people who donate their work to the public good. Linux doesn’t just power the internet, it also underlies Android, and a whole range of other applications, from computers embedded in various devices, to the world’s fastest supercomputers. Why do you think the very best computer scientists in the world use Linux for their most performance-critical work? Because it’s better, obviously. Generosity is not just a nice idea, it creates better outcomes. Why? Because people do better work when you engage their positive nature than if you assume they are selfish.
Another innovative example is the TeX typesetting program developed by Donald Knuth. He released the software for free, as quality typesetting is a public good, everyone should be able to do it. And he made money by putting the detailed instructions in a book, the TeXbook, which was of course typeset in TeX. But he went further, by offering a reward for anyone who found a bug in his program. In this way he not only improved his work, he engaged a community of clever people who wanted to work with him.
There’s lots of other examples to be found. In all these cases, people found effective ways to use a fundamental principle of Buddhist psychology: that people work best when they are encouraged to do good. If you penalize them for doing something harmless, they just get annoyed.
I’ll finish this off with a quote from the author Neil Gaiman (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/16/neil-gaiman-urges-publishers-make-mistakes), which is a summary of his keynote for the London Book Fair 2013.
Mammals spend an awful lot of energy on infants, on children, they spend nine months of our lives gestating, and then they get two decades of attention from us, because we’re putting all of our attention into this one thing we want to grow. Dandelions on the other hand will have thousands of seeds and they let them go where they like, they don’t really care. They will let go of 1,000 seeds, and 100 of them will sprout.And, by the way, I fixed a spelling mistake in that quote. One dandelion just became a little more beautiful.
… the whole point of a digital frontier right now is that it’s a frontier, all the old rules are falling apart. Anyone who tells you they know what’s coming, what things will be like in 10 years’ time, is simply lying to you. None of the experts know—nobody knows, which is great.
When the rules are gone you can make up your own rules. You can fail, you can fail more interestingly, you can try things, and you can succeed in ways nobody would have thought of, because you’re pushing through a door marked no entrance, you’re walking in through it. You can do all of that stuff but you just have to become a dandelion, be willing for things to fail, throw things out there, try things, and see what sticks.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on June 03, 2015, 12:32:01 PM
Quote from: Sujato
Hi LLT,
I’ve deleted Johann’s replies as they were becoming spam. Multiple incoherent rants do not a conversation make.
Quote from: Samana Johann, reply to LTT
As for learning about taking what is not given and Buddhas ethic, the different between "right" and stealing, you may learn some of Buddhas views (http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch04_en.html#Pr2).Causing the owner to give up efforts (§) to regain possession: pieces of land (fields, orchards, building sites), buildings, objects deposited with a bhikkhu for safekeeping. (According to the Commentary, items loaned to a bhikkhu also fall into this category.) According to the Vibhaṅga, if a case of this sort goes to court, this type of taking is completed when the owner finally loses the case. The Vinaya-mukha adds that if the owner appeals the case after the first hearing, the taking is accomplished when the owner loses in the highest court to which he/she makes an appeal.
The discussion in the Commentary and Sub-commentary indicates that the two categories of "objects a bhikkhu has been asked to guard," and "objects deposited with a bhikkhu for safe keeping" differ in that in the latter case the object has been handed to the bhikkhu, whereas in the former it hasn't. This, however, does not fit with the Vibhaṅga, which in defining "deposited" uses the word upanikkhitaṃ, which in NP 18 means "placed down next to." A way to distinguish the two categories more closely in line with the Vibhaṅga would be to say that, in the latter case, the object is in such a location that the owner, in order to retrieve it, would have to ask the bhikkhu's permission to do so, whereas in the former he/she wouldn't. For example, an item placed in the bhikkhu's hut or a monastery storeroom would count as deposited with the bhikkhu — regardless of whether it had been handed to him — whereas an item set by the side of a public road — with the bhikkhu simply asked to watch over it for a short period of time — would count as an object he has been asked to guard.
Shifting a boundary marker: pieces of land. The Vinaya-mukha notes that this contradicts the preceding definition of how one takes a piece of land, as the owner might not even know that the marker had been moved, and would not necessarily give up ownership even if he/she saw a bhikkhu moving it. The Sub-commentary tries to explain the discrepancy by maintaining that shifting a boundary marker fulfils the factor of effort here only if the act of shifting the marker, in and of itself, induces the owner to give up any efforts to reclaim the land, but that would make this category superfluous. A better explanation would be that this definition of taking applies to attempts to lay claim to Saṅgha land, for otherwise — if land can be stolen only when the owner abandons ownership — then Saṅgha land could not be stolen, because there is no one acting for the Saṅgha of the Four Directions who could renounce once and for all any efforts to reclaim the land.
...The Commentary to Mv.I.62 adds that if a bhikkhu claims higher seniority than is actually his in order to obtain better donations, he should be treated under this rule when, through this ruse, he obtains donations that should have gone to another bhikkhu. However, this type of action would appear to fall under Deceit, discussed below.
....Causing the owner to give up efforts (§) to regain possession of land: all steps us to laying claim to the land: dukkaṭas. Inducing doubt in the owner's mind as to whether he/she will lose the land: a thullaccaya. Again, if the case goes to court and the bhikkhu loses, he incurs another thullaccaya.
Shifting a boundary marker: all steps up through removing the boundary marker from its original place: dukkaṭas. Any steps between that and putting the boundary marker in a new place: thullaccayas.
Taking a dutiable item through a customs area without paying duty: all steps up through touching the object with the intent of taking it out of the customs area: dukkaṭas. Making the object move without fully moving it from the customs area: a thullaccaya.
many more...
...and very important hereThe Buddha was highly critical of any bhikkhu who gives away heavy property of the Saṅgha. In the origin story to Pr 4, he cites the case of a bhikkhu who, hoping to find favor with a lay person, gives that person some of the Saṅgha's heavy property. Such a bhikkhu, he says, is one of the five great thieves of the world.
Quote from: Samana Johann
"There’s hardly a single computer user who hasn’t faced the possibility of using or creating content that infringes copyright."... so the thief likes to lighten the laws instead to train one self in precepts and urge others to do. Atma was wondering why somebody would reject a gift, put such is usual if one feels caught and so he seeks for ways to make his deeds legal afterwards.
Quote from: Samana Johann, reply to LTT
So try to make it better, that is actually good. Translate and share and do not get into business involved. Mr/Mrs LTT. There is an in between of restriction and unscrupulousness (pamada), and this is called generosity and gratitude: and here are some basic lessons (http://www.accesstoinsight.eu/lib/authors/thanissaro/lessonsofgratitude_en.html) or Sensitivity through Generosity (http://www.accesstoinsight.eu/lib/authors/thanissaro/sensitivity_en.html)
Such as rights has no foothold in Buddhas teachings and a claim after it no foothold in his Path.
Quote from: Samana Johann to LTT
Its not easy to understand the different between generosity and claim as I see... Its good, to give. Try it, if it is yours.
Quote from: Samana Johann to LTT
Samana prefers Dhamma and if you would know the copyrights and ethics where Samana is coming from, you would think childs start to think. Of course for modern time nothing makes sense as people prefer to claim and not to get their minds under control. That is what is called endless greed and still they will not be satisfied, eating the world and the whole heritage and after forgotten, no place for gratitude by plenty place to claim. Not understand this world, rights and laws but seeking for advocates to get their aims. Poorness has its reason.
here above the response
Quote from: LLT
Samana Johann, I think you need to learn a little about the history of copyright, rather than making spurious claims about “ownership” and stealing. Copyright is not ownership, but rather a special set of rights and restrictions that did not even exist until recently in history. For nearly all of Buddhist history, the contents of a text were not covered under copyright at all. In fact, all works made 100+ years ago are no longer eligible for copyright.
Getting rid of copyright is actually getting rid of special exclusive rights for authors that no longer make sense in the modern world. Doing this is actually a form of giving and generosity (giving to the entire world), because everyone stands to benefit from it. It also helps the works to achieve greater circulation. Would the Buddha be against his own teachings being free? Certainly not — they were already free during his own time, and for over 2000 years after that! Why would someone want to lock up his words and claim ownership? Not out of charity…
The idea that we artificially restrict circulation because someone somewhere owns the Buddha’s words, is quite absurd. As long as society still accepts copyright, we also must accept it, but publishing translations without copyright (in the first place) is the better way. This allows distribution at the speed of modern technology, without all the unnecessary legal restrictions and red tape.
earlier have been deleted and can not be restored.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on June 04, 2015, 10:42:20 AM
Quote from: Bayan (@Bayan_The_One) says:
June 3, 2015 at 6:15 pm, https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25411
June 3, 2015 at 6:15 pm, https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25411
Samana Johann
can you specify who stole what to be dubbed a thief?
Quote from: Johann on https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25418
Deleting counts as destruction and is not only from a Vinaya view an offense but also a violation of basic right. Here in this regard it would be protected as under authors' right. Sujato was taught this already in April 2013 (https://sujato.wordpress.com/about/#comment-14707), but neither does he feel to be subject of common laws and ethics nor does he stick to Vinaya. A thief and even worse, a notoriety repeat offender. Not to speak about his "bigger" undertakings and encouragements to steeling.
Quote from: Samana Johann, https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25420
Here the “soft” case:
Compensation owed. The Commentary introduces the concept of bhaṇḍadeyya, or compensation owed, to cover cases where a bhikkhu is responsible for the loss or destruction of another person’s property. It defines this concept by saying that the bhikkhu must pay the price of the object to the owner or give the owner another object of equal value to the one lost or destroyed; if the owner gives up his/her efforts to receive compensation, the bhikkhu incurs a pārājika. The Commentary applies this concept not only to cases where the bhikkhu knowingly and intentionally destroys the object, but also to cases where he borrows or agrees to look after something that then gets lost, stolen, or destroyed through his negligence; or where he takes an item mistakenly thinking that it was discarded or that he was in a position to take it on trust.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on June 04, 2015, 11:03:13 AM
Quote from: Samana https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25421Johann,
As people here do not even know the different between "heavy offenses" and "light offenses", common laws and civil laws (basic precepts), it is maybe worthy to start to study this since a interest in Vinaya seems not be the target here on this forum at all. Authors’ rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights). Atma hopes that he does not need to mention, that the general ethic of anglo american countries is very poor and does not include basic rights that much but cut it down on commercial issues, power and interest.
And if anybody asks, why don't you explain it in good and patient sentences, the answer is that "if you are on a ground, where people do not respect others effort and property, the danger of deleting is always present, it does not make sense to put much effort into for those which have not that much smartness to understand also short cuts and hints", don't worry Sujato does, he has a reason to hide, a heavy reason.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on June 04, 2015, 12:35:39 PM
Quote from: Samana Johann, https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/copy-this/#comment-25424
To put the Buddhas tradition under the label of “Opposition to copyright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_copyright)“, Anarchism, is very poor, very poor… but fits well to all other aspirations here in this children-punk-blog and the normal way Dhamma and moral disappears form this world.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on October 19, 2015, 07:37:35 AM
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/
Vacchagotta said to the Lord: “I have heard it said that you, good Gotama, teach that charity should only be given to you, not to others, to your followers, not to the followers of other teachers. Are those who say this representing your opinion without distorting it? Do they speak according to your teaching? For indeed, good Gotama, I am anxious not to misrepresent you.”
The Lord replied: “Vaccha, those who say this are not of my opinion, they misrepresent me and say what is not true. Truly, whoever discourages another from giving charity hinders them in three ways. What three? He hinders the giver from acquiring good, he hinders the receiver from receiving the charity, and he has already ruined himself through his meanness.”
Vacchagotta, Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.57
Read this sutta ▶ (https://suttacentral.net/en/an3.57)
...
“What five factors has he abandoned? Sensual desire, ill will, dullness
and drowsiness, restlessness and remorse, and doubt. These are the five factors that he has abandoned.
“And what five factors does he possess? The virtuous behavior, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and knowledge and vision of liberation of one beyond training. These are the five factors that he possesses.
“It is in such a way, I say, that what is given to one who has abandoned five factors and possesses five factors is very fruitful.”
Among cattle of any sort,
whether black, white, red, or golden,
mottled, uniform, or pigeon-colored,
the tamed bull is born,
the one that can bear the load,
possessing strength, advancing with good speed.
They yoke the burden just to him;
they are not concerned about his color.
So too, among human beings
it is in any kind of birth—
among khattiyas, brahmins, vessas,
suddas, caṇḍālas, or scavengers—
among people of any sort
that the tamed person of good manners is born:
one firm in Dhamma, virtuous in conduct,
truthful in speech, endowed with moral shame;
one who has abandoned birth and death,
consummate in the spiritual life,
with the burden dropped, detached,
who has done his task, free of taints;
who has gone beyond all things of the world
and by non-clinging has reached nibbāna:
an offering is truly vast
when planted in that spotless field.
Fools devoid of understanding,
dull-witted, unlearned,
do not attend on the holy ones
but give their gifts to those outside.
Those, however, who attend on the holy ones,
on the wise ones esteemed as sagely,
and those whose faith in the Fortunate One
is deeply rooted and well established,
go to the world of the devas
or are born here in a good family.
Advancing in successive steps,
those wise ones attain nibbāna.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on October 19, 2015, 09:49:16 AM
Quote from: Sujato https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/help-add-resources/489
Help add resources!
You may have noticed that I've been adding a bunch of talks and other resources here on Discourse. This is one of the purposes I'd like to see this platform used for: a gathering place for the great teachings on the Suttas that are scattered all over the web.
And here's where you can help. Find the talks, essays, articles, chanting, or whatever that inspires you and helps you understand the Suttas, and post it here.
I'm starting this now because we are ready to move to the next step of integrating Discourse with SuttaCentral. In a few days, we'll launch a new feature, where any posts or discussions about a particular sutta here will show up in the sidebar at SuttaCentral. Whatever sutta you're reading, there'll be a wealth of wisdom to help you, right there.
So how to make it work?
We've done the hard work on the coding side—or rather, @blake has done the hard work, and I've cheered him on—so that everything is simple on this end. Here's how to do it:
1 Find an inspiring resource on the Suttas.
2 Make a new Topic here.
3 For AV material like YouTube, paste the link. For written material, you can use a link for a web page or file, upload for a pdf file, or paste an essay directly into the post.
4 Make sure to include at least two things in the title: the SuttaCentral ID (eg MN23) and something to distinguish this post (eg "talk by Ajahn Brahm").
5 Put it under the correct category (typically AV or Essays).
6 Add tags for the SuttaCentral ID and the author/speaker.
7 Create Topic. Your post will appear both here and in the sidebar for the relevant sutta on SuttaCentral.
And you're done. It only takes a minute, and you've helped make the Buddha's words available for people all over the world. Sadhu!
The most important thing is to use the proper SuttaCentral ID. This is what lets us hook it up with our system. Let me know if you need help with this.
One note: If you paste essays directly in Discourse, as I did with In the Buddha's Words, make sure the formatting is done properly. You can't just directly paste Word documents here. Discourse doesn't support complex text formatting, although improved support will be coming in a few months. However if it is a complex essay with footnotes and the like, best to use a pdf. Let me know if you have questions.
In some cases, you can get great results simply by pasting the URL. For example, see http://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/dn1-the-great-entanglement-essay-and-talk-by-alexander-duncan/517. All I did was paste the URL from the original site (http://palisuttas.com/2014/11/01/brahmajala-sutta/) and Discourse did the rest. Headings, lists, blockquotes, notes, images, videos, even tables, just work right out of the box. Whoa! This is because of a cool Discourse feature called "oneboxing", where for certain whitelisted sites, we can just pull in information. To use this, try just adding a URL. If it doesn't do anything, it means that site is not whitelisted. Let me know, and I'll add it to the whitelist for oneboxing. Not all sites support this, however, so it's a bit hit and miss. Oneboxing is supported for Google Drive, so if you have a slideshow or complex document, add it to Google Drive, publish it, and paste the URL in Discourse.
Oh, and you might be wondering why I started with talks by Ven Dhammavuddho. He's a Malaysian monk who has been practicing and teaching the suttas for a long time, and is an old friend of mine from my time in Malaysia. But the reason I used his talks was derived from my sophisticated methodology: they came up first on a youtube search for "digha nikaya"! I'm aiming to get a range of resources for DN up and running, to show what is possible and help work out the kinks in the system.
Me would say, that this is the greatest thief since there have been Buddhas in this world, yet such could be the greatest gift as well, if the motivation would not be one of defilement and using them.
For who ever is not able to see the underlying intentions of the Devadattas spawn, such a one is really not to help, because no link followed will lead you to other things like this, for example:
Quote from: http://www.lulu.com/shop/alexander-duncan/buddhist-self-ordination-a-dharma-strategy-for-the-west/paperback/product-21431829.html
Dharma Strategy for the West
By Alexander Duncan
This booklet explores the Dharma Transmission to the West from its origin in 1908 with the First Buddhist Mission to the West to the arrival of today's Asian immigrant teachers and schools, and asks the fundamental question: What is the right relationship between the DTW and the West? Is the West merely a passive receiver of dharma, or will the DTW transform Buddhism itself? The author seeks for the answer in Buddhist history, and finds it in the Mahayana rite of self-ordination, which he presents in a close English paraphrase of the Tibetan rite together with an essay on the relationship between the Mahayana precepts and the Vinaya.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on November 12, 2015, 12:16:30 AM
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/en/pi-tv-bu-vb-pj1
Translated by Bhikkhu Brahmali for SuttaCentral, 2014.
Dedicated to the Public Domain by way of Creative Commons Zero (CC0). You are encouraged to do whatever you like with this work.
This translation began as a revision of The Book of the Discipline, translated by I.B. Horner. However, as the project continued it became an independent translation.
A complete digital edition of The Book of the Discipline can be downloaded here.
The Book of the Discipline was originally published by the Pali Text Society in the following years:
Vol. 1: 1938
Vol. 2: 1940
Vol. 3: 1942
Vol. 4: 1951
Vol. 5: 1950
Vol. 6: 1966
In May 2013, these volumes were kindly released by the Pali Text Society under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC 3.0).
Prepared for SuttaCentral by Bhikkhu Sujato.
First Added: 2015-07-26
Last Modified: 2015-07-26
1) Object: anything belonging to another human being or a group of human beings.
2) Perception: One perceives the object as belonging to another human being or a group of human beings.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on November 22, 2015, 02:09:41 PM
Its pretty amazing that the host of Devadata is exactly doing everything what was suggest to them, put it does not seem that any slight of understanding and right view arises, so done the path with wrong view, it will any up in bitter fruits, not only for the encouraging people but for many in this world.
With a host of people of significant wrong view Sujato, the executing general of this host, is developing a dhamma and vinaya with and for "not desired" people, using affection, using foolish people with strong demand thinking, those who do not respect mother and father, do not respect the foremost as the foremost, all those who (whether they like it or not) have no much future in this existence and fights all of those who have real faith and good training on the path. Giving slaves hope which he will not be able to actually give them.
That is called the biggest thief in the world.
So to learn from it, it does not make sense to give a person of wrong view, of no virtue any assistance of learning Dhamma. As for Vinaya such people, if not changing, need to be expelled.
Not changing his ways, feeding in areas of Sg 13 on those who believe his statements, dishonor the whole whole tradition, Millions of Buddhists all of the world, the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha... all he develops guided by wrong purpose, is a, if not changing quick, a big basked of trash.
Not the speak about the side aspiration of his, how do he call them, desiring, ...
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/a-few-more-terms/2333
vinaya
This is usually translated as “discipline”. But if you google this, the first definition is:
the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.
Which, yuk. The use of the term “discipline” in Buddhism is directly derived from Christian monastic codes, where "obedience" and "punishment" are indeed hallmarks. But these are certainly not implied in the Pali term vinaya. This means, rather, “guidance”.
It is true that there are some (very mild, non-corporal) punishments in the Vinayapitaka, but that doesn’t justify the translation. There are some punishments in schools, but that doesn't mean we say "education" is a process of enforcing obedience with punishment. And as for “obedience”, the concept simply doesn’t exist in the Vinaya.
I suggest we do away with "discipline" entirely and use “guidance”. Dhammavinaya becomes “teaching and guidance”, and so on.
Guidance for fostering defilement and live on in ones foolish ways. Dhammavinaya: "You way to be guided staying a fool" rather than be tamed, for those able to be tamed...
well...
Quote from: Mike on DW (http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=23418&p=362403#p362393)
A few more terms:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/a-few-more-terms/2333
Since this project will most likely eclipse Access to Insight in a couple of years, if you have opinions on terminology, you might want to express it there. It's a useful opportunity to ditch some of the more antiquated aspects of the English terminology developed by PTS and in Sri Lanka, which culminated in Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations of the MN, SN, and DN.
If one thinks that all of these unprincipled people would not even know anything without their generous supporters they dishonor now, it is easy to see that those people are not some who could ever be called people of integrity.
Having feed so long, they, like foolish people, eat even their mother. There will be a long long bad time in the wheel of wandering on. Nobody can help them out, they gathered together for many many live times and will do so in future. Not an auspicious life if one get just them known.
It would not even make sense to think "May they..." because there no ground for them. Think of what such people need to have been done in the past that they are in such a situation, even outwardly everything seems best for them.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on November 29, 2015, 09:10:19 PM
:)
Dieses ist der Grund, warum in Asien der Markt so floriert, man läßt die Frauen machen, die sind besser wenn's um werden und mehren geht. Ob Sujato das in seine emanzipationsstudien aufnehmen wird...
Quote from: Posted on November 29, 2015 by Samaneri Vimala (https://sujatoeurope.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/help-needed-for-suttacentral/)
We are looking for some German speakers to help with the SuttaCentral.net website.
1. For our internationalisation project, we need somebody who is willing to translate approximately 13 webpages from English to German in order to help create a complete German language website.
2. For our Dhammasanghani project, we need somebody to proofread the texts and help prepare the book for publishing. This historic translation by Ven. Nyanaponika was never before published. He translated this work while he was held prisoner in the prisoner-of-war camp in Dheradun in India during the second world-war.
If you have some time and want to help please contact us.
Wenn man das Dhamma dann auch zum Verkauf frei gibt, hält man sich die Händler in diesem Land auch warm. Ist doch nicht schwer in dieser Welt zu handeln, man muß sich nur auf die Kunden einstellen und die Mitstreiter bedienen.
Also dann, gehen wir es an. Runde frei für Dhammakaya made in Australia. Und nicht vergessen: Bhante Sujato, zu Besuch im Kloster Muttodaya (de) (http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,1948.0.html)
(https://forum.sangham.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftheravada-en.wdfiles.com%2Flocal--resized-images%2Finviting-teachers%2Fsujato.jpg%2Fmedium.jpg&hash=790789c9aac0a4f6431dc706a71a596c194c4f71)
Wo Brahmali seinen "Hintern" (wie eine Dame einst meinte) für die Damenwelt versteigert hat, bittet Sujato nun zur Kassen. So ist das mit den Schulden in dieser Welt. Einmal drinen, kein Weg mehr heraus solange man die Wurzel nicht abschneidet. So funktioniert heute auf der ganzen Welt source forking und alle anderen Milliardengeschäfte die unter "free" laufen. Der Kunde weiß nicht mal wie er dazu kommt und warum er, wo er doch alles free bezieht, immer ärmer und abhängiger wird. Na da werden ja sicher gute Geschäfte abgewickelt werden, wenn man denkt das die Nyanaponika-Händler direkt am Drücker sitzen.
Die Damen tun sich dann auch nicht so schwer, eventuelle zu nehmen, was nicht gegeben ist...
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/de/mn27
Übersetzer: Mettiko Bhikkhu (Kay Zumwinkel)
Die Lehrreden des Buddha aus der Mittleren Sammlung (Majjhima Nikāya)
auf Initiative von Ayya Khema Bhikkhunī
ISBN 978-3-931274-13-6
3. Auflage 2014
© der deutschsprachigen Ausgabe by Jhana Verlag, Uttenbühl 2001
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
Jhana Verlag im Buddha-Haus www.buddha-haus.de oder www.buddha-haus-shop.de
Prepared for SuttaCentral by Ayya Vimala.
Aber das können Sie ja mit den Freunden in Muttodaya dann besprechen, vielleicht ist ja auch das andere Verlagshaus gegenwärtig. Was der JuBu-Boom alles zu überwinden mag, was die Regeln früher einschränkten.
Interessant ist natürlich auch die Danksagung: "Kay Zimwinkel (Ajahn Mettiko) German translation of MN.", wenn man bedenkt, daß diese Texte, wie er selber schrieb, nicht ihm gehören.... "Bhikkhu Mettiko German translation of the Majjhima Nikāya." und siehe da (!), "Bhikkhu Santuttho Consultation and advice on German translations.", das ist ja eine Bande (https://suttacentral.net/contacts), anders kann man das nicht nennen.
Ist ja nicht so, daß er nur die anderen holen läßt... ATIs und anderer Arbeiten, kommen auch durch eigene Hand überall hinein (ist ja sonst nicht viel an Dhamma als Grundlage da) jetzt natürlich ohne Links und Bezug zum Kopierechthalter und was nicht zum Verkauf bestimmt (und dazu zählt auch das Betteln um Dana!) nun auf der Robin-Hood Seite, z.B. in Portugals Sprache:
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/pt/mn27
Revisado: 16 Abril 2013
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Ein Treffpunkt der "undankbaren" Robin Hoods oder die Heerscharen Devadattas.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 02, 2016, 09:31:21 AM
You really have to look about this sad image of Rauner und Jammerer how they even encourage each other to be bound and fettered over there in some topics:
Simply the starter question of a consumer leading monks tells already everything. Can we use ist... and then, how to use it, without even making an effort to bring the food form the table to the mouth. Ohh... vedana!
Quote from: Can SC use Piya Tan’s translations? (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/can-sc-use-piya-tans-translations/2336)
Atma (my person) had registered here in trust, that the person who made the TOS, is not aware that he mad them. If please delete this account again, because there is no reason to believe that disciples of the Buddha are working here. Not to speak about advocating postmodern and then doing the TOS stuff as soon it becomes a matter of oneself. That is called hypocrisy or totally unaware.
And maybe you do good to check the system generally since one gets a strange impression, getting such, by following the registration mail: "Thunderbird thinks this message is a scam. The links in the message may be trying to impersonate web pages you want to visit. Are you sure you want to visit mandrillapp.com?"
Don't use things that are not given!
What brings Atma to the reason, why he felt to write here.
When one looks at you, one is reminded on a group of collectors and hunters, but really not on people who like to make merits.
What is the backward if you put an effort into things? What is the backward to motivate people to put an effort in letting go? What is be benefit to think on reasons why it is hard to let go? What is the benefit of helping each other to become more and more lazy but more and more greedy at the same time.
What ever you do, you miss the point of practice. And why? Because you dont focus on your action and mind state, but simply on fruits. You are caught like Baka was caught by Mara, and now one approaches Baka and points on Mara.
You approach people as being meditation teacher, vipassana teacher, and yet you are even not able to perform raw merits? Blind people even take you for full. Be aware of that, even if you might not let go of your defilement, do not present them as being the Dhamma and in line of Dhamma.
People!, focus and practice, on scarify on that what you do for your self, and not on what Baka thinks that it is lasting, not aging, self.
The time your consult each other how to get fruits without giving something first, you could already have made a lot of suttas avaliable. But you might forget, that all you do is for your self. Whether you do wise or unwise.
Think about it, and think about what you are doing here aside of worshiping Baka and Mara, delight in becoming rather to use the possibility to practice.
Its even more sad to see Sri Lankan people, who should know a better, fallen into the line of lazy consumer and dealers and trust in what is not given, rather to practice giving.
I wounder where the picture of smiling Brahma in front of the google advertising "We make the work for you" has disappeared to. They are not even doing the work for you, but are just leading the line of collectors and hunters, and just give them bounds to be sure that they feel lasting and get sankharas nourished.
You could even start to ask people, so that they would have a change to give something consciously. Its so that you would even feel gratitude and obligation, if you receive what is given, rather to act like collectors and hunters who congratulate each others when having made a hunt.
Atma is even sure that Piya Tan would be so happy and so inspired that he would give his disciples even a deal to work things out for you :slightly_smiling: You know the ways how business and joy (n) adventure works.
How ever, once again, what you give here, aside of consumer support is really a sad picture, not even a good picture for business people, who like to earn for the world but doing it with there own hands and own power. "Thieves" teaching each others to to stay such and make "rights" destroying goodness and merits in this world.
Appamada!
(Note: this answer has not been given with the agreement to be means of trade or the purpose of/for trade and/or keep people trapped and bound. How you handle it lies in your sphere, but does not excuse the deed here either.)
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 02, 2016, 09:34:56 AM
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 02, 2016, 09:54:39 AM
Code: [Select]
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You will see that there is not a little wrong, when Atma calls this group Thieves, the Buddha called it Maha thieves, those who sell the Dhamma and encourage others to steal and there is no different between illegal download websites, content webpages which use naive user to go around copy rights and sutta - decentral. Decentral why? Because it is stealing Dhamma and its way in line of Dhamma in this world. Yet, making even the naive people, who believe in postmodern and communism as a solution responsible for their thieving.
An owner would even have a hard to claim, but Atma is sure they will adopt the russian ways of disclaimer also soon.
But what would a consumer worry about that, now when he still can feed on it... You can not help them. Neither the pig holder nor the pigs. They are bound to each other.
When you look at this contract all those who "steal" for sutta central and you know a little about worldly law, like it is still used in Europa, you can say its definitely even against costumer care and also what is called in law "immoral contract".
Yet, they will soon change it. Why? Because they are again leaded by greed, aversion and delusion. That is all people are able to put an effort into things. When this arises, there is reason for effort. So how ever you would motivated them, they will do it wrong again. Why? Because wrong view is leading them.
Just look at the content of this forum: "It 95% illegal", all this copy and pastes form other sides. Look at the translations made form ATI, they are all illegal, not to speak about kamma on this level.
So its impossible to bring Dhamma in line of Dhamma on such places, because they are not thought for letting go and giving, they are thought for becoming and being.
Look at Piya Tans Dhamma gifts, they have been already taken as sell-able share ware, without any gratitude and the "funny" thing is, that Piya Tan even supports his later thieves. People get what they invest in. So communists get their regime, poor steal from other poor, leaders of such groups are caught up by the defilement of their crowd. No change to escape aside of Dhamma in line of Dhamma.
While a monk would always make a disclaimer, that he how ever stays to be responsible at least for his deeds and call for deeds, those monks do it "smart" like pirates are used to (for if you follow to steal for them):
...you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms.
For if you take and have a share of the stolen:
This Agreement does not transfer from SuttaCentral to you any SuttaCentral or third party intellectual property.
Responsibility deny form the beginning till the end, and suggestion others to follow this wired ideas and hypocrisy of postmodern, stealing the label "Buddha Dhamma" to even do such. What?
And what do you think where the Pali Texts are taken from?
Quote from: Meta - https://suttacentral.net/pi/dn1
Pali text from the Mahāsaṅgīti Tipiṭaka Buddhavasse 2500: World Tipiṭaka Edition in Roman Script. Edited and published by The M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund, 2005. Based on the digital edition of the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana published by the Vipassana Research Institute, with corrections and proofreading by the Dhamma Society.
Prepared for SuttaCentral by Blake Walshe and Bhikkhu Sujato.
Do you honestly believe that Thailands Sangha would give people who constantly discredit Thailands Sangha, their heritage? Do you think that the holder of the digital Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana, the Vipassana Research did give it now for sell? Its even no more visible how interwoven this chain of thieving in the Name of the Buddha is.
And when you make a research of who those people are, who seems to having made a lot of merits, you find a google website: https://sites.google.com/a/worldtipitaka.info/society/
You would not believe how tick this network of cheaters and dealers is, who even cheat their elders and kings with their thieves, not to speak about the many faithful. And yet they would counter, every giving is good. Yes every giving. But in no means taking an call it a gift, or take to give. That is something they can not understand. Why? Because wrong view and Robin Hood leads them.
Even if you search much, you would not find "namo" on this page aside of respect in regard of dealers. Where do you like to find gratitude and generosity there? Its the generosity of geckos, giving patient and time when focusing on their hunt and the gratitude of a pig breeder. Which pig breeder would give his pigs ways of release? Both benefit as far as their signs reach.
If you believe that material located on or linked to by discourse.suttacentral.net violates your copyright, and if this website resides in the USA, you are encouraged to notify SuttaCentral in accordance with SuttaCentral’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") Policy. SuttaCentral will respond to all such notices, including as required or appropriate by removing the infringing material or disabling all links to the infringing material.
Ohh, if they would be serious, it would be empty not to speak that they would have to delete a lot of accounts, but actually they prefer to delete accounts of those who would tell them: "Hey be careful", since they would face what the world is about Dana and doing merits: No interest. Why should the child be different form its parents?
So even if the owner would now give up there ownership (as for the Sangha property such is even not possible), all what he and his abetter had done, would be just a fulfillment of the transgression. Still there could be maybe a possibility to confess and come out of it with a "swollen eye". But Atma really doubts that there is either a way they would see the need or or if there even is a possibility for rehabilitation.
Help add resources! (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/help-add-resources/489) actually means "Help stealing resources!" and that is way it was said and suggested: Don't touch it! That what is not given and walk the ways of the Robin Hoods, thinking Robin hood was not a thieve, murder and cheater like all this worldly heroes just for a day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkfO8c8MlKU) at least.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 02, 2016, 02:12:03 PM
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/contacts
Akincano Marc Weber German translations: consultation and advice. http://www.akincano.net/english-about.html
Alain René Bernay French translations: sourcing and text preparation.
Alex Genaud Consultation.
Alexander баян купи-ка Russian translations.
Alpesh Raval, Jatin, and the team at Hi-Tech Typing and markup of several texts, including the English translations of the Pali Vinaya, Vibhaṅga, and Kathāvatthu, and several Hindi texts.
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Antoni Baron Spanish translations: consultation.
Ayya Agganyani German translations: consultation and advice on Abhidhamma.
Ayyā Vimalañāṇī German translations: text preparation. http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,411.msg8831.html#msg8831
Ayyā Vimalā Programming, text preparation and coordination.
Ayyā Ãraññadevī English translations: corrections for dictionaries.
Ben Arasu Tamil translations.
Ben Mitchell of Rosetta Type Help with fonts.
Bhikkhu Anālayo English translation of the Saṁyuktāgama, help with parallels.
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Bhikkhu Bodhi English translations.
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Bhikkhu Indacanda Vietnamese translations.
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Bhikkhu Khemacāro (박석현) Korean translations.
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Bhikkhu Mettavihāri Sinhala translations: support.
Bhikkhu Mettiko German translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. [Atma doubts, that he could give something what he has "sold" already]
Bhikkhu Pāsādika English translation of the Ekottarikāgama.
Bhikkhu Santuttho German translations: consultation, advice and Pali→German dictionary. [good to have a Pali German dictionary now avaliable]
Bhikkhu Yuttadhammo Pali-English dictionary, Pali lookup code, Pali transliteration code. http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,2089.0.html
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Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā English translation of the Upāyikā.
Bhikkhunī Nibbidā English translation: preparation of The Book of the Discipline.
Binh Anson Vietnamese translations: text preparation.
Buddhist Library (Sydney) Use of facilities.
Buddhist Society of WA Use of facilities.
Buddhist Studies Review Permission to use the English translation of the Ekottarikāgama.
Charles Muller Digital Dictionary of Buddhism.
Dave Strandberg SASS and JS enhancements.
David Březina of Rosetta Type Help with fonts.
David Dargie and Michelle Styles-Williams Transcription of Sanskrit texts.
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Dheerayupa Sukonthapanthu Thai translations: coordination, consultation, and text preparation.
Dilbag Bhangu Hindi translations: support.
Dr. Mark Allon Consultation.
Dustin Cheah General support.
Enzo Alfano Italian translations.
G. Radhakrishnan General support.
Gabriel Laera Portuguese translations: preparation and creation of Pali→Portugese dictionary.
Gia Hieu Nguyen General support.
Handaka Vijjananda General support.
Hero Barua Bengali translations: support.
Indra Anggara Indonesian translations.
Jacqueline Rodgers Japanese translations: support.
Janaka Liyanage Sinhala translations: text preparation and support.
John Nishinaga Setting up VPS, managing shift from PHP to Python, IT consultant and technician.
Karel Chromovský Czech translations.
Kumārī Jayawardena Sinhala translations: permission to use the work by her father, A.P. de Zoysa.
Kåre A. Lie Norwegian translations.
Maithri Panagoda Sinhala translations: support.
Manfred Wierich German translations: text preparation and support.
Marco A. Montava Belda and friends at Buddhismo Theravada Hispano Pali→Spanish Dictionary.
Marcus Bingenheimer Permission to use translations of the shorter Saṁyuktāgama, consultation.
Maria Backes German translations: text preparation and organisation of fund-raising events.
Michael Beisert Portuguese translations. http://www.acessoaoinsight.net/ [!]
Mukta Barua Bengali translations: support.
Nathan Win Burmese translations: support.
Patcharaporn Sahaponghirun Thai translations: text preparation.
Peter van Loosbroek Dutch translations.
Piotr Marcinow Polish translations: text preparation.
Premalal Mirihagalla General support.
Prof. Kobus Kruger Afrikaans translations.
Randolph Alwis Legal advice.
Raimund Beyerlein and Verlag Beyerlein-Steinschulte German translations: copyrights and advice.
Sarah “Samurai” Lappin Japanese translations: support.
Shai Schwartz Hebrew translations.
Shikha Panjwani, Rahul Patel, and the team at Edatamine Services Typing and markup of several Hindi texts.
Shisanu Tongchim Thai translations: technical assistance.
Shravasti Dhammika Geographic consultation. [withou words...]
Sirisumana Godage Sinhala translations: support.
Štěpán Chromovský Czech translations.
Udayan Barua Bengali translations: support.
Vipassana Research Institute Permission to use translations of the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta. [Atma would doubt that such was done like it is done - free to sell http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,574.0.html]
Quote from: Russian Translation:
Translated by: баян купи-ка.
The translation is based on a number of English translations with reference to Pali:
Translation by Ven Ñāṇamoli / Ven Bodhi
Translation by Ven Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Translation by Piya Tan
License Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International [!]
Prepared for SuttaCentral by Ayya Vimala.
Quote from: French translation
Alain René Bernay
http://www.canonpali.org/ Accès au canon pali (sur la base d'un site anglais)
Traductions de textes du canon pali à partir du site en anglais Access to Insight
Quote from: Portuguese translations
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Prepared for SuttaCentral by Gabriel Laera and Bhikkhu Sujato.Quote from: http://www.acessoaoinsight.net/quem_somos.php#preco...not that there is only a small hint that the translations have been made form ATI, there is also the Robin hood declaration:
O Dhamma, ou a verdade sobre a realidade dos fenômenos, não é algo que pertença a alguém, nem sequer ao próprio Buda, pois se trata da realidade de como as coisas na verdade são. O Buda re-descobriu essa verdade e a expôs para o mundo. O direito do Buda sobre o Dhamma é de ter alcançado a máxima realização possível dessa verdade e de ser um expoente perfeito dessa realização.
Uma pessoa que assuma qualquer direito de propriedade em relação ao Dhamma e com base nisso se dedique ao comércio desses ensinamentos estará tomando aquilo que não lhe pertence para obter um ganho financeiro. Esse tipo de atitude fere a ética Budista. Coerente com essa ética o Acesso ao Insight oferece os livros digitais em todos os seus formatos gratuitamente.
No caso de livros impressos, que são comercializados pela Bookess, os resultados financeiros das vendas são todos doados, com prioridade para os monastérios da Forest Sangha.
It simply says "You are free to steal and Buddha acknowledged it"
You can continue your research for yourself that you would no more wonder of what Atma is telling you all the time and not wonder any more about the many reaction on pure minded requests.
So what ever Dhamma in line of Dhamma was growing is bite by bite stolen and it goes and grows on. That is why Dhamma in line of Dhamma, does only grow small if even.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 03, 2016, 07:22:21 PM
In this sample case the Work is originated from Bhikkhu Bodhi, for example:
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/en/sn1.1
© Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha (Wisdom Publications, 2000)While Asians are really not familiar with rights and ownership on internet and generally believe that this is a free zone, SuttaCentral Stuff and editors know it all exactly and use whom ever they can use.
This excerpt from The Connected Discourses of the Buddha by Bhikkhu Bodhi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on the work Connected Discourses of the Buddha at Wisdom Publications.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Wisdom Publications.
[NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. ]
And here what it has become from the original:
Last sample the Indonesian translation, added by Ayya Vimala.
Quote from: https://suttacentral.net/id/sn1.1
Translated by Indra Anggara for Dhamma Citta (http://dhammacitta.org/dcpedia/DhammaCitta_Pedia).
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(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.id)
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Prepared for SuttaCentral by Ayya Vimala.
Such a corrupt undertaking is especially easy to do in Asian Countries, where the people have a lot of faith if monks or nuns approach.
Its really not difficult to see through the destructive work, leaded by wrong views and their ways of actions, that will harm not only the Sangha but the tradition as a whole for a long long time. Its a pulling the Dhamma in ways and means and finally output into A-dhamma and to give it a simply easy to consume postmodern approach, rejecting all the basics of right view.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 11, 2017, 12:58:56 AM
Quote from: sujato (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/how-are-translations-secured/4234/5)
Quote from: Leon74:Only if, when you access the content, you delete the files from the original server. So no: copying is not stealing.
would that go against "abstaining from taking what is not given"?
Wonder how much a thief can steal in this way even telling people that he do so. Its not a difficult task, like right wing parties mostly get the most votes by immigrants...
Nobody of those who see could possible help.
Atma wonders also how long it will take that Ven. Thanissaro will public correct his terrible mistake in his BMC which gives the fools food to feed.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 18, 2017, 02:37:17 PM
Quote from: in karmic results of wrong view https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/kammic-results-of-wrong-view/3107/20?u=samanajohann
Maybe useful to hold up right view in this topic and where ever searched in support of the dassana of the op:
["Böse Ansichten" und Hölle - "Evil views" & Hell - niyata-micchāditthi (htt p:/ /sangham.net/index.php/topic,2118.0.html)
[How to address wrong view? - Wie entgegnet man Falscher Ansicht?(htt p://sangham.net/index.php/topic,2106.0.html)
Atma is restriced to make Dhamma dana here, since it seems that serval hosts are forbidden censured by people of strong wrong view.
So it looks like you can not be safed from hell for now.
And dont think that a lay person deletes an censures... see screen shot ...which Atma still wanted to see as possibility.
Is there any censure worthy in this posts?
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/search-for-suttas-mentioning-the-buddha-approaching-others-to-teach-them/3075/4?u=samanajohann
[Dhp 77](http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.06.bpit_en.html#s-dhp-77) and its commentary story are straight forward in this matter. Its just that nowaday it mosty would turn out in the other direction. So be carefull, its not a duty at least but just compassion.
Dhp 76 also mentioned its blessing. As for who is a good layperson the Buddha mentioned somebody who does him self and also encourages others as the best under four kind of people.
[Abhaya Sutta: To Prinz Abhaya]( http://www.accesstoinsight.eu/tipitaka/mn/mn.058.than_en.html) in regard of compassion.
Atma has a lot of suttas and explainings, since it is very importand to understand this issue especially if one still has the desire to have a good community also in future lives and to keep sociaties for next generations useful. For Nibbana honestly no duty at all, just on pavarana day for monks after the rain.
In regard of Monks, the Buddha pointed on a occation where Anattapindika once rebuked some ascetics and told his monks that such should be done from time to time by them as well.
Many people think that only when the think (accept tolerate silently) it has no karmic impact.
Maybe the talk [How to address wrong view?] makes the sociaty, community and kamma issue a little bit understandable althought the english is not improved for now.
For more you are welcome to come into the online monastery sangham.net. the window and font is very small here, makes eyes hurting after a while.
Then thinking "eyes are hurting, well, but thats something possible to take and should not hinder if there is a possibility to share dhamma and it would be good to give an indirect hint to the admin so tgat he feels urged to fix the problem so that nobody needs to have hurting eyee" and so conhinued to write on the 2,5 x 2.5 cm display without possibility to zoom thinking
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/search-for-suttas-mentioning-the-buddha-approaching-others-to-teach-them/3075/5
The Story or Bhikkhus Assaji and Punabbasuka
While residing at the Jetavana monastery, the Buddha uttered Verse (77) of this book, with reference to bhikkhus Assaji and Punabbasuka.
Bhikkhus Assaji and Punabbasuka and their five hundred disciples were staying at Kitagiri village. While staying there they made their living by planting flowering plants and fruit trees for gain, thus violating the rules of Fundamental Precepts for bhikkhus.
The Buddha hearing about these bhikkhus sent his two Chief Disciples Sariputta and Maha Moggallana, to stop them from committing further misconduct. To his two Chief Disciples the Buddha said, "Tell those bhikkhus not to destroy the faith and generosity of the lay disciples by misconduct and if anyone should disobey, drive him out of the monastery. Do not hesitate to do as I told you, for only fools dislike being given good advice and being forbidden to do evil."
Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows:
Verse 77: The man of wisdom should admonish others; he should give advice and should prevent others from doing wrong; such a man is held dear by the good; he is disliked only by the bad. -[dhp 77](http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.06.bpit_en.html#s-dhp-77)
Here the link to [How to adress wrong view](http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,2106.msg9309.html#msg9309)
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/keeping-the-vinaya/4307/47
Quote from: Brenna, post:37, topic:4307I'm wondering what people think about the Siladhara vinaya, due to the fact that it was established by bhikkhus for the intention of creating a new ordination lineage.
Very good (not that Bhikkus found lineages but that people see possibilities in their situation) and a perfect way, althought my person has never meet also not-monks who gave up using money but they just addopt the modern monks way of speciall gestics to do so. So many do not benefit well by not sticking with there minds and kilesas only.
Dont say its not possible to keep 10 precepts not being monk. Atma speaks not out of faith but from knowing.
Remember, maybe you had the luck, on you child hood. At this time your virtue part was maybe good or perfect and that is why you could attain jhana easily even not being tought.
In the country where my person griw up it was at this time possible for many beings to unknowingly keeping 10 precepts till even 20 or longer.
One can, when putting an effort and is willing to fight kilesas, also do it right away from now on. Some would even have the merits to be sorounded by wise people who see that a special being is now living next to them.
Try it, vinaya is not limited to monks and no need to have a organisation and social network for doing good. Actually such keeps you away from doing the fight.QuoteI also found this picture6 of a monk smoking and feeding cats - while searching Google for "Buddhist monk with cars" - and it was too perfect not to share.Google harms indeed.
If all people would use smoking tabak as there only sense pleasure (should not advocate even tge smallest sense pleasure) and share their food to others, the world would be very peaceful. But actually modern men likes to put stickers "not smoking" a little bit above the gas out pipe of the car or motor bike and monks without a slide of vinaya and metta use such to stay popular under those holding to sense pleasure since they love goid smell. Does Brenna know how much of his/her social support was actually financed by tax from smoking / burning a leave?
One seach click on google would proximately be equal four to five packs of leaves.
Think wise, or stay honest and critical not popular!Quote from: sujato, post:25, topic:4307, full:trueMost rules may be dealt with through a simple procedure, and they don't mean you can't be a monk. It's normal for everyone to break some rules now and then, just like everyone breaks a road rule now and then. But what should be considered is whether the rule breaking is habitual, and whether it involves anything intrinsically unwholesome. If a monk uses money to catch a bus to teach meditation, I am not going to be critical of that. But if he uses it to buy a fleet of vintage Mercedes, well, that's different.
I don't know if you can draw any clear cut lines. For myself, I always treat monks with kindness and respect, but I don't trust them until I know them.
Actually the best would be to find out if one can trust him self.
As for the statement "using money (that incl. physical, verbal by telling to use and mental as well "do I have money left to drive bus if i would tell "i need to go there and ther"), its worthy a rebuke.
As for my person understanding its not good, akusala kamma, to respect what should be not when informed and knowing.
[Praise and Blame - Teaching by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi](http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,979.msg3575.html#msg3575)
Its defenitly unwholesome and courses one self and many to speak of tolerance and praise acting again the Buddha and his Dhamma and yes to use one time money to use a bus out of loving it confortable (sense pleasure and greed) is not so harmful as to say using money is ok for this and that own thought of what is good putting ones ideas above sila.
And yes, the discussion of what is ok to effort using trade will never find an end but those who have not giving up using it will argue so that it can fit to/for them selves.
QuoteCambodian Folktale "[Great Hermit Saves the Tiger](http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,370.msg820.html#msg820)" where the basements of judgment (chandāgati, bhayāgati, dosāgati, lophāgati, Mohāgati and sugatigamanam) are mentioned in a great way.
Following the hypocrisy ways of not using money it how ever strangely possible to effort mercedes ...
Tha is why Vinaya and sila have no other way as to bring one to Abhidhamma in one self but as Ajahn Mun said: Dhammo have rakkhati dammacāri
My person would have a nice story in a high recommented monastery about using money while being famouse for not using it or being better as other monks. Maybe I can retell and record it but since not using money, my person has to carry desired sand for desired kuti now for him self. Would be easier if using it and we could meet even without letting go of this and that...
Not using money makes really free, try it! Especially from gross defilements.
Right?Quote from: Cara, post:24, topic:4307I guess my thoughts turn to Vinaya reform, because if no-one can keep it, what's the point?First that one does not have much faith in the three gems
Secound that one holds wrong view "there are no who have gained rightousness"
Third point is that the Vinaya is exclusively made for you (every single person him/herself) and if noone can, you actually could, but maybe also dont like and prefer to pull others also down to your level.
Dont worry, or better you still need to worry, there are some who do and that is why there is nothing increasing faith more then people doing the path.
So when willing to make a better world do it your self. But it might be that you dont like.
Right?
And since dhamma dana is not proper for people with wrong view and goes against their trade and since even a defilet mind needs justification it has been stolen derived with the argument of:
Quote from: sujato
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If one acts on this one can be sure to be at least banned since a fool would never agree having done a misdeed but kills what ever would let it look like a fault.
And a trader would always act so that his costomer are pleased. That is why leaders of wordlings if they like to stay leader always need to kill to keep there business growing. Transgressing in the name of even the Buddha Dhamma Sangha, killing them for their sake...
Such things are usually done hidding behind such as "the community" ignoring also the own responsibility for ones actions sticking to wrong view.
The Buddha told well about the reason why people are interested in splitting and censuring and the foremost was that the "own community" would not know about ones faults. So only people of no virtue have fear and that fear has reason. Either fear of critic and even more fear that kamma will anyhow rippen. That is why people with wrong view justyfy means which transgress basic rules of not taking life, not taking what is not given, speaking and act so that the truth will stay hidden.
One can not help others out before they dont want to be helped out and its mostly better to carry sand up the hill and live free without banning censuring and defending since such deeds out of wrong view would have their impacts either.
Just if people wonder why there are less to no links in the "Buddhist world of traders in Buddha Dhamma Sangha" into here.
Its sounds very over self-esteeming but how blessed must one be to find out of the samsara wheel and its links and those who are afraid tgat one could escape.
Tiny chances for many in the future having nurished what will kill of the path, some knowingly some unknowingly.
Wonder if a adept to liberate a monks slave would be a fault either. Thought a little, actually yes. So its really not easy but makes you more free knowing no chance for now after you put an effort into compassion and generosity.
When taking distance and simply watching this its somehow like Tom and Jerry, isn't it? So the dog do good to just watch at his hut.
Like always not shared to claim any view of just but to give you impression of the great luck and great misfortune beings have and that Buddhas teachings, wheather you are on the shine or dark side for now could lead you out if you make a right effort in accordiance of right view and that one should not think he/she knows already who walks the path as long as not having reached the path for one self.
May those who have the possibility to take Dhamma find another and everywhere the good Dhamma even on this silent account in this huge Samsara.
Train where ever you are for now for you liberation heedful!
Quote from: Johann via pm because post limit is reached
Quote from: CaraHi @SamanaJohann, This is a moderation message. Just to inform you, the Discourse system has automatically censured a number of your posts for repeatedly including a link in a large number of them. We are currently looking into this and will rectify any issues as soon as possible. Thank you.Sadhu, Upasaka Cara
Maybe its possible to do not stick automatical post, community and lay mans deeds to the avatar of a Bhikkhu or Monk if its not on his behave. Very importand and goog deed fixing such if.
Quote from: while Account is now on hold... lets look how people ly and act further
Quote from: Vstakan, post:67, topic:4307I don't know, looks like the negative opinion about monks smoking is largely culturally conditioned
No, its not cultural but modern. Since people are not able to reduce sense pleasure and take on virtues they seek in disregarding there way to keep themselve good looking and better.
On the other side there are people thinking a person could be an Arahat still smoking.
The picture shows a person in a moment of great great, enjoying sense pleasure in an amount that it is also seen in his face.
Just for information: the Buddha allowed smoking (most possible for health and as medicine), it was obiviously so normal we today still in remoted areas, that he even allowed to have sets of pipes, page that the pips dont get broken...)
And Account deleted... no need to talk about respect if things may look like critic.
Fools, no way to make them change their ways and start to keep precepts.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 20, 2017, 12:21:13 AM
That reminds on a speach of a Prime Minister or better the minister of defent talking to the Volk in Wartimes, justify victims and transgressions of the soldiers.
There is really nothing to say that is equal Buddhists hypocrisy and blessings after transgressing lying, stealing, killing...
Who could ever help a folk on its way to much suffering? There would be all kind of information from outside blocked. Of course the first part of this soldier blessing is actually right and that is how people use it for their politic. Not so smart people take it as it is.
Usuall call for metta after transgressions as if that would chance the kammas results or make people understand metta when not using it to prevent from akusala kamma.
Quote from: General Vimala (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/anger-is-maras-weapon/4347)
Today's world has become ever more divided. There is anger and hatred from both sides and it is not surprising that those frustrations sometimes also leak into this forum. It is then important for all of us to remember the Buddha's teachings.
Anger is a bad adviser, it clouds our thinking. It is not another person or a group that is our enemy. Our enemy is hatred itself. Anger makes us blind, we cannot see and we cannot fly. We feel self-righteous, unable to see the truth, unable to see that anger and hatred cannot be fought with anger and hatred, but only with love, compassion and understanding. We should refuse to be roused to anger, than we remain free of mistakes ourselves and only then can we fight injustice coming from the right place. Only when we speak kinds words, with true metta, will our message be heard; anger only creates negativity.
We are called to keep still in the face of our own anger, not to vent it out to others on the outside, but to recognize it for what it is: our own anger, inside ourselves. Others are never the cause of our anger, we ourselves are. The first person we hurt with anger is ourselves. If we can see this, and if we can see the anger inside of us with some equanimity, then slowly it will begin to dissipate and we can let compassion into our hearts.
Our moderator team is doing a great job and I recognize that it is not always so easy. When stepping in the way of anger, anger might turn towards them. Of course we all have our views and opinions and that is fine, but let's all try to remember that the mods are there for a purpose, to keep this forum a safe place for us to come and feel supported, a haven where we can refuel before going back out into the world, a place where we are reminded of the Buddha's teachings and use them in our everyday lives. It might not always be so easy, but lets try to keep right speech, free from blaming and free from anger.
So then, let the Maras heaven be and continue like it is.
Maybe this Sutta would be good for Buddhist and their Nationdefenders (moderators), a perfect Sutta for people not free from ill-will and caught by thoughts of "me", "mine", "dear":
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa
Aghata Sutta: Hatred
"There are these ten ways of subduing hatred. Which ten?
[1] "Thinking, 'He has done me harm. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[2] "Thinking, 'He is doing me harm. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[3] "Thinking, 'He is going to do me harm. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[4] "Thinking, 'He has done harm to people who are dear & pleasing to me. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[5] "Thinking, 'He is doing harm to people who are dear & pleasing to me. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[6] "Thinking, 'He is going to do harm to people who are dear & pleasing to me. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[7] "Thinking, 'He has aided people who are not dear or pleasing to me. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[8] "Thinking, 'He is aiding people who are not dear or pleasing to me. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[9] "Thinking, 'He is going to aid people who are not dear or pleasing to me. But what should I expect?' one subdues hatred.
[10] "One does not get worked up over impossibilities.
"These are ten ways of subduing hatred."
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 23, 2017, 12:57:07 AM
Quote from: Sujato in Access to Insight General Index: redux (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/access-to-insight-general-index-redux/4368)
Okay, so here is an attempt at creating a Index of subjects for SC. We start with the General Index from Access to Insight. This is published under a CC licence that permits adaptation, so let’s adapt it. And since I am lazy, let’s crowdsource!...
Just to see the state of mind:
Quote from: http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch04_en.html#pr2
2. Should any bhikkhu, in what is reckoned a theft, take what is not given from an inhabited area or from the wilderness — just as when, in the taking of what is not given, kings arresting the criminal would flog, imprison, or banish him, saying, "You are a robber, you are a fool, you are benighted, you are a thief" — a bhikkhu in the same way taking what is not given also is defeated and no longer in affiliation.
1) Object: anything belonging to another human being or a group of human beings.
2) Perception: One perceives the object as belonging to another human being or a group of human beings.
3) Intention: One decides to steal it.
4) Effort: One takes it.
"not given, not forfeited, not abandoned/discarded; guarded, protected, claimed (§ — literally, 'viewed as "mine"'), possessed by someone else... Only if the owner abandons all sense of ownership would it genuinely count as abandoned."
To rightly take an object on trust, Mv.VIII.19.1 states that five conditions must be met:
a. The owner is an acquaintance.
b. He/she is an intimate.
c. He/she has spoken of the matter. (According to the Commentary, this means that he/she has said, "You may take any of my property you want.")
d. He/she is still alive.
e. One knows that he/she will be pleased at one's taking it.
And: Accomplices. A bhikkhu can commit an offense not only if he himself steals an object, but also if he incites another to steal.
In general in regard of moving the boundery marks of the heritage so that it becomes no more the possession of the Sangha, making Dhamma to Public Domain, encourage and suppot such undertakings, the Buddha had clear words for lost monks making lay people a favor:
Quote from: BMC1
The Buddha was highly critical of any bhikkhu who gives away heavy property of the Saṅgha. In the origin story to Pr 4, he cites the case of a bhikkhu who, hoping to find favor with a lay person, gives that person some of the Saṅgha's heavy property. Such a bhikkhu, he says, is one of the five great thieves of the world.
Atma "fears" that it is today more desired to make such as a Bhikkhu in all regards equal a villager or a common tolerated run-a-mill-thief.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 23, 2017, 09:45:12 AM
Quote from: Kamma of unintentional actions (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/kamma-of-unintentional-actions/232)
Unintentional killing creates no kamma.
I think what that Mahayana monk was getting at is that the problem of wrong view. if your view is wrong, you will not just do one or two harmful acts, but many, and you will justify them according to your view. This is why this is worse than, say, a simple act of carelessness or acting out of rage, etc.
There is a bigger problem in the case of things that we do knowing they have a bad effect, but not intending that bad effect. In fact, maybe your intention is the exact opposite. We don't want animals to suffer, in fact we want them to be happy. Still, we buy meat, or eat meat, knowing that this is participating in a chain of causality that creates immense suffering for animals.
Climate change is perhaps the biggest example of this. None of us wants the environment to collapse: yet we continue to do those things (including eating meat) that are causing that very thing.
These kinds of issues are among the most pressing moral issues we face, yet the teaching of kamma does not cope with them very well. I am not sure what the solution is here.
Since people with undeveloped mind are not able to trace intention, it would be good to stick simply strong to virtue, but if the needed faith is absent, there is nearly no chance to solve that. Like a foolish child, stealing,lying and killing, even if in front of many, or a fool person, a notoric criminal, would deny his deeds, the only way to correct that would be a hard and "mercyless" crossquestioning while he has not chance to escape but facing a sword above his had.
Since his action is actually unknowenly, the suffering will be strong as soon as he realices his deeds. But of course better as if he would not, since now this son of wealth would have a chance.
Since in his reunion, aside of a lot of hungry ghosts are also Devas delighted in creation and Devas enjoying the creation of others, althought the whole group is misguided by Baka, Brahma, it would be possible for some to get aware of the Dhamma again, seeing whats going on and out of gratitude they would maybe able to bend his strong wrong view since it is hard even if somebody would have strong faith and deeply loves one to get him out ofthe highway to hell. What should someone not the slightest Nissaya for such a person be able to help him.
As for his reunion, thats the same, equal meet each other, again and again and is rare that somebody would find a way to break out if his depths.
Much metta an Zuversicht out of mudita, since anyway, they had a lot of goodness developed in the past so that they no be able to enjoy temorary some amount of welbeing.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 05, 2017, 09:14:20 PM
Sometimes my person thinks, actually wise if there is still a funcioning Sangha who would take care and maybe has eyes for themselves, simply to collect more and more, so that a runaway crossquestioned would be impossible. And then one has to think, wouldnt that not be the same kind at least and where would be the compassion for the less with eyes, able to escape before having so much depts accumulated that one has to go for war as to weak already to carry all faults done till now and still there is hope "it will not fall to me...
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/now-recording-of-the-theragatha/4482
Now Recording of the Theragatha
AV
2 / 3
DKervick
1d1
Dharma Audiobooks has released a new recording of the complete Theragatha, including Dhammapala's background biography for each verse. The verse translations that were used are those of Ajahn Sujato. I have been listening to it on my walks he text is read beautifully!
dharmaaudiobooks.com15
THERAGĀTHĀ - Dharma Audiobooks
THERAGĀTHĀ Poems of Early Buddhist Monks Translated by Mrs Caroline Rhys Davids and Ajahn Sujato • Read by Ratnadhya and Tejasvini The Theragāthā is one of the most striking texts in the Pāli Canon. It is a collection of 264 poems or verses – some...
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That's great that they made an audio recording for that, but it's really disappointing that they charge money for it.
You don't need to be an acclaimed voice actor to make a usable and highly enjoyable recording of dhamma teachings. Just read it with care and sincerity, use a good quality microphone (80$ to 150$ USD will suffice), and share it with audtip.org , a collection of free sutta readings.
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sujato
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You may be interested to know that I have been in contact with this group. They are interested to record the entire new nikaya translation, to be released free here on SC. This is just a proposal currently, but we will keep you updated.
Of course, I would prefer if all the sutta recordings were free, but as you said, you are most welcome to make your own recording if you wish. But they do take the time and care to do a good job: it is not a simple task.
Also, just to let you know, they did make a sizable donation to SC.
"Real...? When running for higher aims, one needs to look on the big and reduce some of the normal things... thats the way the world run."
One of Atmas current favorits... next to the political speeches and enemy search outwardly. Selling stolen from the death to produce more victims and in that case, how heavy would be just a sg13? Is like killing some agents or others in war times on TV and monks as lay people more "liberal" in regard of precepts when it is about territory have assambled already a lot in "killing in the name of" for a poor livelihood, what ever entertains it further.
Really not small that produce of so much demerits and suffering in the world.
But how could you help? Its ones own choice and their long time history.
There is also this normal "Troll-debatt", and one said: "Sad that there is no more Buddha to get them fixed..."
Not nearly that one likes to suggest being even a little near of a Buddha. First even he could not stop what is not to stop or change and another thought, just if one feels burdened by such as "Trolls", send them over here anyway. Planty of space.
Its like things happen again and again for those kings an monarchs on web. One existence after another. Its traumatic, this wandering on.
So let Atma stop here again this kind of "provocal Sarcasm", "bad speech", totally ill-willed so that Nons even become cats in this very existence caused from others...
Not time, but sticking really to Silas would heal all wounds. No need to think "they must be bad, otherwise, why would I experiance such Dukkha?"
Thinking on "look the cracy thinks on internet, actually its all dukkha" in one polit speech like the English King before leading to war to his sons and daughters... *vedana* , maybe the Buddha or his disciples had actually so much Dukkha, that they tried here and there again and again?
Whouldn't that be a possible thought strategy, now in times when there is no more blood seen to justify the new means of the todays heros?
It's "power" stealing to make on and on the Tschepawoki and there are people who actually get scared because old own things come up with it.
So it would be really time, that all this "liberals", "communis", "free speech claimer", "our holly place prayers", "free for all reciter" would soon start tocome to sence and do not use slaves to win the battle with the growdwork.
Possible? Willing?
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 13, 2017, 12:07:51 PM
Atma hardly doupts that anything on SC is gained rightous in accordiance to the Vinaya and there are enoght reasons to count those thieves in robes not afflicted with the Noble ones. As for the project and possession they have amassed, yhe only thing they could maybe do to possible return into the Sangha is to forfeite what has been gained without being personal given.
Quote from: Johann via email
Valued Upasaka, Upasika
team of PTS,
Valued Upasaka Eivind Kahrs,
not only as a matter of gratitude but also feeling obligated to inform you of maybe for you harmfull behaviour of people miss-using the livelyhood of the Noble ones for gain and destruction if basic values, intoducing a noble behaviour as it would be Robin Hood moral or the ideals of Communists, as those of not taking what is not given, Atma (my person), having comed accross a lot of annoying samples of Brahma, Sojato and their team of co-thieves, taking "in trust" while it's far away to be in the frame of Vinaya, its also that they have no shame to re-use thieves in cases they would not been given by the owner, like
with the Jatakas which are still in you possession.
Atma has much reason that all the use, even modifications and shamesless taking of this group of thieves is approach and welcome by you and since there is less change to bring those worthless people under controll within the tools of the Sangha it will be needed that you would take action in very worldly manner and their means. Its not the way of the Noble Ones to support or to tolerate the lose of people, not even for the sake of the Buddha, the Sangha or the Dhamma.
Who ever puts a strong sign of disapprove and rebuke in regard of the behaviour and destruction of faith for many in trying making taken what is not given to a "Buddhist" usuall, learning people how to amass and steal without being guilty in regard of incomplete laws, does that for the benefit of him/her self and for the benefit of many beings as well as the long life of the Buddhas heritage.
Of course it might be that we are not free of failures, but its good to nevertheless be straight forward and let others know of what is noble and of what is not noble. No need to claim to be already perfect for one self.
Atma likes to ask for pardon if this uninvited approach has no visible benefit for you and its not intended to cause you any trouble but maybe you can see a change to helping to bend some things straight again which have been running for a longer time and many having wordily benefit out if it, did not say anything coming across many not so goid things.
Samana Johann
doing Forest monk in Cambodia
(You are welcome to visit sangham.net)
-------- Originalnachricht --------
Betreff: PTS Jātaka copyright
Datum: 2013-12-13 11:23
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on May 08, 2017, 07:30:22 AM
Following some expressions by governors in this thread, my person had taken an account on trust, following just words with of course much doubt that they would hold and be conform with minds tendency.
Quote from: Johann yesterday evening (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/censorship-on-d-d/5115/94)
Okasa,
Valued D&D citizens,
As properbly most banned and censured person in Buddhist communities and for sure the most banned monk, my person thought another time, that it might be useful to give some shares.
Before putting much effort for less results into it, it's maybe useful to ask the governer first, if they would be tended to be a little challenged (believing or not, of course always with good will)
So let my person give the first challenge with this approach, and let him know in advance.
Quote from: Johann today morning (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/censorship-on-d-d/5115/95)
There are this five deeds, by body, speech and mind which lead to much harm for one self and for others:
Taking existence of beings,
Taking of what others hold as own and have not given,
Transgression of aggregation for sensuals sake,
Taking and harming the truth,
Consuming means that cause lack of conscience.
One transgressing this harmfull deeds by body, speech not to speak of "just tought", not only receives harming again and again, but by break up of the body, at the existence end, finds himself in lower realms, in the worlds of animals, ghosts and hell.
Knowing this, having experianced this or, and wise to that extent, just out of conviction into the Wellgone words abstains from this self and others harming deeds. By himself abstaing, he encourage whom ever he is possible to take upone this and if he's a governor, he makes those kind of abstaings to his protectats means, deeds that first over should never be transgressed by those whom are seen as the ones who protect.
Where ever such rules are keep by those who lead, having basically maybe even unshakeable faith, not only just the virtuose and those pleased by such will assemble but such and protectorate will never be obssessed by being in a harming and violating mood and even angry demons either disappear or grow calm.
So you should take on this, train this, make it to your fundamental rules, never be transgressed for what ever shake:
"I will train my self in not taking existence of beings, in this or that world, not express to others to take, and I will be ashamed having only such a thought.
I will train my self in not taking of what somebody else holds on and has not given to me, not expressing to other to take, and I will be ashamed having only such a thought.
I will train my self not transgressing aggregation for sensuals sake, not expressing others to transgress, and I will be ashamed having only such a thought.
I will train my selft not to take and destroy of what is and has been done, of facts, not express others to take and destroy, and I will be ashamed having only such a thought.
I will train my self not to nurish on means causing lake of restrain, not express and encourage others to nurish by themself, and I kill be ashamed having only such a thought."
Those should you train your self and lead others to simply hold on this, for the judge of deeds one has not to worry and communities and people assamble in accordiance to their tendencies and virtues naturally.
Fearing that taking on trust an account and fearing that ways of aggregation could be missunderstood, having told what would be a proctection for you and many for a long therm, my person takes a leave and askes to have the not given account be1 closed again.
Anumodana!
May the feedback nurishes and be pleasant in its taste so that those able seek for such nurishment again and again, starting to feed back for the ending and stilling of hunger and thirst, taking just what is given for only this sake.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on May 09, 2017, 01:07:18 AM
Quote from: Discussion on Suggestion of a blacklist on D&D (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/feature-request-blacklist/5197/14)
...Reply by SamanaJohannThe followin post was then alread censured in a Topic of Aminah:
Venerabels comming across here
Upasaka, Upasika,
speaking short and straight forward: there is nothing more destructive for ones Noble development as to ignore. As for a practicing community following the Buddha, such ways and desires are merely a "joke" as this is the opposite of the training. Even the slightest tendency of censure or to set such as "community grow and welfare" higher as precepts and training should be always seen as sign being easily derived from the fundamental source to be willing to put more effort into practice and good reason for it: suffering.
Having read a little here, not much, dmx (hopefully growing to use just his name soon) often presents wise views althought they might not be easy to take.
If how ever the place is meant for serving consumer best and maintain simply ones livelihood, go on, give people the possibility to maintain there desired illusions.
As told in the censure thread already, sticking strikt to the basic precepts, it's impossible that ill-will and willingly harm enters such a place. Not even spam is to be aspected. That is not spoken out of simple faith but out of knowing and experiances in far harder circumstances.
To know for your self, one needs to put it into action, give it a try, aside of normal wordily ways.
Reply by SamanaJohann
Offtopic with ontopic advice:Quotejust Via PM: Hey. How are you doing, Element ?...Atma has nothing to do with Element, althought those phobias around this name have caused him a lot of troubles. Or let him say the underground talks. Atma has as good as no internet history before Element was "killed", others as the most all over here and there (especially the "leaders", runners and mods) with their creative comic avatars and names, having big wounds caused by their actions.
To the advice: its not good, not constructive and dangerous for a good community to have and maintain such as PMs since exactly this is where things get destroyed. Turn that off and open all other things. If people seek simply socialising and amassing followers, there are plenty of social networks and tools for fools.
Reply by SamanaJohann
One more off/on-topic:Quotejust via PM: Sorry but the speaking at 3rd person kind of gives you up. And you also have the same nickname as on the german buddhist forum.Atma does not use nick-Names or other disguise. If there was Hanzze than because his Friends used to call the short version of Johann Hansi.
Are you aware of the revolution that happened on DW ? The intolerant mods, Ben & Tilbilings have been removed and Daverupa also left. Kali Bhodi was also kicked out. Only intolerant mod left is SDC. Criticism of Nanananda/Nanavira/Nanamoli and Thanissaro is a little forbidden, but they are very liberal in the politics section and with all other things.
DW has been completely revolutionized in 2016.
Yes, Atma is aware that things have grown a little different and was wondering not seeing so much kills like before, but censure goes on and Atma would not say it has grow better. "Communism" grows stronger anyway and nearly everywhere.
Revolution is not a Dhammic way and one should not be happy if people are removed.
Close PM and "forbid" mods and admins to bann, delete or censure, better let them train serious and make such vowes. Split topic, move things, ... all other ways lead always to the same. Be creative around sticking to precepts and keep topics on topic.
Stick to precepts and encourage such!
Torward those believing in the refuge of underground an such as PM: dont be so naive to believe that people with desire to controll are not aware of what you write behind.
Atma does not even like to know a little what's going on behind the screen in forums runned by wordlings.
So do not blacklist, you are seeing already to less to understand what the Buddha taught.
Reply by dxm_dxm
Posting PM-s in public is not allowed.
Reply by SamanaJohann
And what do you think has karmic bad effects?
The "liberal" grow fast to what they oppose.
Reply by Aminah
Could the original poster please be shown proper and due respect by not having their post derailed with offtopic comments.
Reply by SamanaJohann
Dopple-post, sorry.
Reply by SamanaJohann
No mr. Mod. That is not the way. Doers know for themselves, no need to judge and kill enemies.
Such is not posted to harm or win or give the growd an enemy or slayer him public for the joy of a foolish community, but to give doers ways to change their ways.
General to all: You would be wise to play not with monks, some know clearly your thought and intentions. Not to speak of certain karmic effects.
The doer would do good to remove his pm is such if possible (all importand for him and for others is already public posted), you are not under the leading of noble ones here who would not have any intentions to harm or kill and convidence in precepts generally in regard of those in charge is not really seen till now.
Quote from: Community guidelines revision (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/community-guidelines-revision/5204/5)
Again an encouragement to simply stick to precepts (Atma made no copy)
Also the others now censured...
Quote from: PM sujato
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Accont already on hold.
Still believing it's possible to help fools so that they bend their ways?
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on June 30, 2017, 07:18:22 AM
Quote from: Sujato https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/on-the-reliability-digha-nikaya-translations-with-reference-to-the-janavasabha-sutta/5819
While the other three nikāyas have been graced with excellent translations by Ven Bodhi, when it comes to the Digha, we are not so lucky. The two main complete translations are the PTS translation by TW Rhys Davids, and the Wisdom edition by Maurice Walshe. (Note that on SC we use use more reliable translations where available, and the Rhys Davids translation as a backup. The Walshe translation is restricted by copyright; I use my own digital copy, with gratitude to those who ignored copyright and made it available.)
He himself steals and encourages others to steal... shameless, disrespectful without any notion of virtue... beloved by the thieves and unvirtuose.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 13, 2018, 11:35:13 AM
Maybe when all Nissaya to the costums of the Noble Ones is cut of and destroyed, when all families have been corrupted and the low rewards in trade will no more satisfy at all, people might start again to seek for objects worthy to sacrify.
It's just that in "our" marxistic and post modern time they will have been gone.
The so called places of liberation, the centralized symbols for the power of the mass in Samsara will last a long, long time and Brahma Baka will, leaded by Mara, and accompanied by the followers of Devadatta, celebrated parades to impress the crowd.
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa
Asevanā ca bālānaṃ paṇḍitānañca sevanā,
Pūjā ca pūjanīyānaṃ etaṃ maṅgalamuttamaṃ.
Giving, taking and the "new" world "Labour makes (you) free!?" (http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/page,Arbeit-macht-frei.html)
Less are those who recognize the open-source and free lie. Less are those who increase the bounds toward that and those pulling one out of slave-hood. Uncountable are those increasing debts to Mara, debts and boundage to the world and the work on killing fields, increasing the hills and metropolis made out of bones.
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammā-sambuddhassa
Aṭṭhīnaṃ nagaraṃ kataṃ,
maṃsalohitalepanaṃ;
Yattha jarā ca maccu ca,
māno makkho ca ohito.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 19, 2018, 09:52:40 AM
There is a famous story of the "father" of modern Dhammakaya, Bakas assembling.
Once devoted lay people constructed a luxury huge eating-hall. As they invited Ajahn Boowa, he simply said: (sorry for the most dirty words) "I could shit that much, I would shit till this hall is full."
Later he joyfull collected and inspired to Dana, gave this toward to jati (nationality, birth, stand) and it's of no wonder that his disciples didn't had the same idea about this gift as he had.
Mara, for the sake of illusion and death leads people to make sacrifices downward, toward sensual pleasure an conceit.
What "disciples" are you praising if you paise those (sorry) shiting the Buddha, the Sangha, the Theras on the head, disseize the Sangha of it's heritage and encourage to follow that. If one calls giving upward a lose and delights in sacrifices into the world?
What sample is it, if a father cleans the rare part of spoilt children "Come to rejoice in food (death)", either out of fear, greed, aversion or delusion?
What a sample in this world would it be, if the Buddha and the Sangha lead toward the increasing of death by rejoicing in making merits for the sake of becoming, sacrificing their remainder for serving the death, taking form as real?
If one sees what is of cource hard to see, would confess his missdeeds, would seek out the meet an upright Sangha, and would hand over that of what possible to give without giving strings to the world, if there is a possibility to change the sacrifices toward the tripple Gems, then in this case all the sacrifices, pain and death of this undertaking, the parts which had Nibbana as object, would not be lost in this world.
This path, the one to the unbound, is gained by giving (up) at first place, this path is ended by giving (up) of what ever can be misstaken to be yours. It's the path of children with gratitude, the path leaded by rightly liberal giver, Baghava, and not in relations of pig raisers and pigs.
This is why the Buddha and the wise do not (pardon the word) shit on joyfull handicrafts of unskilled childs but of professional gifts to rejoice in form and conceit by those who actually have a higher task and should develop skills beyound the world.
This gift is not at least toward my persons mother, who one day saw my person kneeing before a merely fat and lazy maiden, when he was young, helping her to put on her shoes of conceit: my person never saw her in such way disgusted by any deed my person ever had done.
And it was a "blessing" to understand this manifold looped gift and sacrifice, my persons mother intentional or unintentional gave, to be remind on the way to release in using gifts toward what is headed to/or release and not to try to become the ozean without salty so that there will be no lake of trinking water, by a hardly gained cup of water (remembering the pain it's archivement had required/caused)...
To Vaccha (on Giving) (http://zugangzureinsicht.org/html/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.057.than_en.html)
So how would one approach if monks present the gift of a luxory feeding hall for those delight in sensuality?
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 21, 2018, 02:03:06 PM
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on April 26, 2018, 10:20:22 PM
Quote from: http://forum.sangham.net/index.php/topic,1766.msg14515.html#msg14515
Questioning the translation of AN 8.15, “Misconduct is a woman’s stain” (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/questioning-the-translation-of-an-8-15-misconduct-is-a-woman-s-stain/9315)
Nyom Chris , what do you like to read? The Buddha adopted this as cultural strategy to sell his religion better, or the Arahats of the last 2600 yeas have been envy sexists, and Sujato will correct the injustice, reinterpret the Dhamma, and make the whole world to become "Liberté, fraternité, égalité, ou la mort"? Then all are de-gendered friends for ever.Quote from: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_RevolutionThe Enlightenment had produced many writers, pamphleteers and publishers who could inform or inflame public opinion. The opposition used this resource to mobilise public opinion against the monarchy, which in turn tried to repress the underground literature.
You may maybe ask him, why he translated Kamboja into Persia... insteed of "wealth gained by own deeds" (https://suttacentral.net/an4.80/en/sujato)
“Sir, what is the cause, what is the reason why females don’t attend council meetings, work for a living, or travel to Persia?”
Maybe a bias controversy... or "The Sorrows of Young railway guard (duty ethics)". Of course one can become wealthy for a while if letting the "girls" amass for ones purpose, mutual share, of course...
/me : it happened that it accidentally was posted in "critic about Johann"... who knows why...?
After all, my person is glad that Nyom could learn a little to address monks to ask, yet the intention is still a problem why principles are chanced... but for every desire there will be those open a markt... "travel to Persia..." That be different between seeking answer or ones opinion support.
And "Misconduct is a woman’s stain" means "misconduct is what a woman makes unattractive" or "misconduct is a stain for a woman to shine" nothing more... like if when a donor is stingy: he does not shine althought a donor.
Or Dhamma central, gathered by wrong means, is like the monastics steal and deal. It does not mean, that a Dhamma-collection is inherent bad, not that it is the nature of monks and nuns.
But because, SC is full of stains. And yet, it could be changed. If wise... and not attached. Nyom Chris .
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on April 27, 2018, 03:19:36 AM
But who likes to make merits in times of abundance... when gain can be archived by the work of others. What do you think, Nyom Chris ? "Just wait. Their will be those selling of what I desire? Who likes to be unbound? At the end, we still have black copies... of everything, who needs Nissaya?" A "chief like it's slave thing" in certain ways.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on August 12, 2018, 11:46:09 PM
Aramika 
Ein oder mehrer Beiträge wurden hier im Thema abgeschnitten und damit in neues Thema "Sutta Central - the Brahm(a) invitation, or "Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung??" (http://forum.sangham.net/index.php?topic=8755.0)" eröffnet, dem angehäng.
One or more posts have been cut out of this topic here. A new topic, based on it, has been created as "Sutta Central - the Brahm(a) invitation, or "Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung??" (http://forum.sangham.net/index.php?topic=8755.0)" or attached there.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on February 14, 2022, 11:06:01 PM
Aramika
Ein oder mehrer Beiträge wurden hier im Thema abgeschnitten und damit in neues Thema "Undertaking to copy-steal Khmer Tipitaka by SC-monks (https://forum.sangham.net/index.php?topic=10578.0)" eröffnet, dem angehäng.
One or more posts have been cut out of this topic here. A new topic, based on it, has been created as "Undertaking to copy-steal Khmer Tipitaka by SC-monks (https://forum.sangham.net/index.php?topic=10578.0)" or attached there.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 17, 2023, 08:03:50 PM
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/no-im-not-asking-for-money-on-facebook-or-anywhere-else/28531
No, I’m not asking for money on Facebook (or anywhere else!)
I just got notified that there’s a scam on Facebook asking for donations in my name. Don’t do it!
I’m not on Facebook or any other social media (except very rarely reddit), and I don’t accept personal donations. I have no personal funds, and all my costs are handled by a steward. The only online donations that I’m associated with are for SuttaCentral, but those funds pay our developers and other costs and do not go to me at all.
If you see such a scam on FB or anywhere else, help me out by reporting it, thanks.
Just one public sample, many are found within in detail
Quote from: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/funding-help-for-my-translation-project/6262
Hi everyone,
As most of you know, I’ve been working on my new translations of the Pali nikayas for the past couple of years. I’ve been staying on the little island of Qimei off the coast of Taiwan.
My stay there has been made possible by the incredible support of my long-term kappiya Dustin. The little house I stay in is the old family home of Dustin’s wife, Keiko. The financial support for my stay has been provided by Dustin and his family, their Dhamma friends in Penang, and some generous donors in various countries. They have gathered funds to cover the costs of my stay, such as food, utility bills, travel (so I can renew my visa), and so on.
Now Dustin’s looking for some extra support to cover the bills. If anyone’s interested to help out with this, please contact Dustin directly on balaraja.dc@gmail.com. (Balaraja is Dustin’s dhamma name. Yes, it means “king of fools”, and yes, I gave it to him!). If you have any questions, just let me know. :pray:
Just so it’s clear, this funding is separate from the general donations for SuttaCentral, which go directly to support development of SC. However, if any funds are left over when I’ve finished my project, Dustin will forward them to SuttaCentral.
Again: Non, not even his translation, how lesser thewrong gained, of all the punk monks and nuns accumulated in a-dhammic and a-vinaya ways, can ever be used by monks holding on Dhamma-Vinaya, and by any person of integrity.
It's the largest destructive and demeritious undertaking since Devadatta in this community, sell off, cheating, taking not given...
Why should "General public" that not do scams? What's now Bhantes problem with "no licence"... Simply out of mind. Copies can be made for any purpose, by anybody... It' ironical, isn't it. No. Just immeasurable foolish.
Btw. may all be clear that those money things on Dhamma are never of any merits. So actually not bad at all that people fear cheating around such and turn back to the Sublime Buddhas and his disciples ways, the Noble, not the low, path.
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 24, 2023, 04:34:42 PM
Any Sangha would be incapable to get this group of outsider and Marxists in line again, aside the issue that it's clear already defeat.
https://youtu.be/0D5E_qt_C5s
Devadattas host after destruction and gain with the "demo-crazy" flag...
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on April 11, 2023, 08:13:19 PM
How stupid and deluded much one be to say hugs an kisses as not lust and affection intended... maybe it's just for medical healing done...
Sure transgresser do all to deny their many own transgress, whether lust issues, stealing, depriving from existance and lying in regard of attainments.
But go on and sacrifices toward sure pain...
Can someone explain this to me? “Dalai Lama Kiss & Tongue Controversy” (https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/can-someone-explain-this-to-me-dalai-lama-kiss-tongue-controversy/28788)
Not a little a controversy at all, but used to corrupters of families.
One who just knows this kind, has no other, real relation, if a little own moral, has to do the only possible: leave the sphere of occupying and plunder in the Gems name.
People have no idea of what ugly things are behind the plunder untertaking, of grave deluded and after gain and honore minded, they still support.
Just a matter of time...
Post by: Dhammañāṇa on March 30, 2024, 09:26:47 PM
One can not help fools, or as a proverb says "He who doesn't what to listen, needs to experience...".
Claiming of what has given away, is either a thief. While the giving away of Sanghas heavy heritage is 'just' a heavy offence, efforts to deprive householder get soon to a downfall...
Here they are, the Anarchists and Punks, when meeting Anarchism (yet legal), on their own.
Stealing one gains to be rubberized.