SDC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 3:14 pm
Listening to you people moan about the behavior of monastics is amusing to me. So cutting edge. “I saw it on the internet so *I have to* talk about it”. My goodness, even if you are correct - and you may well be - what is most prominent in the subtext of these opinions is that you cannot handle the presence of a displeasing external condition without running to your keyboard. If it is a failure, that is their cross to bear, but complaining about it like this…now it becomes yours as well.
If you want people to consider an issue critically, it requires tact and finesse. And if y’all really cared about the Sangha, you’d come at this issue from a completely different angle. “Bold” talk like this is nothing but grandstanding, and only serves to uphold ambiguity between what is and what is not beneficial.
Sadly, I’m partaking in a degree of grandstanding just to make this point, but hopefully it will give people a reason to consider what is and is not worth saying about the monastic community. For years people (myself included at times) have been boldly ranting about the behavior of monastics, but if frequency of complaints had any bearing on monastic culture, they’d all have taken that advice by now and things would have changed. That is far from the case. So, I think we can safely say that these types of discussions do nothing to bring our preferences to fruition.
Just my 2 cents.
Good post. I’m very tempted to treat the OP’s question with utter disdain and sarcasm. The kamma result of WALKING A DOG is trivial. It is neither black kamma nor white kamma nor grey kamma. It is like pissing in the forest. Are you not aware, OP, that when monks need to piss they whip their dicks out, sit in a squatting position, and piss all over the forest ground? Like, really? You think there’s something wrong with WALKING A DOG? You do realize how mundane and trivial a thing it is to take a dog for a walk or give him a morsel of food.
I am at a loss for words. I really want to make you look like an ass for even asking the question. And I want to do so in a variety of ways. But I won’t. Moderator requested this thread remain civil.
I will say a few things. Beyond a doubt you are young. And inexperienced. I like to put my self in your own place when thinking about this. Who would I have to be to be so self righteous and addicted to ideals that I would imagine a monk is transgressing the begger’s code in that he walks a dog? I would have to be young and inexperienced in life.
If you HURT a dog, that is dark kamma. If you kill an animal and eat it that is dark kamma. If you rape an animal that is dark kamma. If you steal another persons animal, that is dark kamma. If you sell an animal into slavery that is dark kamma. If you behave like an animal that is dark kamma. Now, keep in mind that elucidating all of the kamma results of all the possible behaviours of human kind will, according to the Buddha, drive one to vexation.
But the above are fairly safe bets. And keep in mind also that kamma is dark and light for different people. For some people a trivial transgression of morality is very dark kamma. For others that same trivial transgression means nothing.
Walking a dog is so trivial a thing that I know exactly what kind of person you are just from the fact that you posed the question.
[Irrelevant ad hominem content removed - Retro.]
The Bhikkhu’s conscience will decide for him whether walking the dog and keeping company with dogs is a transgression or not. That is not for you to decide or pass judgment on. Like a good Christian boy you should listen to Jesus and “take the log out of your own eye before you point out the speck in another’s”.
Just blown away by this thread. We’re talking about affection for animals. Who CARES!!!