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Research

What do Buddhist monks think about bad gifts (such as guns or glasses of whisky)?

Thomas Borchert

Research Summary

Giving to monks is the main religious act within the Buddhist world, particularly in the Theravāda communities of Southeast Asia. Lay followers give food and other dāna (merit-making gifts), providing monastics with what they need to survive. Yet there is relatively little discussion within Buddhist or scholarly communities about what should be given. Sometimes, the gifts given are not always appropriate, even bad. What to do in those cases is not always clear. This research explores the ways in which monks in Thailand and Southwest China think about gifts that are not good. It shows that despite the vinaya (disciplinary code of Buddhism), monks have different views about what constitutes a ‘bad gift’ and what to do about it. Lay communities have significant voice about what constitutes proper monastic behaviour. Context often defines appropriateness.

Researcher

Thomas Borchert

Research Institution

University of Vermont

What is this about?

  • Buddhist lifestyles and ethics.
  • The relations between Buddhist monks and laity.
  • The Buddhist practice of dāna.
  • How formal religious rules are often adapted to context; the fluidity of religious traditions.
  • How decisions are made about whether or not gifts to Buddhist monks are appropriate ones.

What was done?

The research was done through the author’s own fieldwork in Thailand and China. He also draws on a range of other published sources, ethnographic and textual.

Main findings and outputs

  • Generally, offering alcohol to monks is highly inappropriate, but a monk might take a very small amount to show sociability and restraint at a gathering.
  • The practice of dāna classically involves generating good karma by providing monks with necessary items (clothing, food, housing and medicine), though as a ‘perfect gift’ – i.e. without return or reward of any kind.
  • It does create social networks, monks taking regular itineraries and getting to know those who give to them, who sometimes in turn ask them what they need (resulting, for instance, in the gift of a set of Stanley tools to help build a new monastery).
  • In Thai society this relates to the concept of kalatesa, or appropriateness, which governs social relations. What is given and how it is given should be appropriate to need and recipient.
  • Could a gun be an appropriate gift? Under appropriate circumstances, perhaps, though monks differed. Some said yes if needed to defend a monastery, other yes if only there as a deterrent, etc.
  • Another guiding concept is intention: if the gift is given with good intention, this, not the object given, can be what counts.
  • So, there are the religious rules, and then the need to negotiate their application in the lived world of local custom.

Relevance to RE

This research is useful to RE teachers on different levels –

  1. It provides excellent subject knowledge on Buddhism. The original article, summarised above, gives very helpful background explanation on the relevant beliefs, practices and traditions, as well as further examples of how these work out in lived religion.
  2. It provides very good extension content when teaching about Buddhism or specifically the Sangha (monastic community) – teachers could use it to teach directly about why unusual gifts are sometimes accepted or even sought.
  3. Alternatively, the questions raised by the research could be posed to pupils during discussions or enquiries related to Buddhism and the Sangha: ‘what do you think would happen if . . . ?’ ‘Could a gun be an appropriate gift . . . ?’ Their responses could be compared by the teacher to the cases presented in the research, to which the pupils could then respond: ‘Are you surprised to hear that . . .?’

Generalisability and potential limitations

The generalisability of the research is good. As well as drawing on the author’s own specific fieldwork, there is plenty of reference to other studies; and the research is clearly also based on extensive sources of the Buddhist tradition.

Find out more

The original article is Thomas Borchert (2020) Bad gifts, community standards, and the disciplining of Theravāda monks, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 35:1, 53-70, DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2020.1695805

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537903.2020.1695805?journalCode=cjcr20

 

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