Just a few thoughts:
1) Tibetans and Chinese Buddhists practicing any kind
of Buddhism in China are probably violating many of
their country's laws. The Dalai Lama is considered a
dangerous outlaw by the Chinese. He's pretty good
company to be in if you decide to go the outlaw path.
2) I wish Mahakassapa had honored the Buddha's
requests to abolish minor vinaya rules. I mean come
on, for Gotama's sake, Mahakassapa is one of the most
highly decorated Arhats, he ought to be able to figure
out SOME minor rules to safely drop. 227 is way to
many.
3) What's the legal penalty in Malaysia for violating
the law of building a sima? Rather than try to make a
fancy interpretation of vinaya rules, I would take the
pragmatic approach and determine the risk involved,
whether the penalty is severe enough to warrant
caution.
4) If you guard the sense doors well, exercising right
view, right mindfulness, right effort, you would never
have to be concerned about breaking (in spirit) any
vinaya rule, even if technically some minor rules are
broken.

-fk


--- steven_19988 <mettang@...> wrote:

> Dear Mr. Piya Tan,
> I would be much obliged if you could advise me on
> the vinaya rule in building a sima. Are there any
> rules stipulating the direction the entrance of the
> sima should be facing? Should it be facing East?
> We just bought a piece of agricultural land and
> we plan to build a sima on it. For your
> information,
> in our country (Malaysia), it is illegal to erect
> any building on agricultural land without first
> changing
> the status of land for religious purposes from the
> local authorities. However, the procedure to
> convert
> the status of land takes a long time, usually two to
> three years. We cannot wait that long. We are
> planning to build the sima first and later applying
> to the local authorities to convert the status of
> land
> from an agricultural to a religious land status.
> Usually, the local authorities have no objections in
>
> converting the status of land but it takes a lot of
> time due to the difficult procedures to get an
> approval.
> So, do we transgress or violate any of the vinaya
> rules in building the sima first and
> getting the land converted later? Does violating a
> law mean transgressing any of the vinaya rules in
> this context? We wouldn't like to build a sacred
> building transgressing the vinaya rules to our
> utmost
> sincerity.
> Sadhu for your valuable advice
>
>
>

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