Dear Frank,

If Mahakassapa and the other arahats had so much respect for the Vinaya that
they didnt dare to change a single rule, why should we start changing them?
Hopefully we got a Vinaya expert on this list to answer steven_19988's
important question. In case of land status it is sometimes a question of
appeasing the unseen beings who live on that land... But i have no clue what
the Vinaya says to that question....

Lennart

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Kuan" <fcckuan@...>
To: <Pali@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Pali] Building a Sima


> 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
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com
>
>
> Paaliga.na - a community for Pali students
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Yahoo! Groups members can set their delivery options to daily digest or
web only.
> [Homepage] http://www.tipitaka.net
> [Send Message] pali@yahoogroups.com
> [Mailing List] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pali
> [Discussion] http://tipitaka.suddenlaunch.com
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>