Monday, October 15, 2007

Buddhist Practices

The day-to-day living of monks, nuns, and trainees is highly ritualized. the clergy generally follow a strictly set daily schedule of waking, eating, chanting, meditating, and so forth.
The Five Precepts:
1. To refrain from killing living beings, the crime is to know that something is a living being, intend to kill it, attempt to do so, and succeed.
2. Refrain from taking what has not been given, in other words, not to steal.
3. Refrain from sexual misconduct, this concerns intercourse with an improper patrtner (another’s spouse, someone betrothed, a member of the clergy, exc.), this also includes refraining from having intercourse in unsuitable places and times.
4. Refrain from untrue speech, one should neither intentionally say what is untrue nor claim to know something that one doesn’t know.
5. Abstinence from drinking alcohol, mainly because its consumption engenders the tendency to commit other sins
After these five, members of the clergy have five more precepts that are to be strictly observed. These are the abstinence from the following:
1. eating after noon
2. watching dancing, singing, and shows
3. adorning oneself with garlands, perfumes, or ointments
4. using a high bed
5. receiving gold and silver
Source: Patterns of Religion

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