This Precept will come up again in a few weeks during our Jukai Preparations.
For now, I am going to offer a bit more on my personal view of this Precept. However, I wish to underline that my interpretation is not for everyone, and there are several folks in this thread who are stricter in their attitude toward alcohol, all for good reasons. They are also right in how they undertake this Precept in their lives.
In my view, a person with issues of addiction, prone to anger and violence and the like, should not drink one drop. For them, any drinking of alcohol is poison. I would also refrain from drinking in the presence of a friend I knew was prone to such issues. Beyond that, I do not believe that a glass or two of the vine is a source of world evils, any more than I will refrain from lighting candles and incense merely because the same smoke and fire, if out of control, can destroy homes and forests, injure passers by, light explosives or damage the environment. Everything in balance, control and moderation.
The original Vinaya Precepts typically began as cautions against the extreme which, in the hands of the zealous, evolved frequently into total bans "just to be safe", assuring that the Precept would not have any possibility to be violated or itself become a cause of violating other Precepts. Some Buddhist scholars point out that the no such rule existed in the early Sangha, but was developed in response to several extreme cases, reported in the Vinaya, where monks consumed alcohol and became extremely drunk, sick, garrulous, disorderly and the like, and thus a source of great disorder within the Buddha's fragile community. Over time, this became a total ban, as commentators focused on ethical issues and the potential effect on mindfulness. Many Mahāyāna thinkers thereupon reacted against rigid interpretations of rules and precepts arguing that if motivated by compassion or other benevolent purposes, committing acts that would otherwise be outright violations of one's precepts would actually be meritorious. Alcohol was seen as having the potential, if consumed in the extreme or at inappropriate times, to cause a loss of mindfulness or to contribute to the breach of other Precepts such as those on anger and sexuality, but alcohol itself need not do so if itself consumed mindfully. (See, for example, http://huayanzang.blogspot.jp/2012/0...t-alcohol.html) This led to a greater tolerance of small and healthful alcohol consumption in China, Japan and other places.
As we shall see during Jukai, the Precept undertaken speaks of our poisoning by intoxication in many forms (including by the need to shop, consume, own and the like), but not necessarily minor behavior not amounting to becoming truly "intoxicated".
Again, the foregoing is just an interpretation applicable to some people, while other people have good reasons to honor a stricter or total prohibition on drinking.
Gassho, J
For now, I am going to offer a bit more on my personal view of this Precept. However, I wish to underline that my interpretation is not for everyone, and there are several folks in this thread who are stricter in their attitude toward alcohol, all for good reasons. They are also right in how they undertake this Precept in their lives.
In my view, a person with issues of addiction, prone to anger and violence and the like, should not drink one drop. For them, any drinking of alcohol is poison. I would also refrain from drinking in the presence of a friend I knew was prone to such issues. Beyond that, I do not believe that a glass or two of the vine is a source of world evils, any more than I will refrain from lighting candles and incense merely because the same smoke and fire, if out of control, can destroy homes and forests, injure passers by, light explosives or damage the environment. Everything in balance, control and moderation.
The original Vinaya Precepts typically began as cautions against the extreme which, in the hands of the zealous, evolved frequently into total bans "just to be safe", assuring that the Precept would not have any possibility to be violated or itself become a cause of violating other Precepts. Some Buddhist scholars point out that the no such rule existed in the early Sangha, but was developed in response to several extreme cases, reported in the Vinaya, where monks consumed alcohol and became extremely drunk, sick, garrulous, disorderly and the like, and thus a source of great disorder within the Buddha's fragile community. Over time, this became a total ban, as commentators focused on ethical issues and the potential effect on mindfulness. Many Mahāyāna thinkers thereupon reacted against rigid interpretations of rules and precepts arguing that if motivated by compassion or other benevolent purposes, committing acts that would otherwise be outright violations of one's precepts would actually be meritorious. Alcohol was seen as having the potential, if consumed in the extreme or at inappropriate times, to cause a loss of mindfulness or to contribute to the breach of other Precepts such as those on anger and sexuality, but alcohol itself need not do so if itself consumed mindfully. (See, for example, http://huayanzang.blogspot.jp/2012/0...t-alcohol.html) This led to a greater tolerance of small and healthful alcohol consumption in China, Japan and other places.
As we shall see during Jukai, the Precept undertaken speaks of our poisoning by intoxication in many forms (including by the need to shop, consume, own and the like), but not necessarily minor behavior not amounting to becoming truly "intoxicated".
Again, the foregoing is just an interpretation applicable to some people, while other people have good reasons to honor a stricter or total prohibition on drinking.
Gassho, J
Comment