Suramerayamajja pamadatthana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

I'll always remember the day I saw a Thai monk teach at Hwa Gye Sa, a beautiful Seon temple in the north of Seoul. He asked those assembled to define the Dharma, the simplest explanation, and was not satisfied with the responses he got. Ideas such as 'watch the mind' or 'who am I?' are good, he said, but they are the upper floors of a wonderful temple - and they can't exist without the foundation and lower floors.

The Dharma, he said, is simple. It consists of taking refuge in the Triple Gem and following the five precepts. The Precepts being the foundation and the mother of the Dharma, and that when you practice morality you are practicing the Dharma. They are, in the words of Lily de Silva's excellent article 'Radical Therapy', "the basic moral code of Buddhism... regarded as the indispensable foundation of a life governed by the Dhamma."

During my first short trip to Korea in 2001, I spent a night listening to a young American English teacher who I won't name, proudly proclaiming his 'Buddhism' whilst downing beers and smoking cigarettes. I knew next to nothing about the Dharma at that time, only what I'd picked up from a year or two in Thailand married to Dao, but it was clear that his self-identification was nothing more than a shallow showing off.

Of course he was just trying on Buddhism for its fashionability, and was talking rubbish. The fact is, if you are serious about Buddhism, you don't drink. The Buddha's words couldn't be clearer. In the Abhisanda Sutta he says "Abandoning the use of intoxicants, the disciple of the noble ones abstains from taking intoxicants". If you drink, you are breaking one of the five precepts laid down by the Buddha himself.

Of course it's impossible to follow the precepts perfectly, but one becomes a Buddhist by taking them on as aspirations. If you drink you are acting in a way that goes against the vows you took. The idea, in that case, is to then do your best in the future. Yet I've met a number of otherwise serious practitioners who claim that drinking is not a mistake, but a perfectly justifiable part of Buddhist life.

An article a couple of years ago in the Guardian featured a Jodo Shinshu priest, a smoker and drinker, attempting to recruit young people in bars. I have a good deal of respect for Jodo Shinshu. Ikumi, her parents, and all four of her grandparents belong to this sect, and I keep a handwritten Jodo Shinshu nembutsu on my altar and a scanned copy in the sidebar of this blog. But I can't say I'm comfortable with Buddhist priests who drink.

But there is, I suppose, a difference between those who are born into a religion, and those who convert into one. Thai Buddhists may drink and remain Buddhist, what else would they be? Jodo Shinshu priests may drink and remain Buddhist priests, of course, what else would they be? What surprises me isn't so much the Japanese priest who drinks, as the western convert who considers this to be a form of behaviour to emulate and applaud.

A western blogger writing in response to the article, said "I love this stuff. I love it when Buddhists are actual people. Because, surprise surprise, we are. And this so wonderfully flies in the face of the old (American) stereotype of Buddhists sitting around in meditation acting so godamn serious all the time". For some reason, he seemed to prefer a stereotype of Buddhists as people who break the Buddha's moral teaching rather than follow it.

Here's another Western Buddhist, in an article in the Buddhist Channel on her life in a Korean temple: "Other people might... ban alcohol, drugs and coffee. But they often forget how to have a good laugh at life. I don't repress my feelings or my urges to occasionally get drunk and sing and maybe fall over!" This person may have taken a Buddhist name, but hers is no Buddhism, and no amount of falling over will make it so.

Just two weeks ago, in an otherwise excellent blog, a zen practitioner wrote, beneath a photo of two people at a bar, that "sometimes 'skillful means' requires oyster shooters and grotesque amounts of wheat beer". Maybe. But this sounds less like 'skillful means' than 'a skillful excuse' to me. I prefer the advice of Master Thich Naht Hahn: "To persuade one person to refrain from drinking is to make the world safer for us all."

I'm not for a moment suggesting that people should be prevented from drinking, or that anyone follow the recent example of Malaysia and sentence people to be canned for having a beer. Far from it. My point applies only to those who have freely taken the five Buddhist precepts, and who aspire to take them seriously. Buddhism is clear on this. The Buddha says, in the words of the Dhammapada beautifully translated by Thomas Byron:

"Master your senses,
What you taste and smell,
What you see, what you hear.

In all things be a master
Of what you do and say and think.
Be free."

Buddhism is not about obeying your urges or showing off or being trendy or gaining popularity. It is about freedom. Freedom from suffering, freedom for yourself and for others. And the precepts are the tools with which we gain that freedom. They are perfectly simple. Don't kill, don't steal, don't engage in sexual misconduct, don't lie, and don't take intoxicants. They are, simply, the indispensable foundation of a life governed by the Dhamma.

This is an updated version of a post first made in January 2008. I've improved the writing a little, added the photo, removed all names, and deleted the links.