“Is a monk allowed to bargain?” Ven. Kavinanda asked. No, he isn’t. Why? Because bargaining is the kind of forcible theft (Pasayhāvahāra) which is included in 25 kinds of theft.
Forcible theft means taking the shopkeeper’s property either by overwhelming the shopkeeper with the power like the civil servants or by threatening the shopkeeper like the robbers. Every monk has the power of the attribute of the Saṃgha to which the lay people are devoted. If such kind of monk bargains, he behaves as if stealing the shopkeeper’s property forcibly. As soon as the shopkeeper gives up a hope for bargain, the monk undergoes any offense according to the amount of bargain. If the monk confesses without the intention of avoiding bargaining, he’ll encounter the following disadvantage.
If the amount of bargain doesn’t cause a Pārājika offense in the first time, it’ll cause the Pārājika offense in the second time, etc. For example, whenever he has bargained, he confesses without the intention of avoiding bargaining. His offense doesn’t disappear. He bargains again and confesses again without that intention. His offense doesn’t disappear. In this way, when the total bargains for which he bargains with the different shopkeepers become the least amount of money that causes a Pārājika offense, he undergoes the Pārājika offense.
Therefore, the monks and novices should refrain not only from bargaining themselves but also from telling someone else to bargain.
(The price of 5.105-milligram gold, which has to be paid on the day when a monk commits a crime, equals one-kyat money at the time of the Buddha. One quarter of that one-kyat money is the least amount of money that causes a Pārājika offense.)
Therefore, if the price of 5.105-milligram gold is divided by four, there’ll appear result that shows that least amount of money. Two fifths to four fifths of that least amount of money cause a Thullaccaya offense. One fifth causes a Dukkaṭa offense.}
While I knew that monks cannot bargain, I did not know it could be a disrobing offence. I don’t remember this in our vinaya class. I will bring this up with our vinaya teacher. It seems important.
Indeed. If such serious matters are going to be posted here it would be good if at the very least the relevant commentarial text sections could be given in Pali in full, if not translated.
It seems that there is a distinct difference between root and commentarial Vinaya. I think there is a certain demographic who see these differences and reject the commentary as adding in completely new concepts, e.g. these around the definition of theft. If this forum is going to try and promote the classical position on these things it would be good to have a more complete and well cited explanation. Other than the BMC, there are no translations of the commentaries available for sincere study.
We are working on getting pali for this. Ven Maggavihari didn’t teach anything of this sort to us during pārājika and I just asked him today. He said this is part of Nissaggiya and only a dukkaṭa. However, now we should fully research this because of how serious this is.
If ven @Pannadipa could give some pali, then we can translate it here. We don’t need a whole bunch of references consisting of other points (like the value, etc). Only the one about bargaining.
Once we have the pali, I can make the translation or get someone to do this if there is not enough time. I would imagine it is just a sentence or two. If you could be so kind to translate that section it would be very helpful.
Well, the Sayadaw and I had a conversation offline. In the end, this is merely an “opinion” of connecting bargaining to forced giving. The pali references did not mention anything about bargaining. He was inferring that it was forced loss on the vendor. It might be a cultural difference of opinion.
I think that if someone threatens the person with pictures or blackmail, that would be stealing. Perhaps the Sayadaw was thinking more in lines of “publicizing that the vendor was profiting from a monk” with intention to extort, then maybe it could be forced stealing. With some countries, it might be “bad publicity” to profit from a monk. However, when I went to Bagan, there were no vendors who were shy to ask me to buy things. On the other hand, usually Dr’s waive their consulting fees to monks and only charge for medicine.
However, I think it is all voluntary with what we would call normal bargaining. In certain cultures, I think it would be expected that you bargain for certain goods. In the 90’s it was expected you would bargain for a car, although I’m not sure what is done today in the usa.
Nevertheless, the monk should never bargain. It is a dukkaṭa to do so. The monk who does not like a price should say something like, “This price is not good, lets go to another place.” he can say that to his kappiya even in front of the vendor.
In fact, I have said that to the kappiya at a XYZ Wireless Store when I was looking for a one month SIM and they wanted a $25 or $30 activation fee. It should be noted, that the sales girl offered to let me activate the SIM myself as we were leaving. It would have been “Buddhist-legal” to use that SIM, but I didn’t like the vibe and we left.
We went to Walmart and avoided the activation fees, but we had to drive 20 minutes. The sim and 1 month sub was $30 at Walmart. The kappiya would have paid either way, but there was “ethics in business” that had to be upheld.
Thanks for following up on this. If the forum is going to promote a classical position it would be good if people could stick to that. There is so much Vinaya misinformation out there.
Right. It does seem like bad form. However it feels like there could be gray area. For example, would it be barganing to ask a retreat centre if they offered a discount for monastics? I guess then It’s just a fact seeking question. But is it different to ask, “Will you give me a discount because I’m a monastic?”
One should not be using money and should not be doing the negotiating. If one sticks to that, there are no issues to worry about. Many people do not fully understand the dangers of using money. The issue is that lay people will do many different unethical things in order to save money. A monk who is using money will likely do the same thing. When this happens, simply breaking a “non-heavy” rule can be very serious.
Take for instance, not reporting taxable income.
Deliberate lying about a status to get free benefits or discounts.
It’s in Na Uyana vinaya notes, but I don’t think these 25 are exhaustive. Some of them seems like repeated, some like a lot packed into one. I don’t see bargaining in any of the 25. Maybe 1a is the one that the OP is referring to.
Myanmar monks say that bargaining is the forcible theft. Their reason is because bargaining makes a seller unhappy. If the seller decreases the price happily without the monk’s bargaining, the monk doesn’t commit the forcible theft.
But is the monk forcing them to even sell the item? They are still obviously deciding for themselves if they want to sell or not. That barganing would be treated as equal to just walking out of the shop with the item is puzzling to me.
I 100% agree that monks shouldn’t be using money, or even barganing. But there seems to be a fixation among some to lower the threshold of what is a parajika from even the commentaries. Do we know why that is?
I have unfortunately known several monks who have been overcome with anxiety related to this kind of one-upping of offenses. Does anyone know what the motivation is here? I doubt that actual shameless monks are going to be moved by these lower thresholds.
Oh god. That’s horrible. Do the other monks who promote these kinds of views feel responsible at all? It feels like a very specific kind of monastic culture, especially from the Burmese tradition. Is that your impression?
This one was actually his second, if I’m not mistaken. Although the first one was actually posted by you. And they both seem to be about extending parajikas beyond even the commentarial position.
But I’ll let this drop for now. I actually have a sincere interest in the phenomenon.
BMC says we can say I don’t need that item anymore if the seller asks for too high price. And just leave. So in that sense there seems to be a space for some limited bargaining.
Under NP 20.
The Commentary to NP 10 describes how a bhikkhu may make a purchase
when his steward has left funds in safe-keeping on the bhikkhu’s premises but is
not present to arrange a trade when, say, a bowl-seller comes along. The
bhikkhu may tell the seller, “I want this bowl, and there are funds of equal value
here, but there is no steward to make them allowable.” If the seller volunteers to
make them allowable, the bhikkhu may show him where they are but may not
tell him how much to take. If the seller takes too much, the bhikkhu may cancel
the sale by saying, “I don’t want your bowl after all.”
If a bhikkhu goes with his steward to a store and sees that the steward is
getting a bad deal, he may simply tell the steward, “Don’t take it.”
But also has this:
The Commentary, in discussing these exemptions, raises the following points:
A bhikkhu who tries to avoid the technicalities of what is defined as
engaging in trading by saying simply, “Give this. Take that,” may do so only
with his parents. Otherwise, telling a lay person to take one’s belongings as
his/her own is to “bring a gift of faith (saddh›-deyya) to waste”—i.e., to misuse
the donations that lay supporters, out of faith, have sacrificed for the bhikkhu’s
use (see Mv.VIII.22.1; BMC2, Chapter 10). On the other hand, telling an unrelated
lay person to give something is a form of begging, which carries a dukka ̨a
unless the lay person is related or has invited one to ask in the first place. (From
this we may deduce that bhikkhus should not bargain after having asked the
price of goods or services—e.g., a taxi fare—even in situations where bargaining
is the norm.)
“Is a monk allowed to bargain?” Ven. Kavinanda asked.
