Buddhism & Medicine

[savaka.umaro]

What are the ‘Sangha Rules’ surrounding medicine? What are some Suttas that help explain these rules? What are some Suttas that just talk about medicine in general, such as it working and not working for individuals?

For some reason when it comes to the Dhamma text surrounding Monastic Rules on ‘Sutta Central’ they are inaccessible on three different browsers for me. I have tried to remedy this and have continuously been unable to do so.

[Snowbird]

@savaka.umaro

they are inaccessible on three different browsers for me.

I’m assuming you are trying to clear your browser cache? That seems to be the fix that is always recommended.
Have you tried both the I.B. Horner & Ajahn Brahmali as well as the one just by Ajahn Brahmali?

We don’t get much on medicine rules in the Suttas if that is what you are asking. It really is in the Vinaya that we find this.

[savaka.umaro]

Some of the ‘Monastic Rules’ do come up. The next time I run into the error I will grab a screen shot. It does show like a data loading error with a circle containing and ‘X’ above the text when it happens.

Anyways…

I thought there was like a Sutta where like the Buddha recommended medicine or something and it didn’t work. Sujato I think may have used it as an example of the time that the Buddha was possibly wrong?

How many rules are there on medicine, I’m not really coming across them. I think there is a rule of storing to much medicine, but I also thought there was rules against unecessarily taking medicines as well.

[Snowbird]

You may want to start with Ajahn Thanissaro’s Buddhist Monastic Code. However, you have to be very, very, very careful with it because he discusses commentaries as well as canon. But as long as us just use it for references, then it’s very handy.

Here is the rule index to the Patimokkha rules, section on medicine:

Rule Index | The Buddhist Monastic Code, Volumes I & II

Here is the chapter on medicine that focuses on the Khandakas:

Medicine | The Buddhist Monastic Code, Volumes I & II

Each of these chapters has a nice list of just the canonical parts at the end. For example: https://www.dhammatalks.org/vinaya/bmc/Section0044.html#sigil_toc_id_93

I believe this is the discussion you referenced:

What the Buddha got wrong?

Ven Akaliko and I have been discussing doing a talk on all the mistakes that the Buddha made—or are they? That’s what we’re here to find out! One of the marks of a good leader is that they are happy to admit their own mistakes and limitations, and to correct themselves when needed. Obviously in the Buddhist texts, the Buddha is overwhelmingly depicted as being in the right. But is that always true? Did he make any mistakes? If so, what did he do about it? We’re going to have to set some parame…

[Adutiya]

I’m curious if monastics are permitted to take medications like insulin, blood pressure medication, thyroid medication, bronchial inhalers and such. Are they permitted to undergo surgeries with local or general anesthesia? And what about aspirin and pain medications?

with metta

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@Adutiya

if monastics are permitted to take medications

Yep!

@Adutiya

permitted to undergo surgeries

Yep, except for the genitals iirc, which makes sense to me. You don’t want a monk getting fed up and cutting his darn thing off That’s not the right way to overcome sexuality…