Dhamma and Commerce

[SarathW1]

Hopefully I will find a Sutta translation in my hotel room in my next trip. By the way I got a free Mahayana book in a Japan hotel room.

[santa100]

@DKervick

Actually, although bibles are available in US hotel rooms, the sale of bibles in the US is a very substantial business.

Have just checked latest price on Amazon: 10 bucks for a hardcover King James version versus 45 bucks for Ven. Bodhi’s Connected Discourses.

[SarathW1]

It is due to low volume. There is a fixed set up cost and cost of holding stocks.

[sujato]

@DKervick

they commission studies to estimate how much

Well, if you know of any, I would love to see them. As far as I have seen, such studies usually don’t exist, and where they have been done, they have sometimes been actively fraudulent. I discuss this, and give some studies that show the opposite, in my post a few years ago on copyright:

Copy this

@DKervick

your apparent skepticism about the not-for-profit and charitable nature of the publisher, and what seemed to be your dislike of the fact that they are engaged in any commerce at all.

I never criticized anyone for engaging in commerce. I pointed out the fact that having a non-profit status under US tax law does not mean one is not engaging in commerce as understood in the Buddha’s time, and hence in the quote which was the origin of this thread.

@DKervick

I imagine if the entire sum of this boon had been offered to the publisher of the existing translation to support their own costs

Imagination is such a tricky thing! I did in fact offer this, and was turned down.

@DKervick

the sale of bibles in the US is a very substantial business.

In fact bible sales are around half a billion dollars per year, dwarfing any other book. Yet there are any number of websites and free editions.

The Good Book Business

[santa100]

Then it’s back to playing the numerical game again, the free bible in virtually every hotels versus the Buddhist book in some libraries.

[SarathW1]

I wonder the Bible publishing is subsidised.

[Sujith]

@DKervick

Also, if such benefactors did carry out such a project, as they sometimes do, would they not pay the printers who print the books? And the copy editors who proofread them? And the packers who pack them? And the truckers who deliver them? I assume so. So how is all this workaday lay labor being supported? By income that those benefactors generated elsewhere through whatever private sector commercial enterprises they participate in to generate worldly wealth. And guess what? Some of their other workers are paid less, or their other clients are billed more, so that they can build a surplus sufficient to carry out their “free” publishing activities.

And who knows what kinds of commercial activities these generous benefactors are engaged in. But I guess once the income, no matter how generated, is handed over to some “field of merit”, it gets virtue-washed and purified.

Most motives are selfish and a layperson’s desire to gain merit by supporting free distribution of the Dhamma is not especially devious. It’s not ‘virtue-washing’, but just an attempt to embrace the Dhamma when one’s circumstances do not allow full renunciation of this world that is filled with warring tribes and uncertainty.

I was once in Mahabodhi, Leh and the chief monk there gave me a new, physical copy of the Visuddhimagga for free. And a new copy of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s Wings to Awakening. It was a nice gesture - one that was supported by various laypeople from different countries who paid for the printing and shipping costs.

[santa100]

@Sujith

I was once in Mahabodhi, Leh and the chief monk there gave me a new, physical copy of the Visuddhimagga for free. And a new copy of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s Wings to Awakening. It was a nice gesture - one that was supported by various laypeople from different countries who paid for the printing and shipping costs.

Exactly. They won’t be able to do the same thing by giving you a copy of Connected Discourses or Middle Length Discourses for it’d break copyright law!

[UpasakaMichael]

@sujato

Thanks so much for your work! Have you thought of contacting BGR or Tzu Chi for help? It is a sad situation indeed!

Thanks, Bhante, but real thanks goes to someone like Lisa Nesser, who runs the Free Bird Cafe in Chiang Mai and through revenues ( via her NGO Thai Freedom House http://thaifreedomhouse.org ) funds a school for refugee kids at the cafe ( upstairs). Free Bird Cafe is some of the the best vegan food in Chiang Mai. Anyway,Lisa is heartsick over Kuang Jor, as she has been regularly bringing clothing and other goods to the camp for years.

I did write to BGR, and they were quick and kind responding and suggested I correspond with Oxfam, which I have done. I am to be in BKK Thailand in a week or two, and hope to meet with Duncan from TBC at his invitation in Chiang Mai. I really want to understand how this problem turned into such a crisis, and why no other funding sources have been identified. I have a quick response from Oxfam with a promise that someone will contact me. I am not holding my breath.

Bhante, I’d not heard of Tzu Chi https://www.tzuchi.org until your comment above. I will contact them and perhaps someone there can be helpful or provide guidance. Thanks!

[santa100]

@DKervick

They are entirely free to give away any copies of translations of the discourses that have been given to them, or that they have generated themselves through their own labor. But the ones you apparently want were generated by the labor of other people who are not giving them away, but trying to make a living through their work. Do you think you are entitled to a free share of the labor of others?

I’ll have to remind you that the OP was about the work of a monk, not a lay teacher. And all I have been addressing is exactly about the OP. Tell me exactly why a monk needs to make a living? Especially someone who gets quite a comfy place at a huge Mahayana temple? And using your own logic, shouldn’t Ven. Bodhi pay a huge sum of money to the original author whose words he’s borrowing: the Buddha and the many great ancient venerables who composed the Commentaries?

[Sujith]

@DKervick

What I meant is that there is a great deal of hypocrisy and self-deceit involved in the fiction that the Buddhist monastic world is not woven in to the commercial and economic fabric of everyday life. The lives of Buddhist monastics are supported by the labor and capital development carried out by others. Now, you could say all of the wealth these monastics possess, which is often modest but sometimes great, is “given” to them for “free”, with nothing given in exchange. But by what right did the giver give it? Was it truly their’s to give? How did they acquire it? Was labor exploited? Did they do much labor the themselves, or collect that income mainly as a rent from their ownership of the means of production somewhere, while someone else did the work? And if they did do any labor, why was their labor compensated so handsomely that they can afford to give so much away?

Not even the Buddha could have survived with such a harsh view of lay generosity. And he was one of those who could forego food now and then and subsist on ‘the rapture of dhyana’. He got alms-food from all kinds of people who engaged in pretty much the same misguided activities that we do in this age.

[UpasakaMichael]

@sujato

I don’t know how much is actually made from this, but I doubt that it is very much. If your aim is to raise funds for charity, publishing books is an extremely inefficient way to do it. You can easily raise as much in a single fund-raising event as you would from the sales of a popular book.

Bhante, to your point, you’re right. Your post reminded me of this: Login to Meetup | Meetup

which then reminded me of this:

2016 Concert to Feed the Hungry 4/6

Some might question this. Some might question whether breaking of precepts is involved. But to me, with Bhikkhu Bodhi, he’s just breaking barriers, breaking glass walls toward bringing the joy and energy of the Dhamma, Buddhism, and of engaged compassion to as many people as possible. And in the end, many starving kids and parents around the world have a chance at food security.

In general, it’s probably best that most Vinaya monks and nuns not play keyboards. But BB seems to have earned through his scholarship teamed with engaged action, the right to do as he pleases to raise funds for BGR. If only he’d had a professional guitarist to accompany him, the fundraising would have gone through the roof, but I have no idea who that might have been…

[santa100]

But then my question still holds, they’ll have to pay the Buddha and His many great disciples who authored the Commentaries. Otherwise, modern teachers would be the first ones who violate the copyright law for copying the work of the original author, our Buddha!

[santa100]

They’d probably save those individuals from being incarcerated in the first place had them followed the spirit of the Buddha Dhamma by freely distribute HIS OWN words for free.

[santa100]

I’d certainly do it if I was of the caliber like Ven. Bodhi. That’s why I admire Ven. Sujato for his tireless work of making the words of the Buddha available for free to everyone. And I’m trying to play a humble part within my limited capacity to share any Dhamma info. I know of to the forums. How about you? If you have the capacity, would you freely distribute your work or will you go the publisher route?

[santa100]

@DKervick

@santa100

How about you? If you have the capacity, would you freely distribute your work or will you go the publisher route?

It would depend on whether I was able to make a living some other way, and still have the time left over to do such a burdensome quantity of work. Unfortunately, nobody is delivering dana to my door.

Yeah, well, if you shave your head and become a monk, and then check with Chuang Yen in Carmel NY if they have any opening, you should be all set. Bodhi can hook you up…

[UpasakaMichael]

@sujato

neoliberal market philosophies

I needed a primer. Found this article: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems | Economics | The Guardian

Unfortunately, I went looking for a definition of the type of American silly enough to be naively living in this sick dysfunctional neoliberal quagmire, and not fully understanding what it is, and discovered it is…me.

Actually, to be serious, American Buddhism has aspects that are as odd and dysfunctional as the larger phenomenon of neoliberal economics and philosophy. For some reason, Australian Buddhism has cultivated a very different course, and I am still unsure as to why. Many Americans wish they could migrate to Australia. Australia seems to have a more open, more intelligent, more progressive society than exists in the US. I recall some 15 years ago putting on a seminar on dispute resolution/mediation, and found that the only advanced mediation associations were in Australia. I wrote to one of the larger AUS bar associations, and they sent me, free, boxes full of materials for my seminar. I was blown away by the kindness and collegiality. No one in the US was even close to this kind of progressive approach, and no one in the US would have sent me anything (and at the time, they had nothing to send) unless I paid for the items and paid the shipping.

[Sujith]

@DKervick

True. A good reason to remember that even the enlightenment of a Buddha takes place in an economic context, and is dependent on the labor and commerce of others.

As far as basic necessities go, yes, there is a dependence on the labor of worldly people and the Buddha readily acknowledged it. But it is bemusing to see that his teaching of impermanence is now shackled by something that is just a desperate, ‘legal’ construct attempting to claim ownership over transient things…

[SarathW1]

This discussion is about a monk having copyright to Buddha Dhamma.

[Nadine]

At the beginning of my exploration of Buddhism I would go to a large chain bookstore near me, pull a stack of books, sit on the floor, and skim through them, making a small purchase when I could afford to do so. The stores were vital to me as they were a familiar source of material on a very unfamiliar topic. I would never have been comfortable going into a temple without having done background reading first. As someone mentioned earlier, especially in the U.S. where folks may never have met a Buddhist in their life, commercially produced material is going to be the best way to reach that segment of the population. I’ll be eternally grateful to Bhikkhu Bodhi and the publishers of his books.