Talaputa sutta: what is wrong about drama?

The Watercooler
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Do all acting jobs lead to a bad rebirth according to the Buddha? If so, Shakespeare did some acting too, so that might apply to him too, in which case we might have to redefine which figures are worthy of respect in our traditions.

More to the point for those of us who do not act but say enjoy going to the theatre and reading. What precisely is wrong with drama? Would watching a play or reading a novel, where there is dialogue and so to some extent you enter the world of each character through empathy, also bad karma?

Thanks

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So folks don’t have to look it up, the sutta is SN42.2

If you are going to apply a Buddhist framework, then you will have to very much redefine who is worthy of respect. That really shouldn’t be so surprising, should it? The Buddha teaches a way that goes against the stream.

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Interesting point. That would imply a complete reform of the education system if one wanted to align it with Buddhist values then. Do you know whether in Buddhist countries things like literature are taught at school?

And, again, where should the line be drawn? Even in Suttas you have some immoral characters interacting with the Buddha or other monks. Reading the dialogue you are in some way playing the scene in your mind. And sometimes in Dhamma talk you see monks imitating say a bad guy for dramatic and or comic effects. How to distinguish between the cases where this is justified, for example as a helpful learning experience, from when it is is bad karma?

Also, many influential academics in the West, from F R Leavis to John Carey, have justified the importance of studying literature precisely on moral grounds; it would be interesting to see where precisely they have gone wrong from a Buddhist perspective.

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I find Ajahn Sona’s talk in the video below is very inspiring and liberating. I hope you will find the answer here.

If a work of art can deliver truth and beauty, I think it is wholesome and in alignment with Dhamma. It can function as a mundane vehicle that eventually leads toward supramundane truth. In the same way, the Noble Eightfold Path makes use of mundane means to lead toward supramundane liberation. Enjoyment rooted in greed and intoxication strengthens Samsāra, while engagement rooted in contemplation and insight can lessen it.

Shakespeare could be called the king of tragedy, and I would think that anyone who deeply resonates with his work may develop a richer inner life and a clearer understanding of human nature and suffering. Seen this way, I don’t see why engaging with Shakespeare would create bad kamma. And I don’t see why Shakespeare would have any bad karma from being his brilliant self.

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It was interesting too that the Buddha refused to answer the question twice and after being asked a third time he answered. I wonder what his hesitation was.

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In the theatre or arena, among beings who are not yet free from lust, who are bound by the bondage of lust, an actor entertains them with titillating things that excite them even more strongly to lust. In the theatre or arena, among beings who are not yet free from hatred, who are bound by the bondage of hatred, an actor entertains them with infuriating things that excite them even more strongly to hatred. In the theatre or arena, among beings who are not yet free from delusion, who are bound by the bondage of delusion, an actor entertains them with bewildering things that excite them even more strongly to delusion.

It sees, that it depends on repertoire, in what way it influences the public.

Yes, quite possibly. But one also should consider, that in many cases by educating oneself one merely arms one’s own ignorance. Considering what books many people read, one wonders whether it would be better if they couldn’t read at all.

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The Buddha refuted oversimplification of the doctrine of Kamma. If you’re interested in understanding the nuance when it comes to deeds, read and refer to mn136. It’s quite long but very helpful. Not all doers of bad kamma will be reborn in a lower realm right after their death, their kamma might take fruit in this very life or some other time. But in the Tālapuáč­a Sutta, the Buddha spoke as a general outlook, in a specific manner. Even murderers can be reborn in heaven if their good deeds are supposed to take fruit then.

Now Tālapuáč­a says in the Sutta

Suppose a dancer entertains and amuses people on a stage or at a festival with truth and lies.

Lying to people is definitely bad kamma.

But setting that aside, it’s easy to see how there are many actors who in their shows, movies, songs, etc., present hatred, greed and delusion, and they’re aware of what they’re doing, surely that is bad kamma on their part. But this doesn’t mean all actors go to hell, that wouldn’t match with the Buddha’s analysis of Kamma.

There are also many actors who show wholesome, helpful things. Now to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever really read anything from Shakespeare, but from what I hear about him he seems to truly inspire people in positive ways and not instill greed, hatred and delusion in them. You don’t see people walk around in Shakespeare merch, chant Shakespeare’s name or fight in his name. So I don’t see how that would be bad kamma.

Remember that the Buddha is talking about actors who do present unwholesome things to their audience, I don’t see how Shakespeare fits the bill.

But when you see actors in films or shows who depict erotic scenes, hateful arguments, fights, or present wrong view, it’s not that hard to see that they won’t have all that good of a rebirth, assuming no good deeds delay the bad kamma’s consequences. They know what they’re doing and they know the consequences of it. Things become grayer in cases when they’re forced to perform or have to perform.

She’s not an actor, but have u heard of the courtesan Ambapāli? She was devoted to the Buddha. There’s much more of a nuance to things than we think.

Am I making sense?

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It probably was a response to a particular type of entertainment, or a reaction to cultural changes. We have to remember, too, that early Buddhist sutras were recited by monks for monks, and they have a precept against attending entertainment events. I think it may be a case of monks going overboard with generalizations to maintain their precepts, similar to the sutras that are derogatory toward women. Monks aren’t supposed to have much to do with women, so putting negative connotations about women in their minds serves to reinforce their vows of abstinence, etc. Here, they are basically saying entertainers are going to hell because they make people laugh. Really!

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Also, the word Niraya (“Hell”) is one of those oddities I’ve been trying to trace for a while. In many suttas, it doesn’t seem to have the “Hell!!1!1!” meaning, rather, it’s literal “Bad Place” meaning seems applicable.

Over time it does seems to take on a very “Hellish” imagery too though.

But that digression aside, let’s consider the context of the sutta:

The dancer tells Buddha that performers are reborn “In the company of Laughing Gods”, and asks for Buddha’s opinion.

Again, the part here seems important and interesting:

Then, Buddha says “They’re born in a bad place called Laughter”.

This to me suggests there’s more layers and nuances than is apparent.

On the surface of it, it seems a flip on the valence of Laughter; both parties agree that it’s the destination, they disagree on it’s desirability.

And also, the point here seems to me: When a person has a mind of greed / hatred / delusion, and encourages others to behave in a similar manner, they’re headed to a place of loss.

This is a pretty decent and practical suggestion that’s applicable to one’s life. :slight_smile:

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It’s a bold assumption, that monks would value inventing suttas over preserving them. The suttas are overflowing with instructions on the danger of sensual pleasures. There is no need to make something up to justify not going to see shows.

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In AN 10.72 we find

Seeing shows is a thorn to someone restraining the senses.

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Would this include Shakespeare then? In a video that was shared above Ajahn Sona encouraged to read books by Dickens etc, so would you say novels are wholesome but plays are not?

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I think categorical speaking can be a rough guidance, but there’s always some nuance to things. :slight_smile:

There’s a way to view Romeo & Juliet as a critique of sensual pleasures and romance in general. Titus Andronicus can be viewed as inducing anxiety regarding having children in a violent world. Now, those conclusions I would argue are in line with the Dharma.

With that said, Buddha advises abandoning even the Dharma, in MN 22:

In the same way, I have taught a simile of Dharma as a raft: for crossing over, not for holding on. By understanding the simile of the raft, you will even give up the Dharma, let alone what is not the Non-Dharma.

So, if the Dharma prepares the practitioner to no longer need and thus abandon even the Dharma, how much more so would this apply to novels and plays? :slight_smile:

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I think that AN 10.72 is just suggesting that if you want to develop restraint of the senses then it is easier if you don’t go to shows. I take the ‘thorn’ to be like a thorn of a bramble that snags you and impedes your progress when you are trying to follow a country path.

The practice is a gradual practice, so it depends on where you are in your practice and where you want to get to as to what you should expose yourself to.

If we look at the following expression of the path (starting with Associating with true persons), we find sense restraint fairly far down the the list.

Associating with true persons
→ listening to the true teaching
→ faith
→ rational application of mind
→ mindfulness and situational awareness
→ sense restraint
→ the three kinds of good conduct
→ the four kinds of mindfulness meditation
→ the seven awakening factors
→ knowledge and freedom.

If you are still trying to find your feet in the dhamma, then there is probably some value in engaging in some of the more refined expressions in contemporary culture such as Dickens and Shakespeare. But the value of these cultural artifacts reduce as we apply our mind to the teachings where they are replaced by factors of the path which become more appealing to the mind.

In AN 10.72 that I quoted you find 10 thorns listed. So we find things like ‘Rapture is a thorn to the third absorption’. For many people who haven’t encountered rapture in their meditation yet, it would sound incredible that people get snagged on that and find difficulty progressing any further.

I think that this makes it clear that there is a general inclination of the path and those of us who engage with the path all find ourselves somewhere on it. So what is ‘wholesome’ for one, is ‘unwholesome’ for another. It is situational, depending where we are on the path (or even if we are currently on the path or not).

The last on the list of thorns is a general expression of thorns for the path: ‘Greed, hate, and delusion are thorns’

So my understanding is: if you find that Dickens or Shakespeare inclines your mind to more peace (contentment), love and understanding and away from greed, hatred and delusion, then it is wholesome, if it does the opposite, then it is unwholesome.

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I apologize if it’s upsetting to read what I wrote about monks, but we are talking about centuries and generations of monks without any real history about how exactly we end up with what we have to read. It’s necessary to think through the possibilities given human nature.

Just as a matter of history, we should probably think about who exactly these entertainers are that the Buddha is interacting with. They aren’t likely to be the kind of entertainers we deal with in 2025. They might be something akin to a circus troupe that were common for a time in Europe and the United States (not sure about the rest of the world). They would travel from town to town performing various amazing acrobatic routines, work with exotic animals, or play in comedy skits. They might also be street performers during the time when cities grew in India.

In fact, I recall a story that involves entertainers in MA 72. In the story of King Dirghayu, the king becomes a street entertainer after he was deposed from his throne. But first he is said to travel all around the country learning widely until he was called a scholar. Then he made a living as basically a comedian on street corners in the city. Throughout the story, he was said to perform in a cheerful way that made people feel joy. It sounds a bit like a clown, but he is an educated clown - perhaps a comedian would be a close parallel.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, this entertainer and his son who takes up the same profession don’t end up in hell or reborn as animals in the story. They are actually the spiritual element of the story who bring an end to an long feud to a pair of city states. There’s nothing negative about it. The Buddha tells the story as a lesson to the monks of Kausambi when they were feuding.

That’s all I can recall about entertainers in sutras at the moment, though. I’m getting old.

Anyway. You are right that suttas deal with sensual pleasures, and entertainment is that. However, what I recall from my readings is that suttas overflow with descriptions of going through a process of understanding the problem of relying on sensual pleasures for happiness. That problem relates to impermanence and the pain it can cause when one is attached to something when it changes or ends. There is also the point that is made in suttas that the object of desire is not ultimately the problem but the desire in a person’s mind, the attachment to something. Thus, a mature person can attend to entertainment without the danger of it becoming a problem, while an immature person is liable to become attached or averse to it.

So, yes, I’m incredulous about a sutta condemning certain entertainers to a bad rebirth for something like contributing to the delinquency of sentient beings. It actually reminds me a little of a passage in a prajnaparamita sutra that consigns anyone interfering with a bodhisattva on the path to buddhahood to hell for such a long time it might as well be forever. I stopped reading prajnaparamita sutras for a long time after reading that passage, it was so unwise and disturbing to me. But that’s the thing. We can’t ignore the wisdom because there are unwise people who manage to sneak this sort of thing into scriptures.

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You talk about entertainment: is there a difference in the suttas between art and entertainment? I mean is there a way to distinguish, in the sutta world view, between Beethoven and, say, Eminem. Or between Shakespeare and some Hollywood movies? Is there a way to distinguish between art that can give insight into Human Nature and entertainment as a mere way to waste one’s time with sentsual pleasures?

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I think there is! Buddhists did not condemn art that I know of. They made paintings that illustrated famous stories, sculptures of various kinds, wrote poetic epics like the Buddhacarita, engaging in imaginative storytelling akin to today’s fiction, etc. Obviously all of this is toward the end of promoting Buddhism, it’s culture and values, and yes some entertainment is involved at times. I’ve laughed at a comedic turn of events before while reading sutras. This is just one sutta out of thousands.

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Is that so unreasonable?

I don’t recall “being an entertainer” as being in the list of dhammas that for sure bring rebirth in hell (injuring a Buddha, killing an Arahant, etc). It seems, rather, that this sutta is a specific reply to a specific entertainer about whom we know very little.

Here, I think about those “entertaining” trolls on 4chan, for example, who laugh about creating conspiracy theories which lead the gullible to shoot up pizza joints, or the “yellow” journalism that led to the Spanish-American War. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that some forms of “entertaining” can indeed lead to hell. “It was just a joke” is the excuse for many evil utterances.

There is strong evidence for the Mahāyāna SĆ«tras being apocryphal, and indeed a certain hyperbolic exuberance in their descriptions of heavens and hells and praising their own sect at the expense of others is a part of that. But it seems a big jump from that corpus of known-late texts to claiming that this Pāli Sutta is apocryphal 
 simply because it mentions hell? Do you have evidence for this claim other than personally finding the sutta distasteful?

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Reading doesn’t involve looking at women. It has no as strong impact on senses. Movie is also with some music, another possible object of attachment.

To read Shakespeare and to see his plays isn’t the same thing.

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I listened to a YouTube talk by Ajahn Brahm a couple of months ago and he talked about how someone had told him about the film Groundhog Day and when it was shown on an airplane, he watched it. He based a lot of his talk on the concepts of the film and letting go and rebirth.

When I watch shows, what I find interesting is that I don’t relate with hardly anything. It seems so alien to me to watch people live their lives with no concept of the Dhamma. I see everything as a caricature of human behavior such as craving, attachment, blind choices, bad choices, ethics, etcetera. So I can see how that relates with Shakespeare.

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