Drink to keep us warm

Phrabhavanaviriyakhun, the vice abbot of Dhammkaya Temple, kindly answered this question: If you drink to keep you warm, does it break the five precept? Click to read his answer! https://dmc.tv/a11900

Dhamma Articles > Question and Answer for Life
[ Aug 13th, 2011 ] - [ read : 18256 ]
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Question and Answer for Life

 
By Phrabhavanaviriyakhun

 
 
 
Question:
In the European countries, the weather is very cold. Thus, there is a necessity to drink alcohol to keep the body warm. And if you drink alcohol to keep the physical body warm, is it considers as breaking the five precepts?
 
Answer:
From the positive viewpoint, there are some arguments that exist in the medical field such as “Why do we still have to use opium? Isn’t it a kind of drug that we have to get rid off because of its hazardous effect toward the human body?” However, during times of necessity, opium also has many beneficial effects because it can be use as medicine to fix our mental stability and act as a pain reliever during emergency.

Therefore, before we can use alcohol, we have to decide how to use these drugs and what beneficial effects we can derive from it. For example, we can use opium to relieve the pain or to increase our addiction toward it.

Similarly to opium, alcohol has both positive and negative effects. We cannot stop producing alcohol because it is still use in the medical field. For example, alcohol can be use for cleansing our wounds. Therefore, before we can reach the decision whether alcohol is bad or good, we must examine the purpose of using alcohol. If alcohol is use for the medical field, then there’s nothing to blame, but if alcohol is use for getting drunk, then it is considers as wrong.

In the case of an ill person, if there is a necessity to drink alcohol to keep the body warm during winter, or if the medicine that the ill person has to drink has a mixture of alcohol, then we cannot blame the ill person. However, if after drinking the alcohol, the ill person does not get better, then it is better for them to stop drinking alcohol to keep the body warm.
 
This is because drinking alcohol is considers as walking the path toward destruction. Everyone must know that when drinking alcohol, our consciousness begins to fade away.  You should not think that the more you drink alcohol, the more warm your body will be. You have to be careful if you think that, “The more you drink alcohol, the more warm your body is.” This is because the more you drink, the more you will loose consciousness. If you drink the first glass of alcohol, the 2nd, 3rd and the 4th glasses of alcohol usually follow. Do you still think that the first glass of alcohol is worth it?

There is an important concept that I would like to introduce to the readers. If you believe than drinking alcohol to keep the body warm is not considers as sinful, and continue drinking, it would be too late to fix your mistakes when a tragic accident happens. However, if you fix the cause of the accident since the beginning by not drinking alcohol, you will not break the five precepts, and then danger will not approach you.

Most people believe that taking a sip of alcohol is not dangerous, but I would like to give you the warning that most people who had faced tragic accident, used to think like you too.

 
Translated by Pichayapa Suenghataiphorn
 
 

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