On my first day in Ireland, my wife, daughter and I were riding a taxi from the airport, and our driver was a fiery old Irish-Catholic fellow who told us all about Ireland as we were driving through Dublin to our new home. I remember at one point, we passed a pub that was unloading a bunch of Guiness kegs, and I mentioned in conversation that I abstained from alcohol. The taxi driver said that was a good thing, and that it was the Demon’s Drink, which was a phrase I never heard in the US (maybe others did, but not me). That phrase stuck with me since being here, where pub-culture and getting drunk tend to go hand in hand.
This morning, I mulled over that incident again, and then remembered something amusing. In Chinese characters the word for alcohol is 酒 (In pinyin: jiǔ; sounds like “joe” with a down-then-up accent), which has a very similar etymology. The three left-hand strokes (the radical) means water, or fluid. That’s obvious enough. But what about the main section of the character?
I learned long ago in high-school Mandarin courses,* in a certain character-mnemonics book, that the main character looks kind of like a bottle with a ghost trapped inside. The meaning behind that was obviously people who drink act differently, almost as if possessed by a spirit. It’s probably also why we call alcohol “spirits” in English sometimes, or why the Irish call it the Demon’s Drink.
Either way, the convergence of cultures here is fascinating, and serves as a sobering reminder this coming holiday why the Buddha promoted total abstinence toward alcohol and intoxicants. As the Buddha taught, alcohol and intoxicants cause heedlessness. The more you drink, the more heedless you become. It’s not that you become heedless after X number of drinks only, any amount will impair mindfulness and make it harder to practice Buddhism on some degree or another.
Speaking from experience, if you can avoid alcohol on a night like Christmas Eve (or New Year’s Eve), you might feel a little awkward while others around you do drink, but the next morning you feel a certain sense of satisfaction because you not only successfully disciplined yourself, but also a clean conscious.
Something to think about I guess. Consider this a Level 8 Buddhist Public Service Announcement.
…and knowing is half the battle…
G I Jooooooeeee!!!!!
Namuamidabu
* – I was lucky to go to high-school that even offered Mandarin (only one of two in our area), but I felt bad for our teacher, who was very nice, but kind of clueless. Students used to torment her a lot, and I felt bad. I did learn a lot about Mandarin over the next two years, but I wish I had kept up studied in college, as Chinese is a fascinating language. The key I’ve discovered to success in learning Chinese is what I call “flight time”, meaning that the more exposure you have to a certain character the more you will internalize it.
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
YES, Yes, & yes…………..
Excellent name for the scourge of society !!!
Thankyou !
I imbibe an occasional drop of the demon drink, but purely for medicinal purposes of course…. To mourners Shinran according to the Kudensho recommended they drink sake until a smile returned to their faces.
Sheila: Thank you.
Jishin: This is one point where I strongly disagree with Shinran.
Although I don’t disagree with an occasional drink in moderation, I too would have to disagree with Shinran on this point. This is the only thing I disagree with Shinran on. I like sake, but would not recommend drinking that much of it. As for the Demon’s Drink, that makes perfect sense. I remember times when I used to drink that I would wake up the next morning wondering how I got where I was, where my car was, and what I did. That’s enough reason for me not to drink.
Thank you Gerald!
It’s funny. In 2008 I drank twice. The first time was some beers with a friend when I left Korea, and the second was Sunday night after a carol service……. I had a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine and, with the first sip, promptly bit the inside of my mouth! Instant karma! (It still hurts! LOL)
Seriously, even one sip is enough to take the edge off your awareness and mindfulness…and leads to a second sip and a third.
Next year I think I’ll stick to just the mince pies!
Happy Christmas!
Marcus
Don’t Ch’an Buddhists call wine the “soup of wisdom”? Or is this folklore?
Probably folklore, unless someone has textual reference.
In any case, Ven. Yin-Shun, a celebrated Ch’an master, definitely proscribed it, and promoted following the precepts carefully, not for one’s own benefit, but for benefit to others.
Regarding Shinran’s comment in the ‘Kudensho’ I would imagine there is a good chance that it is entirely apocryphal. However I think that the story in question is more about how to care for the grieving than the pros and cons of alcohol. In the account a monk scolds a mourner for weeping, saying that they lack faith. Shinran dismisses the monk as stupid and affirms that faith does not mean that we are unfeeling to the troubles of worldly existence. As Issa memorably put it: “The world of dew is the world of dew. And yet, and yet”.
“Don’t Ch’an Buddhists call wine the “soup of wisdom”? Or is this folklore?”
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3lHag-M0quUC&pg=PA338&lpg=PA338&dq=%22soup+of+wisdom%22&source=web&ots=tyoi–F3jO&sig=5QL7TiGTaxGqR0gJC4iBoJM9Xtc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
Interesting, but doesn’t necessary prove that Buddhist institutions endorsed it, or endorse it now, or in what context it was used. My minimal experiences with Chinese Buddhism thus far seem to imply that they take the five precepts pretty seriously (at least in form), so I am curious where this came from. Oh well.
It might well be apochryphal. The Kudensho was written a couple generations after Shinran, and this story, as well as some others, may have been used to enhance Shinran’s character by Kakunyo (?).
>> that the main character is a bottle with a ghost trapped inside <<
That sounded cool, so I asked my (Chinese) wife. She frowned, said “huh? Nah…” and asked somebody else in the room (we were at a party). That lady didn’t think that was true either. So we’re wondering, do you have any references for that explanation?
Btw. Thanks for your writings!!!
Hm, that’s how I learned the character a long time ago in a book on Chinese characters. But I am not a native Chinese speaker, so it’s quite a possible I am wrong. Either I remembered it wrong, or the book was just using some mnemonic for that book only.
Thanks for checking on the validity of this.
P.S. Sorry, but I deleted the redundant comment.
No problem, that redundant one was entirely my mistake. I didn’t notice the “waiting for moderator” or similar comment, so when I checked the next day and didn’t see my message, I thought it had disappeared. Then when I posted the “replacement”, I noticed that comment. Too late to retract though, sorry!
btw, you can delete this one too
Gassho, jan
I have been thinking about a response to this, but waited until I could post it on my own blog. See my response here:
http://www.chasingsanity.com/throwing-back-beers-without-buddha/
I enjoy your posts. Keep blogging.
Hi Chasing and welcome to the L8B! I haven’t had a chance to reply yet (on vacation, computer access limited), but I definitely will. I think your response was well-written and thoughtful, so I certainly welcome your opinion. Cheers!
The article is good for creating awarness on alcohol is bad for human being. The alocohol makes life a terible in Nepal. Everytime fighting, rape, murder, social disharmony, not enough food for family due to spending on alocohol etc etc. Lots of foreign liquor companies are coming to Nepal, I ask why they (western beer and Liquor Company) wants to make Nepal even more poor?