Updated October 21, 2025 from the original in 2022. Introduction: Halloween is bad according to Theravāda because it involves dressing up, acting and embodying the costume one is wearing, often involving unwholesome characters. This can lead to a bad destination, and I will explain why. It is like Acting: Acting as a career, generally is not so wholesome. If there is any movie or play that is considered “good” by literature and Hollywood standards, there are going to be one or more of the five precepts broken. The content might consist of the actions listed below:

There were a few times when I have seen some yogis and or monks go crazy. One time I saw a possession case when I went to a Kandy forest monastery called, Ulpathkandha. It means Sprint Hill Monastery. I think it was 2010 when I went there. I wanted to use the Internet for the first time in a few years. I wanted to see what this Facebook thing was. I had my brother make me a Facebook account and I was going to see it for the first time. I thought this monastery had Internet because the main room had a computer. However, I later found out that the computer was broken from the lightening storm. Fortunately, they had a donor who invited monks to use his WiFi connection in his home and I made an appointment to go there after a few nights of living at the Spring Hill Forest Monastery, situated deep in the Mountains.

Yesterday, we got some pre-Halloween candy during our alms round at one of the houses. I thought that was very “sweet” of our donor. Halloween is a holiday on October 31, in America where kids dress up as, well, anything they want. They go around the neighborhood at night and ring the doorbells and say “Trick or treat!”. Then the person at the house would place some candy inside the ambitiously sized candy collection bags.