Money, sex scandal at Shaolin Temple

China's head of Shaolin Temple arrested

(China Insider with David Zhang) July 28, 2025: Capitalism is good, just like America taught us. If it's good enough for Protestant Christian televangelists and  One product from China Insider with David Zhang tagged products below in the commodification of sea creatures. Learn more (pre-sale, shipping at the end of September) and get a bonus pack of Taiwan Yushan High-Mountain Oolong Tea (150g).

Bad monks in a Buddhist country (video)

CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; AJ English (video)

The inclusive rainbow Buddhist flag flies over a nation for virtue, meditation, wisdom.

Thailand's Tainted Robes: Misbehaving Monks

As scandals involving misbehaving Buddhist monks rock the Southeast Asian nation of tourist-friendly Thailand (possibly the most Buddhist country in the world), 101 East examines if the nation can save its moral character.

Why is this happening? Could it be that forcibly sending males into the monastery necessarily creates rebellion, discontent, and misbehavior?

Most of the misbehavior is due not to actual "monks" (bhikkhus) but to novices (samaneras) who temporarily ordain and so undertake fewer rules than fully ordination entails for a few days or months by Thai custom. A person's ordination is only as good as one's underlying motivation for undertaking the eight to 227 training rules of a Buddhist monastic.

Four of these 227 or more training rules (many of which are minor etiquette guidelines that number 1,000 or so) are so important that breaking them leads to immediate and irrevocable "defeat" (parajika). They are: killing, stealing, sex, falsely claiming spiritual attainments.

The whole purpose of the rules is to facilitate meditation and to preserve the Dharma as a living tradition in the world for as long as possible -- through study, teaching, and most of all intensive practice that ensures that at least some people (lay and monastic) gain the stages of enlightenment.
 

Wheel of the Dharma

There is, of course, misbehavior higher up. Most novices are sincere and studious for the short time they are ordained. Some long time monks are the ones abusing the system set up by the Buddha for producing enlightened beings (arhats) in the world, which constitute the supreme field of merit for the world.

Some Buddhists, particularly adherents of the much larger latter-day Mahayana school, feel it is wrong to speak ill of the community. They invented an additional precept against it. One should hide the dirty laundry? We disagree because sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Dysfunctional communities, such as cults, need to keep secrets. If a community will not clean up its act in silence then saying something becomes necessary. If molestation were happening at home, would you keep silent? Most of us would. But silence makes it possible for it to keep going on. Speak up.

Two chedis (pagodas) near the summit of Doi Inthanon (Lester Mathias Andersson)

Why is there Buddhism if no one seeks a path to enlightenment and nirvana? Altars, like this one in Thailand's Doi Inthanon, would be worthless (Charlie Owen/binbagger/flickr.com).

 

Is Mara leering his hideous head again?

There are rules -- monastic guidelines known as The Vinaya (Monastic Disciplinary Code) and Patimokkha (direct "Path to Liberation" rule recitation).

Unfortunately, most lay Buddhists have no idea what the rules are.

And most monastics feel it is none of laypeople's business what goes on inside the monastic system. The rules lay out the enforcement of the rules, but they are not enforced. The guidelines are there, but no mechanism exists to see to it that they are carried out.

So instead of cleaning up its own act, unless some pressure comes from outside, the whole system could become corrupted to the point that we lose the third gem or guide of Buddhism, the Sangha (monastic community) like we lost most of the female monastic community and the noble community, both of which are currently on the rise again. The first gem, the Buddha, is no longer here.

The second and arguably the most important, the Dharma (the Teaching of the complete path to enlightenment) is on shaky ground as no one seems to know what it is. It is preserved in the ancient Theravada tradition as the bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma or "37 Requisites of Enlightenment," which few know exists.

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Sri Lanka arrests Buddhist monks; Thais riot

Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo
The arrested monks belong to a left-wing nationalist party. Sri Lankan police have arrested 12 Buddhist monks who were demonstrating against the detention of the opposition politician, Gen. Sarath Fonseka. Late on Monday, a police spokesman told the BBC the monks would shortly be freed, but this could not be confirmed. The arrests in the capital Colombo are another episode in the bitter fallout of the so-called Fonseka affair. More>>

Thai protesters clash with riot police
Jocelyn Gecker (AP)
BANGKOK – Thousands of anti-government demonstrators clashed with Thai police and military troops trying to prevent them from leaving from the capital's commercial district Tuesday to stage protests elsewhere in Bangkok. The demonstrators [which recently included Buddhist monks] pushed against police lines and pelted the riot squads with eggs and plastic water bottles along a tree-lined boulevard in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. "Have we reached a point of no return? I hope we don't have to fight fellow Thais," said a protest leader, Nattawut Saikua.

• Slideshow: Thailand

Tibetans protest in Nepal; torch reaches Lhasa

Tibetans protest in Kathmandu, Nepal as Olympic torch relay reaches Lhasa, Tibet.

By Gopal Sharma

(6/21/08)

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Hundreds of Tibetans protested outside a Chinese consular office in Nepal on Saturday, with many condemning the passage of the Olympic torch through Tibet.

"The torch relay through Lhasa is to show that Tibet is under the control of China," said Tashi Lama, 32, in Kathmandu. "If China feels that the relay of the torch through Tibet will receive support from the Tibetan people then they are wrong."

The torch procession arrived on Saturday at the Potala Palace, the traditional seat of the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism.

In Kathmandu, police said they detained about 400 protesters. Many scuffled with the police before being pushed into vans. Around 20,000 exiled Tibetans live in Nepal. There have been protests nearly every day in Kathmandu since violence roiled Tibet in March.

Nepal considers Tibet to be a part of China, a key aid donor and trade partner, and does not allow any anti-Beijing activities.