Buddhist monks behaving badly (video)

Thailand's Tainted Robes | Bhikkhus behaving badly | Misbehaving Monks | 101 East

(Al Jazeera English, 12/18/14) As scandals involving misbehaving Buddhist monks (bhikkhus) rock the nation, 101 East examines if Thailand can save its moral soul and monastic institution.

Nehn Kham was once a hugely popular monk preaching in Thailand's poor northeast region. Today, he is an international fugitive with a $32 million dollar fortune that he amassed through fraud. Buddhists around the world were shocked when footage emerged of this monk on a private plane, clutching a Louis Vuitton bag and fidgeting with high-end gadgets.

His extravagance put him atop a long list of misbehaving monks making headlines in Thailand for fist fights, smuggling drugs, selling guns, hiding gay pornography, raping trafficked boys, and more.

In response, Thailand's military junta (dictatorship) has set up a 24-hour hotline for the public to report rule-breaking monks. But the junta is also proposing new laws to criminalize breaking any Buddhist rule (227 precepts) -- a move some fear is an over-reaction that would threaten religious freedom.

There are already in Buddhism since the time of the historical Buddha four acts that instantly make one not a monk. These are called "defeat" offenses or parajikas, and they mean one can never again become a monk in this lifetime:

• Sexual intercourse: engaging in any sexual penetration.
• Stealing: the taking of anything worth more than 1/24 troy ounce of gold (as determined by local law).
• Killing: bringing about the death of a human being — whether by killing the person, arranging for an assassin to kill the person, inciting the person to die, or describing the advantages of death [2].
• Lying: lying that one has attained any of the stages of enlightenment, such as claiming to be an stream enterer or arhat when one knows one is not, or claiming to have attained one of the meditative absorptions (jhānas) when one knows one has not.

101 East exclusively reveals where Thailand's infamous jet-setting monk has been hiding and meets those on a mission to save the country Buddhist treasure (Sangha).

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