It would appear that many Buddhist monks are over weight according to the latest information. It confirms my suspicion that for all the robes and showmanship they are just like the rest of us prone to temptation and typically human.

World AIDS Day - December 1st, 2016

Let us pause and have a moment of silence for those
in Vajrayana who paid the price of trusting the guru.

[www.google.com]

A Geluk monk gave up his vows but continued to present himself publicly as a monk.

This letter is written by this fellow's girlfriend.

An Open Letter About a Monk Who Isn't

[www.tibetanfeministcollective.org]

RESPONSE & ANSWER TO ‘AN OPEN LETTER ABOUT A MONK WHO ISN’T’

[www.tibetanfeministcollective.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2017 04:50AM by corboy.

It can become very complicated to form an intimate friendship (platonic or not)
with someone who is questioning his or her commitment to remain in monastic life.

But the area for potential misunderstanding yawns wider if the two of you
are from different cultures.

In the West, where persons usually do choose whether to live vowed lives, those who do so are often very attractive personalities.

There is a scenario in which an unhappily married person has a hidden affair while
planning and going through a divorce.

The married person shares his or her rage and anguish with the lover and they both assume that after the divorce, they will be a couple.

Sometimes this does not happen. The divorcee suddenly finds the longtime lover
unappealing -- and looks for new opportunities.

It is as though the lover is discarded after he or she has 'absorbed' all the tension the divorcee endured during the ordeal and the final stage of the divorce is to ditch the supportive lover, along with signing over half of the community property.

And, there can be complications dating someone who is 'on the rebound' having exited a marriage or long time partnership. Dating someone who is just freed
from vows or is waiting to be laiacized can bring emotional pitfalls.

Dating monks and clergy there may be a similar hazard.

Some of us who have had traumatic upbringing and whose hearts are wounded unconsciously assume that a person vowed to religious life (whether priest or monastic)is somehow 'safe".

No. Not at all. The potential for anguished emotional betrayal remains and is even enhanced, even when the friendship has been platonic.

Years ago, a woman told me she was a friend of a Catholic monastic who took several years to give up his monastic vows and re-enter secular life.

"As soon as he left the monastery and went secular, I was dumped", X said.

The guy could not confide in his fellow monastics. So he'd spent anguished hours talking things over with X, but suddenly, when free of his vows and in secular life, X could no longer face her and stopped returning phone calls.

A generous person, X suspected that she'd been the fellows emotional lifeline while he was in the monastery. She also had the generosity to suspect that he hated treating her this way but could not help himself. Her guess is that while he was processing his departure from vowed life and arranging an outside job and living arrangment, X had made himself emotionally vulnerable to X, with the result that she had witnessed him in utter emotional chaos.

When X and her friend were no longer separated by the monastic vows, the ex monk was probably terrified to face her because of this and found it easier to look for new friends he could show only part of himself to.

as a one time lawyer, pleadings are broad and trials narrow. you sue every possible defendant and narrow down to the central ones with deep pockets at trial. so i confirm it is a disingenuous quibble, or a dishonest quibble, to claim it matters that several other were sued. furthermore, people don't pay out substantial damages unless they are culpable. their insurers would breach them immediately if they did. these groups will have some or total liablilty insurance--if they are run properly. moreover, the idea that liabilty in a law suit is less than criminal charges is a silly splitting of hairs. often people will get better results in a civil claim, which can include substantial damages and injunctions against behavior that cannot be attained through criminal proceedings. sogyal was sued for substantial damages and he paid out. he did get a non disclosure clause. however if you know the jurisdiction where the suit was filed you can usually obtain the law suit documents, which can include discoveries depositions and exhibits. these are public records in most common law jurisdiction such as canada, the usa new zealand and australia and the uk. (even india , hong kong, singapore and mayasia in a modified form) .

claims otherwise are fatuous or dishonest to say the least, why waste people time with such nonsense.

Honestly, corboy, I don't quite understand her complaint. She wanted to blow the whistle on this guy, for what--transgressing his vows? Firstly, that's not unusual for a TB monk to do, so it's not surprising that nobody in authority cares. The monasteries often are surrounded with brothels, to serve monks who "jump the wall" at night.

Secondly, having sex regularly with a "consort" is part of the routine in some traditions. In fact, in some of the Kagyu monasteries in Ladakh, it's the custom to start teaching 17-year-old monks tantric sex by assigning to them post-menopausal women to practice with, until they perfect the seminal retention technique.

The complaint says the monk was Gelug, though, so live consort practice isn't part of the package; the tantras are done by visualization only. How strictly celibacy is enforced in those monasteries, I don't know, but the few Gelug monks/teachers I've come across have not shown the slightest interest in adheri8ng to their vows. There's also the custom of "thigh sex" that takes place between fellow monks in all the traditions, including the Gelug, so no one should assume that Tibetan monasticism is a disciplined tradition in that respect.

Informed readers are invited to tell us how many Tibetan Buddhist nuns have
this same standard of living.

[www.quora.com]

Quote

Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India
Buddhist Monks
Ladakh Region, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Buddhism
Money

Where do all of the Buddhist monks get money to buy the cool gadgets and shoes that they have?

I have been to Ladakh and Dharamshala and have often noticed that the monks have expensive gadgets like mobile phones and tablets. Most of them also have super awesome shoes. It is not rare to see them having food at reasonably expensive restaurants. I wonder whats their source of income.

I don't know much about Ladakh and Dharamsala, but I guess it will be similar everywhere. The Tibetan system in the monasteries is a very well organized social system. I have spoken to many monks in Nepal about how does it work that they have money, smart phones, a little higher ones motorbikes, cars and more and more, depending on the popularity of the monk and/or his monastery. When a family offers a child, usually boy, to enter a monoester, it is obvious that the family will continue to send money, clothes and anything that is allowed and needed by the child monk. Part of the money is given to the monastery itself as donation. Moreover, if a child is an orphan or his family is poor, some religious people, Tibetans as well as many Westerners, choose to sponsor a monk for all life. I knew a German couple who sponsors a Nepalese monk in a monastery near Kathmandu al his monk study years, and I would even claim they are spoiling him. It can also create jealousy among monks, maybe...He is very lucky. When they go to visit him in Nepal, they bring him electronic gadgets and clothes etc.

I was explained that the system is so well established, that practically all monk has a sponsor. So in Nepal often monks are considered very rich, and they have to pay higher prices for goods. If they have to travel, most of the time they can afford to take expensive taxis, while locals must go on old crowded buses or on foot...

I think the system is very good, and it could have worked well when monasteries were in Tibet, and the money and gifts had been in the limits of a normal Tibetan household. But nowadays this sponsor system creates a source for materialism in Tibetan monasteries, and that looks sad for someone who comes to them to study about a Buddhist lifestyle...

Another, not small, source of money for older monks are Pujas: religious rituals in temples or private houses. Pujas are actually monks' main "job", especially at occasions of people's death, birth, building a house, purifying a place etc. On Pujas usually invited guests (non-monks, non-nuns) stand up at a certain point to distribute the same amount of money to all present monks and nuns, even if they did not do any active prayers.

I started to understand why are monks and nuns always so enthusiastic about Pujas, and had been calling me to this or that Puma. For them they are the happy occasions of earning money, and sometimes very big amounts, if the beneficiary is rich.

I hope I helped you to understand where monks get expensive shoes from...

Please forgive me the typing errors like "monoester" instead of monastery or "Puma" instead of Puja. It was an automatic spell-check. I did not find an Edit button.

Ram Bahadur Bomjon is constantly preaching about World Peace, Compassion, moral rules, bringing tolerance and love to humankind etc. Yet, as the above comment shows, quoting the Irregular Times, from as early as 2007 this "Buddha Boy" (as known in the West) had been engaged in violent explosions which had harmed, by now, more than forty people. And because he is not limited or stopped by the authorities, who consider him a new god and above Gautama Buddha in Nepal, he freely continues with his so called "Maitri Dharma" (new religion) and plans to spread "it" to the West. The question is how far this “Maitri Dharma” connected to anything religious or even moral. Mere words repeated by him at preaching and by his followers online, are not enough. In the same time (and even same occasions!) when preaching about so called Maitri (friendship and loving-kindness), they are chaining, beating women as alleged "witches", beating men to blood, and there was at least one occasion of rape order and death. The Ram Bahadur Bomjon Controversy. The death was of his sister, who served him nay years:

“‘Guru’ took the ‘internal action’ not physically but using his divine powers, the follower claims. The follower adds Bomjon’s elder sister has also faced the wrath of ‘internal action’. “She later died a painful death.” http://setopati.net/society/21938/State-must-watch-Bomjon-closely/

If anyone nowadays, Ram Bomjon (calling himself Maitriya Guru, or Maha Sambodhi Dharma Sangha) is a very capable wolf walking in a lama's robe. He is wearing a white robe though and long hair, to fit in the subconscious image of a Messiah and Prophet in the West. As the main source of income and worship for him comes from Westerners. His latest World Peace Maitri Puja 2017 in Kathmandu, with tens of thousands coming to be touched by his hand as blessing, had shown that people (even Westerners) are willing and wishing to humiliate themselves in front of him as if he was the highest god (and the Setopati interview with his followers confirm they seriously believe in this:

"“His followers consider him to be Parmatma (supreme soul) and above Lord Buddha.”

“But he also considers himself a Parmatma incarnated to rid the world of sufferings. He plans to unite the world through a single Maitri religion, Maitrilanguage and Maitri culture. ”

“His followers claim his level of knowledge is above that of Lord Buddha. They claim Siddhartha Gautam reached a Sambuddha (self-enlightened) state but Bomjon has attained Mahasambodhi (greater form of self-enlightenment) state."

https://web.archive.org/web/20170613110521/http:/setopati.net/society/21938/State-must-watch-Bomjon-closely/

He is picking up innocent people from among the poor and vulnerable, whom he lets abducted, locked up and sometimes tied with chains in his jungle compound Halkhoriya. He is then thrashing them, even if they are elderly women, to blood, fractures and let's his followers (mostly robed monks, khenpos and nuns!) torture them. Civilian Tamang Buddhist villagers are also involved in the tortures and violence, and recently his child monks too. But no NGO, no state organization minds this, or cares about his victims. He had kidnapped and kept in some terrible condition a Spanish devotee woman in 2007, who came to visit him. Andrea Good in her book Reflections on Palden Dorje describes on page 62 how she had been released, with her skin scaling down. There had been no news about her anymore. But before her, a Nepali boy had been attacked by Bomjon, who tried to cut away his head, but the boy moved and so he “just” wounded his shoulder. His brother Dil took him to hospital from the jungle.

The shocking thing is that he does not even try to hide his criminal deeds. He knows that he would be not punished, as Nepalis are superstitious and everyone believes in his supernatural powers. While his Western devotees, in a sick way, somewhat accept that a guru can be also violent and has a right to harm human beings, if he considers it helpful spiritually. Some Westerners had been assisting in tortures of most victims (Tomasz Tarnowski) and tens of Western followers had been helping in covering up and paying bribes. According to the now closed down website Dharma-sangha.com (this was a former official website, but after realizing what this person was about, the founder turned it to a critical site).

He has a big backing among some politicians and celebrities, and so much money collected from donations, that sometimes he travels even from village to village by a helicopter. During the 2017 World Peace Maitri Puja he had been celebrated with such a fanfare as not even the president or prime minister of the country! Hundreds of policemen had been deployed, to protect him from his alleged "enemies". While the police protect him from others, his victims do not get protection from Bomjon.

He had for example kept a Slovak volunteer Marici chained to a tree 3 months in the jungle, just a few steps behind the stage of his 2012 World Peace Maitri Puja, held in Halkhoriya Jungle. Thousands had attended it, yet the monks and Bomjon's bodyguards kept people away from crossing the fence, behind which the two tortured women had been kept. When journalists arrived to search for the Slovak citizen (most locals knew she was there, as they saw here being abducted), Bomjon's men Tomasz Tarnawski, Bal Hari Rai and Darshan Limbu attacked them and damaged their cameras. The same time a Nepali lady Mata Ani had been kept hostage by Bomjon in his jungle ashram, and tortured similarly as Marici.

They both had been announced witches by Buddha Boy , their hair shaved and they had been not just physically and mentally tortured, but also humiliated like alleged witches are in Nepal. This all did not stop the politicians at a high level to support and protect Bomjon, like the ex health minister Mani Lama, his ardent follower. Actually just a month after he thrashed 2 abducted villagers to pouring blood (scroll longer down under the title), he had been invited by the ex late Prime Minister to his residence and granted a passport, so that he could now start to spread his “peaceful dharma” in the whole world.

Bomjon is a dark and brutal wolf in a very white lambish lama's robe, but he is also the best expert in hypocrisy, with his innocent face expression enough to convince hundreds of foreigners that the tortured and thrashed women were "evil witches" or the beaten men "disturbers of his meditation". That he convinces uneducated Tamang Nepali villagers, it is not such a miracle. Elder people are usually illiterate in villages, and do not read newspapers. The local followers of Bomjon, especially other wolves in lama robes, pose as authorities who often use force and pressure to convince locals to accept Bomjon’s “non-traditional” religion based on regular violent outbursts and on worshiping his physical person as god. And even media and authorities believe Bomjon now, although the Nepali and foreign media had been covering his brutal violence and abductions over 12 years!

Attacks had been much more than here was possible to quote and describe. A list of most available media links about his attacks can be found on Media on Ram Bahadur Bomjon’s Controversies (scroll through introductory text to the list), but an older article (some of the links became dead) lists most of his controversial deeds with just a few media links: The Ram Bahadur Bomjon Controversy.

That he is not even a monk and celibate, had been described on the Dharma-sangha.com website in detail, as the founder was obviously still in contact with Sangha members who witnesses shocking things in Bomjon’s private life, like having two or more girlfriends and making them pregnant and then sending them regularly to abortions (in the time when Nepal’s women already widely use anti-conceptive) or a few descriptions of torturing animals to death. Shocking is also the description by Canadian visitors, who witnesses Bomjon attacking his own family members with sword.

So it is better to be prepared for the arrival of Ram Bahadur Bomjon – so called Maitriya Guru Maha Sambodhi Dharma Sangha – the Buddha Boy – to your country. Worshiping him will be never for free: it will be at the price of harming a few human beings.