A lowlife Thai man has posed as a monk and collected a small fortune for a Thai person during the holy Visakha Bucha Day celebrations. Many Thai people donate money to temples that then pass the money onto needy charities.
The man was challenged to produce an ID card but couldn’t do so and then the police found 12,000 baht cash and 10,000 baht cash in a bank account book. The man admitted to posing as a monk and traveling to areas to collect alms.
The problem being is that Thai people respect monks so much and hold them in high esteem but there have been many cases over the last few years of monks collecting “Alms” (food, money ect) at night time, drinking alcohol, having physical contact with female companions and so forth.
Gone are the days when monks were barefooted, didn’t use mobile phones and never watched TV. A lot of these traditions are gone apart from the older monks who you still see living this way. I have respect for monks especially the ones in the Isaan villages living a very humble life. The have only the basics and not a lot of luxuries like their city counterparts who you often see in Tuk Tuks going to the shopping centres to do some shopping. They have more luxuries and I know that at one temple some of the young monks were very excitedly watching Muay Thai 1 day when we visited.
There have been shows of video footage of monks having massages and receiving sex from women and their punishment is being disrobed. This is seen as an utter humiliation.
A monk last year who had raped a girl under the age of 16 was found guilty of these charges but his only punishment was to be disrobed and no criminal charges were brought against him. This is very wrong and no matter if they are a man of Buddha or god, if they commit crimes they must be punished by the law to the full extent.
For the huge amount of monks in Thailand at the many tens of thousands of temples I am sure the numbers are small but I am always weary of monks who are by themselves in the city collecting alms. This is very rare as there are usually 3 or more walking together in the mornings.
Well that’s just my rant anyway and the story came from here
http://www.bangkokrecorder.com/news/news/imposter-monk-cons-buddhists-1015.html
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