Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

This is very worrying:

DSI Pol Lt-Colonel Phongin Intharakhao said a woman had also made rape allegations against the monk in December 2010.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/nationa ... 09839.html

A rape in 2010!!! And they never investigated that??? The police is only interested in the case when they find that he moved money abroad!

More details are emerging:

Jet-setter monk accused of sex with under-age girl
Charges of statutory rape could bring 20-year jail sentence
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/3 ... pe-charges

If this is used as evidence against LP Nenkham (they will do DNA tests now) then he could be probably extradited from France back to Thailand to face the charges there.

My god that's sick. He's been parajika for a long time now it would seem. Having sex with a 14 year old girl, and forcing her to have a child by him, that's so wrong. Sham monk in robes. I wonder how many other defeated monks there are in cahoots with him.

We should bear in mind that there are about 300 thousand monks in Thailand (more or less, it fluctuates a lot during the Vassa due to temporary ordinations). Many of them will not stay long-term in the robes, they might just be doing a short stint as part of family tradition or for other reasons. Some might have ordained simply 'in search of a livelihood' without any spiritual aspirations whatsoever. Remember that there is hardly any social security network in Thailand, so older men without family support often become monks (and are notoriously hard to train). Naturally, without proper training, which is hard to come by in most monasteries these days, they will carry their old habits and defilements with them into the monk's life and will simply try get away with them as much as they can. So all kinds of misconduct by monks is reported daily in Thai media.

However, in a case such as this one involving a well-known popular monk, it becomes obvious that the whole structure of the Thai Sangha is unable to cope with the challenges and that the administrative structure (which has hardly changed for the last 100 years) needs a major overhaul. These are big topics and they are being discussed by Thai academics, but there is little political will (yes, it is a question of politics) to bring about a radical change. In the past, it was the king such as Rama VI who could do so, but nowadays various other parties are involved as well and the Thai Sangha is divided into factions who might be trying to get more influence (such as Dhammakaya).

Because of the media reporting, also, things might seem very bad, but has anyone produced a statistic yet showing the numbers of 'bad monks' as opposed to 'good monks'?

BlackBird wrote:Sham monk in robes. I wonder how many other defeated monks there are in cahoots with him.

Probably a very large number. And not only monks. They are still supported by lay followers who know very well all this is happening. It's not that people lose their faith. They never had it.

gavesako wrote: Because of the media reporting, also, things might seem very bad, but has anyone produced a statistic yet showing the numbers of 'bad monks' as opposed to 'good monks'?

I don't think anyone's arguing there aren't a lot of good monks out there Bhante. Although I guess what you're saying is that we shouldn't lose sight of that right? If so that's very true, we shouldn't.

You're right about there needing to be an overhaul in the bureaucracy, it's long overdue.

It's rather difficult to constitute what is a "good" monk and what is a "bad" monk in somewhere like Thailand where Buddhism is very much a living religion and most probably very far from what we perceive Buddhism should be.

gavesako wrote:We should bear in mind that there are about 300 thousand monks in Thailand (more or less, it fluctuates a lot during the Vassa due to temporary ordinations). Many of them will not stay long-term in the robes, they might just be doing a short stint as part of family tradition or for other reasons. Some might have ordained simply 'in search of a livelihood' without any spiritual aspirations whatsoever. Remember that there is hardly any social security network in Thailand, so older men without family support often become monks (and are notoriously hard to train). Naturally, without proper training, which is hard to come by in most monasteries these days, they will carry their old habits and defilements with them into the monk's life and will simply try get away with them as much as they can. So all kinds of misconduct by monks is reported daily in Thai media.

However, in a case such as this one involving a well-known popular monk, it becomes obvious that the whole structure of the Thai Sangha is unable to cope with the challenges and that the administrative structure (which has hardly changed for the last 100 years) needs a major overhaul. These are big topics and they are being discussed by Thai academics, but there is little political will (yes, it is a question of politics) to bring about a radical change. In the past, it was the king such as Rama VI who could do so, but nowadays various other parties are involved as well and the Thai Sangha is divided into factions who might be trying to get more influence (such as Dhammakaya).

Many people, including the Police, knew that this man (let´s not call him a monk anymore) was having sex with a minor and making misuse of money, but nobody did ever do anything. Even when it started to be uncovered, some high-rank monks and important lay-followers were protecting him and threating the whistle-blowers.

We have to thank whistle-blowing and pressure through Social Media. Otherwise it would have never been uncovered.

Things continue this way... in 100 years or so, Buddhism's survival may depend much much more on the West.

Apparently this "monk" also has a wife and 7 other women and can walk on water. Wonder why he needed the jet?

See:
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php ... doEzW1sB0M

David N. Snyder wrote:Apparently this "monk" also has a wife and 7 other women and can walk on water. Wonder why he needed the jet?

See:
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php ... doEzW1sB0M

Not only 7 wives, but he knocked up some 14 year old girl and now they have an 11 year old son together. That shows you the length of his parajika.

One of his "wives" is demanding a DNA paternity test for her 11 years old son. She needs money for his education, but she never received any help from the father.

New issues are being discovered so fast that the authorities can not cope with it.
This thread is pointing links to the latest developments on the local press:
http://2bangkok.com/forum/showthread.ph ... ion/page11

I like this picture. What kind of monks would you give more respect?

suriyopama wrote:One of his "wives" is demanding a DNA paternity test for her 11 years old son. She needs money for his education, but she never received any help from the father.

New issues are being discovered so fast that the authorities can not cope with it.
This thread is pointing links to the latest developments on the local press:
http://2bangkok.com/forum/showthread.ph ... ion/page11

I like this picture. What kind of monks would you give more respect?

What does the text on the pictures says?

nekete wrote:
What does the text on the pictures says?

Something like "the same but different"

This picture is not related to this particular case (LP Nenkham) but it shows two different groups of 'tudong monks': on the right are the old-style wandering monks who will typically walk through the countryside without prior arrangements, on the left are the new-style and well-organized Dhammakaya sect monks walking through the streets of Bangkok on a pre-arranged 'show tudong'. The caption points to the fact that what they are walking on is different: in the case of Dhammakaya, laypeople have been instructed to spread a path of rose petals for the monks to walk on!