Well, yes, anyone who has spent any time with Monastics (or just walked through a city like Bangkok) would know that there is a wide variation in how seriously they take the Vinaya/Path.ignobleone wrote: When I tried to help some monks (in a Thai Buddhist temple) to clean-up their laptops (yes, these days monks are inseparable from computers) from virus, I saw uTorrent was running on the background with at least ten action movie torrents in the queue. I didn't say anything about it, only talked to myself that it was a serious Vinaya violation. No wonder the laptops are often infected by virus. I wonder whether they have time to meditate everyday.
But that doesn't mean there are not some extremely dedicated bhikkhus in city or western monasteries or that one cannot get some extremely useful instruction in the West.
That's really a different issue from the finding a helpful teacher. If you keep thinking that the good teachers are only to be found in some shangri-la place, then, of course, you won't find any close by...ignobleone wrote: There are too many distractions these days. I think living in jungle is the best way to avoid modern distractions. My opinion is based on that reason.
Mike