How do Buddhist monasteries deal with problematic monks?

hermitwin

I am keen to know any stories you read or heard about.
Personally, I know of an abbot accused of sexual affairs.
The trustees and the abbot is now embroiled in a court case.

DhammaDhatu

A Western monk in the Thai tradition ordained some bhikkhunis. He was expelled from that tradition.

Thailand's most famous monk at the time, Ajahn Yantra, was caught visiting prostitutes in Australia. He would not disrobe and fled to the USA. The Thai govt attempted to extradite him back to Thailand on criminal charges of impersonating a monk.

At least in Theravada, the Vinaya requires any kind of sexual intercourse to be treated with expulsion. Zero tolerance.

hermitwin

Thanks, look forward to more inputs
from everyone.

federica

This most certainly does not belong in Buddhism for beginners.
And I would caution those contributing particularly, against using gossip, hearsay and rumour as any basis, for any posting.
Slander is an easy slip on-line, and this thread already looks dangerously near the knuckle.
Please be sensible and remember right Speech.
This thread is not conducive to that.

DhammaDhatu

Ajahn Yantra - I knew this monk

http://nicholasbuxton.net/tantalus/extras/files/untold story.pdf

http://mahayantra.blogspot.com/2007/01/grants-political-asylum-to-phra-ajahn.html

zidangus

DD after reading your links thats a thats a wierd image I have got in my head now :hair:

Cinorjer

On a lighter note, thought you'd enjoy a bit of history from the Korean Zen temples. It's about the life of Master Seung Sahn, during his young monk days (he was known as Seon-sa then).

That spring and summer, Soen-sa did mostly working Zen. In the fall, he sat for a hundred-day meditation session at Su Dok Sa monastery, where he learned Zen language and Dharma-combat. By the winter, he began to feel that the monks weren't practicing hard enough, so he decided to give them some help. One night, as he was on guard-duty (there had been some burglaries), he took all the pots and pans out of the kitchen and arranged them in a circle in the front yard. The next night, he turned the Buddha on the main altar toward the wall and took the incense-burner, which was a national treasure, and hung it on a persimmon tree in the garden. By the second morning the whole monastery was in an uproar. Rumors were flying around about lunatic burglars, or gods coming from the mountain to warn the monks to practice harder.

The third night, Soen-sa went to the nuns' quarters, took seventy pairs of nuns' shoes and put them in front of Zen Master Dok Sahn's room, displayed as in a shoe store. But this time, a nun woke up to go to the outhouse and, missing her shoes, she woke up everyone in the nuns' quarters. Soen-sa was caught. The next day he was brought to trial. Since most of the monks voted to give him another chance (the nuns were unanimously against him), he wasn't expelled from the monastery. But he had to offer formal apologies to all the high monks.

vinlyn

I can't give you details, perhaps someone else here who has also lived in Thailand may be able to, but in Thailand there is the Supreme Sangha, but the government is officially involved in controlling temples and monks.

Dakini

It depends on the tradition as to how they deal with problematic monks, or even what constitutes a problem.

compassionate_warrior

www.tamilnewsnetwork.com/2011/03/19/jhu-buddhist-monk-accused-of-sexually-abusing-child-monks/

Some errant monks end up in their country's criminal justice system. In Thailand monks who go joy-riding for a weekend get defrocked.

I can't give you details, perhaps someone else here who has also lived in Thailand may be able to, but in Thailand there is the Supreme Sangha, but the government is officially involved in controlling temples and monks.