EDITORIAL: A Buddhist monks conduct invites review of Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka

The Buddhist monks are no longer the religious social animals. They have become the trouble making perverts. From hierarchy to the monk soldiers the whole Buddhist setup in the island is corrupt and are spoils.

EDITORIAL

[July 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian] According to emerging news, a powerful politically motivated Buddhist monk is said to be heavily campaigning to destroy a papaya farm of a poor farmer in Nagollagama, Kurunagala.

Police have been influenced by the said monk to arrest the farmer who had been illegally held in captivity in a police station whilst the said monk accomplished his rage against the farm and the farmer. According to news the raging monk had gone on the havoc and destroyed thousands of papaya trees in the farm of the villager, whilst the farmer was held in captivity. What made this monk to go on the rage is unclear.

The poor farmer has lost his livelihood and the collaboration of the police in executing the monks rage has not touched the law enforcement agencies of the land or the conscience of the nation’s politicians or the Buddhist hierarchy.

With the extremely difficult market conditions for the paddy farmers, some of them have committed suicides in the recent years and their sufferings are submerged in the war victory hypes of the political, Buddhist religious and the military establishments of the nation.

With the progressively muddling socio-political-economic culture of Sri Lanka, the so-called pious Buddhist religion in the island is not playing its due role to help the people. Instead, it too has become a part of the problem and failures and the contributors to the progressing moral, political, ethical, cultural and religious decay in the country.

In our previous writings, we plainly said Sri Lanka never practiced real Buddhism, instead only skilled in a type of Buddhism that is replica of Brahmanism of India.

Our Buddhist monks are not true Buddhists and do not practice what Lord Buddha preached. A true Buddhist monk will value the Chiratha Bikkawa Charikan bahujana hithaya sukayaâ at any cost. But this does not happen in Sri Lanka. They behave like the Hindu Brahmins wearing yellow the shawls and pretend to help the poor people.

The Buddhist monks have given a violent image for the Buddhist religion in Sri Lanka by not following the utmost principles of the religion to be tolerant, practicing ahimsa (non-violence) and be truthful in their conduct.

Theravada Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka and exported to Thailand is followed in a menacing way, unlike the passive Mahayana route practiced in Tibet and Myanmar. Highly politicized inwardly practices of the monks in Sri Lanka are not helpful to address the real needs of the people.

The senior monks of the Buddhist chapters have not disowned materialist lifestyle and are reflecting their possessive outlook by living a luxury lifestyle like driving around in Mercedes Benzes and using the latest mobile phones. Their writ on the government on political issues is a worrying phenomenon that is further rotting the real democratic political development is Sri Lanka.

One has to visit the state universities see the duplicity of the saffron robed undergrads making love in the university compounds. The police force that rounded up the love making boys and girls in the Colombo sea-sides and the parks will not dare to arrest these perverted baby monks in the campuses. This is one of the privileges the monks enjoy as the laws and religious dictums are beyond the reach for them.

Without open and pubic criticisms and scrutiny, we cannot expect real reforms in the Buddhist institutions in Sri Lanka. If the unruly and unholy Buddhism continues this way, we cannot expect any positive progress of the society any more. Politicization of the Buddhist institutions has produced, self centric and extremist leaders like Mahinda Rajapakse to rule the country. Unfortunately, it can be said, majority of the monks are common enemies of the people and they do nothing meaningful than to create more problems for them and the nation.

In his series of interviews published in the Sri Lanka Guardian, Basil Fernando has rightly pointed out the facts and figures of caste origins of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka and the development of Sri Lankan authoritarianism. He had gone to explain how we have lost our rights to the President of the country, all because of our wrong values and believes that we inherited from the ancient India under the name of Buddhism.

Has Sri Lanka ever conducted any serious discussion on how Buddhism disappeared in India? Buddha is portrayed as an avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism. Does it matters to our aggressive Buddhist monks to discuss even about this distort?

Unfortunately, instead of understanding the real Buddhism, the present day monks are engaging in politics, thus acting against the spiritual interests of the nations people. This is what the monk in Nagollagama did against the innocent farmer. An unwanted act indeed!

Sri Lankan Buddhist monks are destroying the social order of the country and are acting like the menacing politicians. The Sri Lanka Guardian reported with the video presentation about the young boy being sexually abused by a Buddhist monk in Habaraduwa temple in Galle.

Most villagers took that monk to a side and they acted against the interest of the boys' poor family. The poor boy in fact became a victim, when he went to study at the temple as they could not go to a private tuition due to reasons beyond their control. What went wrong really was when the young boys family was put under enormous pressure and continuously attacked by the villagers.

Do the main two Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters of the Buddhist religion in Sri Lanka do anything to discipline the unethical monk? They did nothing but have contributed and are contributing further towards the failures and are penalizing the victims family.

The Buddhist monks are no longer the religious social animals. They have become the trouble making perverts. From hierarchy to the monk soldiers the whole Buddhist setup in the island is corrupt and are spoils.

When the monks change and conduct themselves the nation change and if they do not change the nation will decay. We hope decay will not reach the irredeemable state.