|
|
|
|
Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
SEPTEMBER 17, 1999 VOL. 25 NO. 37
'I Will Never Be Disrobed'
A Thai abbot answers charges against him
 Abbot Dhammachayo Yvan Cohen for Asiaweek |
|
People criticize the temple for raising so much money.
The one who donates never criticizes, the one that never donates criticizes (laughs). All these things you see in this temple, the big facilities, food, accommodation, parking area, transportation, that is only to facilitate the main purpose--to make people better persons.
ALSO IN ASIAWEEK
| |
|
We feel that Buddhist matters should be handled by monks. [On temporal issues], they should be [handled] outside the monastic community. But what's happening now is that the media are behaving like the accuser and the judge. They have already made their judgment.
As an abbot, can you own land? Don't you need to transfer the pieces of property in your name to the temple?
A monk having land, it is not against the law at all. The criminal charge is that I have been taking [advantage] of people who want to give land to the temple, not to me. But I don't know about these things because all these have been handled by my deputy. When the hard facts are discovered by the people, the truth will be there. I don't worry at all.
Did the Supreme Patriarch, who heads the Sangha Council that governs Thai monks, order you to be disrobed?
I don't understand that. The letter written by the Supreme Patriarch never reached me. It was mentioned only in the newspapers. The judgment by the Sangha Council has already been made. They gave four recommendations [to return the temple to the traditional path], and I have already signed. But the media are very unhappy. This is why they insist the Sangha Council is out of date and old-fashioned.
Are you forming a cult?
We teach you to be a better person, how to meditate and how to conduct your life as a human being. The teaching of Buddhism, that is what we teach here. When you [listen to] the teachings, there is nothing to suggest it is a cult. People find happiness and they just go out and tell other people. Maybe we are lacking good public relations, that is all.
If you are disrobed, will the temple continue on its present path?
To disrobe me is impossible. It will never, never happen. But if I die, the system here has already been put in place. If I pass away, the temple can carry on with its mission. Nobody worries about that. Tell the people not to worry about me.
 |
