5/22/2008
The Peanut Monk
From the view of the practitioners, paying a monk peanuts is the most appropriate means of compensation. Peanut is also vegetarian. Having more peanuts is good for a monk.
From a professional and business point of view, a monk that can command $600k must be a super talent. To be able to raise that kind of fund to pay himself requires exceptional talent. An entrepreneur comes to my mind. Perhaps they can nominate him for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
For the prices he charged, or the temple charged to the consumers, it must be quality service and quality stuff. Value for money. The more you pay, the better you get. You want good stuff, you must pay for it.
Soon someone will write to the media to extol his greatness and that he is deserving of the pay he is getting.
Now what more justifications can I add in to support this kind of philosophy? The Hokien has a phrase for it, something like 'bird talk.'
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4 comments:
The sad thing is that for every highly paid monk in the news there are thousands of other monks and nuns living in frugality. It is a fact, but who needs to highlight the reality of their kind when it is a calling of their own choosing?
i disagree. the furgal monks and nuns are those who chose to be monks and nuns according to the buddhist teachings. those who went in to get rich are pretenders who are in for the money. they are NOT monks or nuns. Wearing the robes, reading the scriptures, shaving bald and pretending to be holy do not make them monks or nuns.
they need to be gotten rid off before they tainted the rest of the sincere followers of the religion. they are crooks. period.
this should apply to all religions.
Anyone in a robe chasing "make-belief" ideas are essentially frauds.
So if they are successful in getting "lay persons" to hand over their cash, so that these "lay persons" can feel good about themselves, where is the crime? Where is the fraud?
As long as you have enough of humanity living in abject fear of death, and thus believe, purely by FAITH on some kind of "release" or "salvation" in a next life, where one'standard of living (after dying) is determined by conduct in this life, you have a situation ripe for the plucking.
add to this the yearning, and belief that something or someone is "coming" to "save you". No proof necessary. all you have to do is believe. (WTF?!?)
The smart operators then ramp-up the fear of death by inducing people to believe that they are unworthy, unenlightened, incomplete, imperfect, ignorant, and guilty for simply being human. To combat the eternal suffering and pain one might experience in the next life, the smart operators sell "a code" -- based purely on faith, to the "lay persons". This code is full of ridiculous nonsense -- impossible to follow and results in many bad things, but one thing stands out: severe psychological damage to the practitioners.
Laughably stupid as all this religious vomit is, one should never stop ANYONE from surrendering their mind's ability to reason by logic, and embrace faith instead, where no thinking of any kind is EVER required. People should be free to act, even in self-destructive ways, becasue they are the sole owners of their own lives. After all:
One man's religion is another man's belly laugh - Robert A Heinlein
IMO the monk in this case who "earns" 600k is small-time. To increase his revenue, and be hailed as a "Hero" he ought to watch and learn from the US Masters Of Fraudulent Religious Fund Raising: people like Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn -- El Supremo Tele Evangelists.
The US is the home of mass entertasinment, and this monk could incorporate some "fancy tricks" -- "faith healing" is very popular with the audiences. In Singapore, shaking like an epileptic, frothing at the mouth and screaming out "winning" 4-D numbers is sure to be a big hit. I guarantee it, or your salvation is FREE, on me -- Pope Matilah, Church of Our Saviour The Gaping doG's Anus.
You can't cheat an honest man
May the grace of doG go with you.
Amen.
if this monk is helping his family to invest family funds, no problem. if he is helping the temple to invest temple funds, no problem, if the funds are used to benefit the believers.
but when he pays himself $600k, that is a big problem. and when the temple is so rich and the services are very costly, that is a problem.
temples are not profit making organisations. temples exist and depends on the donations and some services just to get by, not to hoard many years of reserves like some charity organisations.
what the monk did has tarnished the temple's reputation and the credibility of monks and the religion. that is very bad.
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