American Buddhist Net

Namo Buddhaya,

I am one of the Buddhist devotees (Theravada) in Indonesia. I would like to provide some suggestions to Buddhist organizations and Theravada devotees from all over the world. I expressed some protest about a senior Theravada monk whom repeatedly broke the rules of Vinaya.

The mentioned Theravada monk has garnered a substantial amount of devotees and followers over the years. He is a much respected opinion leader to a lot of Theravada followers. He specialised in Dharma talk and often travels all over Indonesia to spread Buddhism.

However, the mentioned Theravada monk has betrayed his devotees’ trust and respect by constantly breaking the rules of Vinaya. For instance, he is currently residing in one of his female devotee’s house in East Java. Although, they are chaperoned constantly with the female devotees’ family members, the behaviour of the Theravada monk is still considered inappropriate. To make matter worse, the mentioned monk continually resides in the same roof as the female devotee even when her husband goes out of town. A monk normally resides in his sanctuary in the temple, in no circumstances should he stay in a devotees’ house, much less a female one. It defeats the purpose of building a temple.

Moreover, whenever the mentioned monk goes for an overseas trip for a sponsored holiday, both him and the particular female devotee frequently stay in the same room for long hours alone.

There are many other Vinaya that the mentioned monk had abused. For example, going on an undeserved sponsored trip overseas for holidays (Star Cruise Virgo, Japan DisneyLand, Universal Studio).

There are several witnesses willing to testify the truth of the above-mentioned content.

Not too long ago, some Theravada followers had lodged a complaint against the mentioned Theravada monk, however, there was no legal action taken to address the problem by the senior management of Sangha Theravada Indonesia.

In the past, whenever there are some Theravada monks who had proved to abuse the Vinaya laws in Indonesia, management of Sangha Theravada Indonesia’s reply would be, “ there is so few Indonesian monk anyway.” This answer had made me believe that Sangha Theravada Indonesia stressed the importance of quantity rather than quality.

For the sake of upholding the good name of the Buddhist religion, I hope that a solution will be implemented to address the issue at hand, so that there will be no repetition of the mistake.

Thank you for your time and I anticipate your further advice.

Regards,
Bambang Kilesa