[Buddha-l] Ordination and Vinaya

[Curt Steinmetz]

"Sorry, Buddha,
here's another precept
I can't keep."

Master Ikkyu (1394-1481)

schnipp schnupp wrote:
> Dear Readers from abroad,
>  
> we have a sex scandal in Germany, and a so called "zen master" is involved who is supposed to live by the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya. As stated on his website, his ordained sangha is not allowed to have any sex, but during my research about him a former attendant of now 20 years openly blamed the abbot in a web forum of having had some kind of sex with him and another monk. Because this abbot (Thich Thien Son) and his pagoda is one of three partners for the Dalai Lama event in Frankfurt this month, this became a topic. 
>  
> It turned out that we have the "DBO", i.e. a German group of ordained people. Strangely enough, the same abbot had found it and was their chairman. Nevertheless, we sent the topic there and hoped that they find a quick solution. That was five weeks ago. Not much happened. The first problem was that ordained women were not allowed to "judge" (according to the Vinaya) what was done by a man. The second was that only a few men were ordained in the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya (as most zen teachers here are not). 
>  
> Well, it all seems to become a farce. Experts from the Theravada tradition (to which the young, abused monk went - he stayed in a retreat in Sri Lanka for a while) were summoned but couldn't speak for the other monastic code. The problem became even more ridiculous when we found out that probably this abbot Thich Thien Son was never more than a bikkhu - up till now he has not proven otherwise, has shown no dharma transmission or other. After his bhikku state he disappeared to Taiwan for about 8 years.
>  
> Now, why do I say this here? It seems to me that most ordained people are not able to really follow all of the Vinaya rules. Therefore - and esp. when it comes to sex (even masturbation is not allowed and has to be confessed in front of the sangha on a full moon's or new moon's day) - ordained people tend to not deal with those problems openly - because they could be "next". 
>  
> I want to ask you if you have a gremium for the ordained in the US and can provide me with an address. According to the Vinaya it is not restricted to countries when problems like that occur. We found out that another obviously fake Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, co-founded a limited company here with 10.000 Euro which violates one of the Patimokkha rules. We wanted to bring it to the attention of the DBO. They refused to deal with it. I really want to check if they would do the same in the US where Thich Nhat Hanh seems to be as popular as here.
>  
> That's it. The Vinaya is dead in the west. It is just something that teachers play with to abuse their power.
>  
> Guido Keller
>
>
>       
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