Word: sanitsuda
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...money begging, but it's wrong," she says. According to Thongdee, a bogus monk can net as much as $2,250 a month. Most fake monks come from villages like this in Chaiyaphum province in the poor northeast, and "poverty is what drives them to do it," says Sanitsuda Ekachai, a religion writer for the Bangkok Post. Some villages knowingly use bogus monks for ceremonies, she says, because, as many real monks gravitate to larger temples in big cities, there is a shortage of genuine holy men. Fake monks do the same, says Sawoey, with gangs of them descending...
...there is often little the monk police can do. "They are well-intentioned," he says, "but some of the worst wrongdoers are more powerful than they are." Indeed, reformist monks are severely hampered by an insular, feudal clerical structure. "There's a lot of politics in the temple," says Sanitsuda...
...While wayward monks have shaken the faith of many, Sanitsuda draws consolation from several encouraging trends. Modern, socially engaged monks, such as noted author and Sangha member Phra Paisan Visalo, serve as role models for some, working with civic groups to try and steer Thailand's often greed-driven development onto a more just, equitable and environmentally friendly path. Among the middle class, there has been a remarkable rise in the popularity of meditation retreats. And Professor Sunthorn Narangsri of Chulalongkorn University's Buddhist Studies Center says the monk police have also proved surprisingly effective...
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