ven. Min Yi saga

Time to do a little comment on ven. Min Yi on my little private corner. In this saga, basically I found 2 distinct group of people judging him and the happenings.

1st group : Can not stand the sight of him. Being a monk yet go into business and rear horses, buy big house and resort to lying.
2nd group : Its this monk's fault. Not the temple, ren ci hospital or Buddhism.

Interesting feedbacks and at least this shows that people is reading the news :) and concern about Buddhism :) Double happiness !!

The 1st group I feel falls into the trap of prejudice and assumptions. They are often led mindlessly by the news. Their attitude towards the incident is never constant. They just waver with the news. I find that the majority and the common view, comprises of Buddhist and non-buddhist. Weakness is we can never know what actually happens and who's fault. I believe even ven Min Yi might not know exactly what happened.

The 2nd group falls into the trap of attachment to notion of Buddhism and judging with some sense of selfishness. Their attitude is very constant but its not towards the real truth of the incident but rather jumps in to "save" Buddhism or things they believe in. At the surface might be the doing of pious Buddhist. Nothing wrong with piousness but Buddha teaches us about non attachment even to his teachings, needless to say any other physical things that subjects to constant changes. They also run the risk of slandering a monastic.

Now my thoughts. Instead of pointing fingers and jumping to "save" Buddhism, why not let this chance to understand yourself. Observe our mind and be aware of all the thoughts that arises. Be it good or bad. Then contemplate on the arising of the thoughts and why is there even arising. Cultivation is something personal and instead of busying on commenting on other people's deed and cultivation I guess we have to see ourselves. Be it right or wrong, ven. Min Yi has his own Karma to bear. Then why let other people's action affect us or even create the chance for generating negative thoughts and Karma.

I believe we are too use to judging things. Early in the morning, our judging mind starts his day work. We judge our looks, our breakfast and when we are walking around, although we never criticize out loud, we still judge. When there is judging, there arise attachments to our thoughts. I suppose we have enough of that judging activities. Common goal of a Buddhist is to be enlightened but not well informed of the mundane news :)