2 hours ago, neeray said:

Naked men in orange robes.

 

A criminal today, a monk tomorrow.

and still a criminal

2 hours ago, Jane Dough said:

What people fail to understand is that the merit is made by handing over the alms. 

 

The merit is not lessened by what subsequently happens to the alms.

 

Duh!

 

Rooster

  Merit is made by supporting monks and temples, yes.

     Good merit is also made if you pay for a poverty stricken family to get dental work, if you feed them a healthy meal, bring them clean drinking water, if you teach a child how to read, if you help a poverty stricken family to develop a way to improve their situation, if you give to a good, hardworking charity that helps the poor. 

   Those are good merit making actions worthy of a practitioner of the Dhamma-vinaya, and good merit making actions for all beings. 

Edited September 7, 20196 yr by Catoni
Addition

Funny thing is that they will probably take a penance of actually BECOMING a monk for a month

3 hours ago, owl sees all said:

This is why someone can go into a corner shop and buy 10 fags in a small plastic bag and they are all different, Where did they come from you might ask!?

 

Don't know about recycling cell phones though. I'll ask my bar-girl friend; if she is still around after 11 years.

probably too shagged to remember much

29 minutes ago, Centra said:

Re-gifting is when someone gives you some thing you don't really want/need so you give to someone else for a present. Then they post on face book wearing/using the item and then the person who gave it to you gets the <deleted>s with you.

I know what re-gifting means. My question was what does it mean in the context or it being done in the West within a religion. 

The last time I saw one of these guys was in June along Sukhumvit. I spoke to him in Thai, he looked totally confused. I asked him which wat he was from, he did not understand at all. I spoke to him in Mandarin, telling him to go away, he looked horrified and walked away rather quickly. These guys or the scam organisation that sends them were in my home country of New Zealand a year or so ago, and quickly chased out by locals.

 

It is just Criminal organisations from Mainland China exporting their skills. Immigration should be cracking down on people like this - good guys in, bad guys out. Operation Actively X-Ray foreigner.

I gave up temples, monks, alms long ago.. the whole set up now is just a front for money laundering on a massive scale... and they are above the law.

The real currency of religion is fear and the next life of burning in hell for eternity.this is shown in the alms they are given with the promise of living in paradise on a fluffy cloud by some ex convict or junkie.

to practice religion is to be a fool to believe in anything that is just superstition and mumbo jumbo.

without religion the world would be without most wars and death but that's going to take the human race a few 1,000 years to develope and actually say to themselves that it is all a load of <deleted> and what a waste of time,money and life that game was.

makes me laugh how all these religions clap on about peace and they are the ones who are the real problem.

i now await my fate of being abused from the religious members on the forum.maybe I need a nice peaceful stoning to death and sent to hell wherever that is.

Edited September 7, 20196 yr by happy chappie

If a person do not beleive in superstition then dont need another person in whatever getup to tell him what to do.

 

Root cause, weak beleifs

This is nothing special. What should they do with all this stuff? As far as I know they are not allowed to take money directly. 

5 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Buddhist authorities

 

The very notion of a "Buddhist authority" says it all. Buddha himself said to verify his teachings through personal experience and to take nothing on faith. And, when others' beliefs conflicted with our own, hard-won insights, he said to "walk lonely, like a rhinoceros." 

I was once told by a monk standing in a Bangkok Street that I had to give him money or I would be cursed, the more I gave him then the more merit came to me. I told him I had no cash but was going to the ATM, he followed me for 1 KM but when I stopped & spoke to police, he ran off, the police gave chase, caught him before he was taken away. I never saw him again in Bangkok. He was a well known scammer in the area & had been arrested several times. Obviously making more money than he was being fined.

6 hours ago, bristolgeoff said:

One time in cm I saw loads of food merit back of the pickup.i just wonder how much of that was sold back or used for the right reason.the Thais would not say anything anyway 

To the merit making Thais, once they had made merit, how the donated items were disposed is not their prerogative. Their merit making work were done. It is the senior monks’ duty to see that all donations were properly dealt with. If the monks did sell the merit items, what they do with the money also figure in their karma. They are just  recycling their merit making items for cash. The same procedure are used in the Thai temples whereby you buy flowers with cash and offer them to Buddha . After you are gone, they collect the flowers and recycle them to the next person. 

Edited September 7, 20196 yr by Ctkong

29 minutes ago, Bantex said:

I was once told by a monk standing in a Bangkok Street that I had to give him money or I would be cursed, the more I gave him then the more merit came to me. I told him I had no cash but was going to the ATM, he followed me for 1 KM but when I stopped & spoke to police, he ran off, the police gave chase, caught him before he was taken away. I never saw him again in Bangkok. He was a well known scammer in the area & had been arrested several times. Obviously making more money than he was being fined.

Buddhist monks are not supposed to touch or handle money but it seems not to be the case in Thailand. 

I dont gave one satang to munks or Temple, lazy corrupt <deleted> and have nothing to do with religion here. That the Thais are to dumb to see is the reason the still exist!

See the temple are getting bigger and bigger and more suai, the poor Thai gives their almes....

7 hours ago, owl sees all said:

A bar girl told me about this when I first came to Thailand; I didn't believe her then. Now I'm thinking she was right all along.

 

 

what? u dont believe what bar girls tell you? whats this world coming to?

2 hours ago, TheGhostWithin said:

The last time I saw one of these guys was in June along Sukhumvit. I spoke to him in Thai, he looked totally confused. I asked him which wat he was from, he did not understand at all. I spoke to him in Mandarin, telling him to go away, he looked horrified and walked away rather quickly. These guys or the scam organisation that sends them were in my home country of New Zealand a year or so ago, and quickly chased out by locals.

 

It is just Criminal organisations from Mainland China exporting their skills. Immigration should be cracking down on people like this - good guys in, bad guys out. Operation Actively X-Ray foreigner.

 

there are also fake monks from cambodia and perhaps other se asian countries

 

thailand could very well be the world leading scam center. no wonder even the nigerians want to come here

Edited September 7, 20196 yr by atyclb

SIMPLE ANSWER here is NOT to "donate" to any of them...they are all just scroungers...

Its been well known that several of these monks are bogus and on the police payroll around Asoke for several years. 

 

Add to these the ones that openly smoke, hop the wall at night for the odd drink or two and a bit of hows your father..

7 hours ago, Anythingleft? said:

Not sure I understand people that don't realise this happens, are they that naive?
They go and collect all the oil in front of you to rebottle it for the lamps

The whole deal is a money making machine.....

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk
 

Went to the big gold Buddha in Chachongsao. 

Talk about a cash making operation. 

Thousands of people, poor people who but 20 baht in each of the boxes.

Same with the food and gifts purchased. 

Collect and resell several times. 

The BIG shock was looking for a toilet out the back and one room had money counting machines and armed monks with glocks around the waist.

Even my partner commented on how many stations there were to take her  (my) 20 baht notes.

Unregulated and terrible extraction of money. 

All monks, priests, preachers, popes, cardinals, bishops, shamen, reverends, pastors and nuns are fake. 

These are just a little more fake than average. What did you expect? 

6 hours ago, Catoni said:

  Merit is made by supporting monks and temples, yes.

     Good merit is also made if you pay for a poverty stricken family to get dental work, if you feed them a healthy meal, bring them clean drinking water, if you teach a child how to read, if you help a poverty stricken family to develop a way to improve their situation, if you give to a good, hardworking charity that helps the poor. 

   Those are good merit making actions worthy of a practitioner of the Dhamma-vinaya, and good merit making actions for all beings. 

IMHO, this is what monks should be doing.  ????

Check their eyebrows. Thai monk's are one of the few, if only, sects that shave eyebrows. They also grow back unevenly and slowly. Any body can shave his head and go back to normal dress easily, but eyebrows are a different story and a give away.

9 hours ago, Jane Dough said:

What people fail to understand is that the merit is made by handing over the alms. 

 

The merit is not lessened by what subsequently happens to the alms.

 

Duh!

 

Rooster

Where is the true merit  derived achieved in persuading the gullible to subscribe to the support of  an organization that is in contradiction of the philosophical basis attributed  to the source of  origin?

As  with all mainstream religions and the prolific variants of the theological basis has historically  turned them into platforms  of protected  deception and corruption either outside law  or actual obligatory  law that invariably guarantees financial continuance and advantage.

The  "alms"  are an extraction from a community that in the majority are least placed  to afford whereas the remainder  of those  that   openly  and publically  display generous offerings  are those  same that also extract their  wealth  from the  same  core  base.

Over the  years I have  had conversations  with   "monks"  who  have  had  no theological "education"  and  yet are revered  by a  local  community  based on the  fact that they have dressed in  orange for many years having  recognized the "life style" over  time provides a relatively lucrative alternative to being a a social and community failure.

I have personally  witnessed robed  monks  self driving  expensive vehicles  pulling up  at an ATM  and extracting  multiple  times the  maximum the machine output in any one transaction.

I find more merit in informing the inter provincial money scroungers who come to our door soliciting  funds for a "temple" to and seek an explanation  for why I say no from a monkey in the nearest  jungle!

The construction of  the 5th temple in  our immediate  locality is at a standstill due to economic stagnation and  impending hardship! Do I feel any sympathy for the  long faced orange robed  or their  white gowned  female subservients who inhabit a "temporary side"  building complete  with  amenities  many only dream of?  Not  one  whit !

 

 

 

There is no issue with reselling if the monk believes the goods in question are already in plentiful supply at the temple and as long as the monetary proceeds go exclusively for the temple. If not, we'll different story. Monk explodes and goes to hell. Simples. 

Once you give a gift to amyone its not your business what they do with it. The gifts and alms are symbolic so its narural to turn them into cash. The traders are very poor and this tradition helps them. When I got a yak sant tatoo at Wat Bang Pra the donation was some joss sticks, a lotus and a packet of cigarettes plus 20 baht. I expect the joss sticks and flower were returned for resale. BTW The tatoo festival is pretty hardcore!

https://youtu.be/p9eWddtxwJQ

Once you give a gift to amyone its not your business what they do with it. The gifts and alms are symbolic so its narural to turn them into cash. The traders are very poor and this tradition helps them. When I got a yak sant tatoo at Wat Bang Pra the donation was some joss sticks, a lotus and a packet of cigarettes plus 20 baht. I expect the joss sticks and flower were returned for resale. BTW The tatoo festival is pretty hardcore!

https://youtu.be/p9eWddtxwJQ

Also when you light a candle (and pay for it) at the Erawan shrine you just have to wait 5 minutes to see the monks blow your candle out and take it away.....

 

Try that in the western world.......

Same if you visit a Temple and flowers or anything to donate.

they dont hide it.

it is a busy circle from you buying it and someone running it back to the vendor.

52 minutes ago, sunnyboy2018 said:

Once you give a gift to amyone its not your business what they do with it. The gifts and alms are symbolic so its narural to turn them into cash. The traders are very poor and this tradition helps them. When I got a yak sant tatoo at Wat Bang Pra the donation was some joss sticks, a lotus and a packet of cigarettes plus 20 baht. I expect the joss sticks and flower were returned for resale. BTW The tatoo festival is pretty hardcore!

https://youtu.be/p9eWddtxwJQ

   Never been to Wat Bang Pra. Might go see it some day.

    I got my Sak Yant tattoos from a monk my Thai friends knew some miles outside of Chiang Mai. I was the only westerner there. It was all Thai people. 

    He had several of those amazing looking masks hanging on a wall. I was told by my friends that the monk had been doing Sak Yant for Thais in the region for a bit more than twenty years, and had apprenticed under great masters. 

  He refused to tattoo me at first. But after questioning me through my Thai friends interpreting he seemed to feel much better about my beliefs and intentions, and respects for Thailand, the people, culture and of course Buddhism. Returning twice more to him, I ended up with nine amazing tattoos done using Khem Sak. 

    There was much ritual and prayers and blessings involved. And we took part in basic chanting after. 

    Donation? Price? Whatever I felt was fair...what I thought it might be worth to me. 

     Amazing.