Unwise monkhood

re: "Myanmar jails doctor for insulting monks" (BP, Thursday, June 4)

Dear editor,

If the monks of Myanmar were good Buddhists following the teachings of the Buddha, they would protest vehemently the Myanmar court's outrageous prison sentence of the doctor. If the monks were morally committed, they would protest vehemently the Myanmar court's outrageous prison sentence of the doctor. The court has presumably acted according to the rule of law which it is their job to apply, which proves only that the law in Myanmar is morally flawed and rejects the wise insights of the Buddha, who opposed such repressive acts of violence against other sentient beings.

Meanwhile, is there any sound reason to think that the monks of the nationalistic state religion known as Myanmar Buddhism are any more respectable in their relations with children and other powerless blindly entrusted to their custody and control than are the monks of the religion known as Thai Buddhism or the priests and bishops of the Catholic and other sects of the Christian religion? Such groups of power-hungry men do not have a good moral record.

And why would anyone think a supposedly celibate group of males would have any useful insights into or understanding of how best to educate children about anything, least of all sex and sexual relations? The Buddha would not have presumed to any such arrogance, but would sensibly have sought right understanding by consulting others and constantly reviewing his own preconceived notions. The Buddha, unlike so many of the monks who dress up and make a show of being devotees of his wisdom, was in fact genuinely wise as he set us an excellent example to follow.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on June 6, 2020, under the title "Unwise monkhood" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1930272/drain-army-swamp