Meditation for December 31st
Buddhist Spotlight
A lot has been reported on the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse by priests, but what if I told you that the sexual abuse perpetrated by Buddhist Monks and teachers is much higher?
Why hasn’t it been reported on?
It has been so rampant in Bhutan, Cambodia, and Thailand that they have issued condoms so that the abused won’t catch STDs. They aren’t trying to stop the monks; they gave up and started just trying to protect the children from getting chlamydia and syphilis.
You know I have issues with the Dalai Lama, and the problems going on with reports of sexual abuse from exiled monks all over the world. There is even a kid whom the Dalai Lama asked to suck his tongue. They said the supreme leader of the Tibetan Buddhist faith was kidding around, but why in such a flirty way?
In Tibet, it has been common practice for many centuries to send very young children to the monasteries to live. They are brought to the temples before they’ve had a chance to have a sexual experience and not have a say about a life of celibacy.
There have been sex abuse cases in Buddhist temples in Europe in free-thinking places like the Netherlands, Austria, and even here in the United States.
And like the Catholic Church, American Buddhist temples are paying off victims to keep the scandal under wraps. They are moving the problematic monks around instead of following the law and taking responsibility for their traumatic actions.
But unlike the Catholic Church, the Buddhist sexual abuse scandal is being ignored entirely by the mainstream media.
Is it because the media is liberal and therefore afraid to shine a light on its own beloved religion?
Is it because the Catholic Church is Western, so therefore easier to understand, while Buddhism is Eastern and hence too confusing?
Is it because the majority of Catholic victims are American, while the majority of Buddhist victims are from third-world locals?
The point is that the prayer flags, the cross, and the Michael Jackson music all come from a place of others’ pain and suffering. Keep meditating, you horrible person.
Prayer
Chant: We will not abuse children
Chant: We will not use our position of power to dominate over others
Chant: No god wants their children harmed.
Ohm.
Craft
There have been a lot of tools and resources to help people not get raped. Not going to your car alone, don’t accept a drink from a stranger, dress modestly, and many other hints on protecting themselves from being attacked sexually. If statistics are accurate, most sexual aggression comes from people the victim knows. It’s also highly likely that it’s a man abusing a woman or children.
Here is a craft to help fewer people get raped and sexually abused: don’t do that. Don’t rape or sexually abuse people. There is absolutely no justification for doing this, so don’t.
Write this down, put it on a sticky note, and put it on your bathroom mirror next to your other daily affirmations.
Goal
There really isn’t a religion of lesser evil.