Tag: laity

Buddhapadipa Temple Wimbledon

UK: Visiting Buddhapadipa Temple on Kai-Lin’s 10th Birthday! (27.9.2026)

We travelled by car from Sutton to Wimbledon to visit what we know as the “Buddhapadia Temple” – a Thai Temple financed by the King of Thailand. This caters for the UK’s relatively small Thai population (and the Theravada School of Early Buddhism they follow) – and for other Asian and non-Asian populations that follow all types of different people. The Thais are fairly tolerant. Due to the lack of Buddhist Temples in the UK – Chinese people tend to visit this Thai Temple – as do we. Richard Hunn stayed in this temple studying meditation during the 1970s, and I think he returned their in the 1980s to make a documentary about the famous murals (I am not sure about the exact dates).

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Police escort Atichote Thammavaro, formerly Phra Vajirayan, out of Wat Phutthaisawan in Ayutthaya after he was defrocked on Thursday

Thailand: Head-Monk Expelled from Sangha for Breaking Vinaya-Discipline! (20.9.2026)

Buddhist Head-Monk in-charge of a wealthy temple under royal protection (he was filmed engaging in sexual activity with a 47-year old female lay practitioner – as well as embezzling billions of baht into a private bank account. Many Buddhist temples exist in impoverished locations – with the monastics being told that they must be sustained entirely upon “Dhamma”. Now, having said that, this is not to imply that the Dhamma is not upheld in temples sponsored by the King of Thailand. The temple in Wimbledon is a very good example of a well-run Buddhist institute. Monastics living in the remote jungle areas of Thailand often do not eat for days on end – with some sieving water for nourishing algae found in flowing rivers to stave-off starvation. Either the laity are non-existent – or are too poor to even provide scraps of food to monastics during their daily begging rounds. The Theravada tradition is very good and it is important for Buddhism that its practices are upheld properly.

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Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple. (File photo/China Daily)

China: Shaolin Head Monk – Shi Yongxin – Under Investigation for Alleged Criminal Offenses! (28.7.2025)

In Japan, a Buddhist monk or nun can get married, produce children, eat meat, and drink alcohol. In other words, these people are lay-people in robes – but are practicing dishonesty. A group of Chinese Ch’an monks had been following the Vinaya Discipline when they travelled to Japan to spread the Ch’an Dharma – but returned with Japanese wives and children – and wearing lay-clothing – eating meat and drinking alcohol. In front of Xu Yun – these “monks” petitioned the post-1949 government of China to permanently abolish the Ch’an requirement for monks and nuns to be celibate and vegetarian. Xu Yun is said to have loudly slapped the table – stating that the Chinese government should do the exact opposite – that is, integrate the Vinaya Discipline into the fabric of China’s secular law. If a man or woman wants to be an ordained Buddhist monk or nun, then it should be a legal requirement – punishable by secular law – if they fail to uphold the rules and regulations of the lifestyle they have chosen to follow. Being a Buddhist monastic is a “job” that requires a strict form of lifestyle.

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Heretics & Believers!

The Other “Richard Hunne” [d. 1514]! (14.4.2024)

The Secular Court case against the murderers of Hunne was continuously adjourned so that NO decision was ever reached (with the accused being quietly pardoned and released) – whilst Parliament’s order for the Church to return the Hunne land and property was never obeyed by the Church. Such a situation represented a totalitarian Canon’s Law controlled by a foreign power (which exempted all clerics from Secular Law) – locked in a deadly competition with the local power of an absolute monarchy – which would eventually end with the destruction of the Catholic Church in England just twenty-years later (through the Dissolution of the Monasteries) and the abolition of the resultant Church of England around one-hundred years after that (During the English Civil Wars)! Such was the dialectic times that Richard Hunne existed!

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Venerable Old Master Xu Yun [虚云]: No Difference Between a Monk and a Lay-Person! (14.10.2023)

For instance, by cross-referencing the below May 1955 Dharma-Talk with the text of ‘Empty Cloud’ for that year – a more all-round picture can be built of exactly what was happening and how Master Xu Yun was reacting to it. To be clear, Master Xu Yun was adamant that an ordained Buddhist monastic must follow ALL the rules of the Vinaya Discipline and that a lay-person must follow a least five, eight or ten of the basic vows contained in the Vinaya Discipline. This is a practical distinction Master Xu Yun upheld – as he rejected the Japanese Zen tradition of monks being allowed to eat meat, drink alcohol and get married. Such individuals are ‘lay-people’ and NOT monks. This being the case, what is Master Xu Yun referring to when he states that there is ‘no difference’ between the ordained Sangha and the laity?

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