Despite an innovative defense for breaking his vows, a controversy-prone abbot at a Phetchabun temple is being investigated by religious authorities.
Phra Kasem Arjinnasilo stunned his followers by declaring in a meeting streamed over the Internet on Friday he’d been making love to another man at the monastery. He stunned them again when he explained it was okay because it was done without “self-awareness.”
“I’m fully straight. I’m not gay in any way,” he explained to Daily News. “If I would have a partner, it would be a woman, a beautiful woman. When I had intercourse with that disciple, I did not feel sexually aroused at all. I don’t even know if I ejaculated because I wasn’t aware of what I was doing.”
Now the National Buddhism Office is investigating, as the making of sweet love is one of four offenses for which a monk can be defrocked. Theft, murder and claiming magical powers being the other three, according to the office’s Somchai Surachatree.
It’s not the first time Phra Kasem has shocked the devout. Two years ago he was fined THB20,000 for slapping a Buddha statue. It seemed at the time he was making a statement against idolatry by declaring the statue was not. in fact, The Buddha. Regardless of his theological intent, it went over with the public like an army airship over Pattani.
He was ordered out of the monkhood, an order he totally ignored.
Photo: Phra Kasem Arjinnasilo on Facebook
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