Monks and Lamas

Monk and Lama

In the last blog, I made some mistake and got questioned from a friend in Buddhism country: Why don’t we respect the monk? Even someone is not Buddhist, in Thailand, he still respect monks!

Let me clarify something first, in Taiwan, the Lama and Monk is different. Normally, the Monk is who live in Buddhist temple; they are vegetarian, complete bald, keep single and almost not coming out of the temple. They earn more respect in Taiwan.

And Lama, in our recognition, they are from Tibetan Buddhism, in the early days, you almost can’t find monks in the streets. Of course, more and more right now. They wear red and yellow gowns, they are bald, but there is always short hair on their heads… People even don’t know if they are vegetarian? Not drinking? Insist commandments and no marriage? I think due to this kind of miss understanding, people keep away from Lamas. That’s why I said, the Monks earn more respect than Lamas, people here know much more about Buddhism and Monks than Tibetan Buddhism and Lamas. In my colleague’s story, he met Lama.

there is one more difference, Monks, they concentrate only on Buddhist and ignore all the other things. Ask them to watch TV? That's impossible.

In this story, I learn one thing, the culture conflict. Like in India, they respect cows as Buddha, but in the other countries, the cows are just beef and milk.

I don’t know if this explanation is enough for Miss Bhutan? Does she forgive me?