Royal Rumble, Buddhist Monk Style

The only thing missing from this bizarre happening in Bangkok Thailand was a WWE sanctioned cage match and Michael Buffer streaming, “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble.” Five Thai Buddhist monks have been defrocked and fined after a brawl with monks from a nearby temple.

The street fight was the culmination of years of antagonism between monks from the two temples who had often exchanged curses, insults and rude gestures as they collected alms on different sides of a road, the Manager newspaper said.

“When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So am I,” it quoted one of the defrocked monks, Boonlert Boonpan, as saying after the brawl in the northeastern state of Nong Khai Monday.

Exactly when did Buddhist monks become gang bangers? Some how I must have missed this in my Buddhist history teachings. Buddhism, a religion of violence? Some one must have been very absent during their Three Trainings or Practices classes.

“If senators can fight in parliament, why can’t monks?” he said.

So much for the Buddhist practice of Sila;

Virtue, good conduct, morality. This is based on two fundamental principles: The principle of equality: that all living entities are equal.
The principle of reciprocity: This is the “Golden Rule” in Christianity — to do onto others as you would wish them do onto you. It is found in all major religions.

Looks like maybe the first of The Five Precepts went out the window as well:

Do not kill. This is sometimes translated as “not harming” or an absence of violence.

Ooops.