Daily Lessons from Life 18 September 2010 - Cambodia jails monk for filming naked women

"Cambodia jails monk for filming naked women - Sat, Sep 18, 2010 AFP

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA - A Cambodian Buddhist monk has been jailed after secretly filming hundreds of women as they bathed naked with holy water at a temple, a judge said Saturday.

Net Khai, 37, was sentenced to one year in prison for producing and distributing pornography after allegations emerged that he taped more than 600 women pouring sacred water over themselves in a pagoda bathroom.

Judge Kim Dany said the former monk was handed the prison term on Friday, over charges relating to a 23-year-old victim who approached police and said that people had been sharing video clips of the women on their mobile phones."

Is there no end to 'religious folks' doing irreligious things these days? The long established and infamous child abuses by some of the Catholic clergies are well documented and publicized. The every now and then stories about some Taoist priests or Islamic Imams or what not falling preys to the temptation of more unethical conducts way short of the expectation of the divine. And now the Buddhist monk getting into the act too.

It left us pondering: is there really no end to human being falling to the temptation of the irreligious acts by 'religious' people?

Lessons for me are:

1. it will always be a struggle to be good and do the right thing along the path of growth and life. There will always be temptation. There will always be people who want to to good religious people. Yet, there will always be some who will fall short as the standard is very very high! If you say you are a religious people, you simply have to live it. That's why some religious teaching says that: the path will become more challenging once you declared you are a believer of any faith!;

2. technologies have made it much easier to share information - good or bad or the grey!! Monks and priests and rabbi or imam or whoever can learn how to use technologies to spread the good words or spread the not so nice things. Whatever religion it may be, it is always true that if you don't want others to find out you have done wrong, you better not do it! If you do, you can fool somebody sometimes but you cannot fool everybody all the time. You will be found out! Period!!;

3. This monk will NOT be the last self-proclaimed religious person that fall short. There will be others. We can only ask each believer to try their level best to personify the faith they belonged to. More will be successful and that's what it is all about. When the wicked tried to hide behind the mask or protective shield of religion, they should not be given too much mercy when they are found out. The small number of wrongdoers can do a lot of damage to the faith other people have in the religion.

May we continue with the struggle to do good always. And may we extract ourselves from troubles whenever the 1st sign of weakness crept in! Amen!!