Question: How is it that there are some ‘Buddhist monastics’, who are supposed to be good at practising Metta (loving-kindness), who have instead become extreme racists against minorities in their countries?
Answer: This is because they are probably not genuine ‘Buddhist monastics’ with right motivation and practice in the first place. Any so-called ‘monastics’ who incite mass-hatred that can lead to senseless discrimination and much violence are clearly no longer proper monastics, as such actions veer away from the Buddha’s central teachings of universal compassion for all beings, much more one’s neighbours.
Being extremists who are off-track, they are no longer aligned to or advancing on the peaceful Middle Path. Obviously, they did not practise the Dharma on the whole well, much less in terms of cultivating Metta. Such so-called ‘monastics’ no longer deserve the robes if they continue to misrepresent the monastic community, as they mar the image of Buddhism and how Buddhists should be. What more, monastics are supposed to be ‘model Buddhists’. They ought to be disrobed by the larger monastic community if they are unwilling to repent for their ill ways.
