Salon.com > Monk

The barefoot art of war

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:06:00 +0000

Thousands of Buddhist monks are leading massive protests through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. They carry no weapons and wear only their brick-red and saffron-colored robes, but their most powerful weapon is the reverence in which they are held throughout the country.

Their heads are shaven and they march barefoot and silent. The city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon) seems to be dominated by the Buddhist monks these days. They have been marching repeatedly through the streets for a week -- and their marches are getting bigger by the day.

The population has begun openly showing its support too. Tens of thousands of people have reportedly joined the march of the monks. Other spectators form human chains or simply applaud. Brave-hearted monks are holding passionate speeches by Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. They speak of the suffering and the desperate poverty of Myanmar's 50 million inhabitants -- and call for the overthrow of the junta that seized power in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) in 1962. The regime's policies have effectively laid waste to what was once Southeast Asia's richest country.

Watching the defective

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 20:00:00 +0000

When TV detectives feel stressed, as they so often do these days, they reach for the usual palliatives: a cigarette, a bottle, a perpetrator's face. We're given to understand that it's a profession that requires some serious discharge of steam, but that while the job may eventually get in the way of the habits, the habits rarely get in the way of the job.

On ABC's late, great "The Job," Denis Leary's McNeil had a pain-pill habit to go with his chain-smoking and binge-drinking. On "The Shield," Michael Chiklis' cop-killing cop Mackey likes to relax with his clenched fists. On "NYPD Blue," Dennis Franz (still) plays the rage-o-holic Sipowicz, erstwhile alky and patron of hookers. What we hardly ever see is an overtaxed detective reacting to vocational stress by developing a morbid fear of milk, which is just what happens to the title character of "Monk," a new USA Networks series premiering Friday.

Buddhist abbot is disrobed

Mon, 06 Nov 2000 20:30:00 +0000

One expects a Buddhist monk's life to be simple, following a spiritual path of celibacy, abstinence and voluntary poverty.

It was, instead, very complex for one member of the Suphan Buri temple in Thailand, who was arrested last week for living out his hooker-filled fantasy as a Mercedes-driving colonel in the military's special forces.

After an undercover TV crew videotaped the senior monk, an abbot, entertaining two women at a suburban house, police arrested him and discovered that the 43-year-old abbot, Phra Khru Thammathornwanchai Thawaro, was actually living a very unmonklike existence. Inside the house, officials found porn videos and books, condoms, lingerie, whiskey and the uniform of an army colonel, complete with a red beret, combat fatigues and a toupee. The uniform bore the insignia of the Special Warfare Command and the Army Signals Department.

According to the Bangkok Post, the abbot explained to police that he wore the uniform only when he drove the Mercedes in place of his "absent chauffeur." Yet when police questioned neighbors, they said they never saw anyone at the house who could have been the chauffeur but that they did remember the colonel driving his Mercedes around the neighborhood.

Two women and a monk

Fri, 14 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Kelly and I perched uncomfortably on the monk's bed, beneath a calendar depicting a deep-blue swimming pool fringed with palm trees. The monk had been absent for quite some time. Through the flimsy curtains, which were drawn across a small window at the head of the bed, we could make out the faces of young monks staring in at us. Finally the monk reappeared. "You like rice?" he asked. We said yes.

Kumbum Monastery lies curled up in the hills outside Xining, on the border of the Tibetan plateau in central China. Kelly and I had peeled ourselves out of a minibus that morning, trying to look inconspicuous as we poked about the monastery grounds.

Kumbum is practically a self-contained city, with temples, halls and living quarters spread out over 400,000 square meters of hilltop. The population consists of half magenta-robed, bare-headed monks and half khaki-covered, broad-brimmed-hat-wearing tourists. Most of the monastery's visitors are Chinese, so the monks, like most Xining residents, were amazed at the sight of foreigners. As we wandered through the monastery grounds, shorn heads periodically poked out of random windows, like monkish Jack-in-the-boxes, calling out "Hello!" or, if they wanted to show off a bit, "Good afternoon!"

Monkish secrets

Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

I went to the monastery to find out how, not why. I already knew that the monk's vow of chastity was the brainchild of the same body-hating dualists who brought you the virgin birth. I wanted to hear about the methods and tricks: hair shirts and self-flagellation and monk-to-monk pep talks. Brother John spoke openly with me about his celibacy, but the closest he came to a purity tip was the revelation that the monks generally wear underwear and long pants under their brown robes. What he did reveal is that his "how" can't be extricated from his "why." His why is his how.

Brother John has internalized the church's teaching about sex so completely that his lust ebbed to almost nothing over the years. He's like a vegetarian who gets sick if he eats meat. He says he last masturbated when he was 14, and he has never had sex with another person. I believe him. A greater challenge than conquering lust, he says, is to provide humane counseling, part of the order's mission, to people whose problems include the carnal. At 38, Brother John is the youngest of the 30 or so brothers living there, and he sees all kinds of couples, including some gay men and at least one pair of S/M practitioners. (Brother John is not his real name, and he asked that the order and monastery not be identified either.)

Rasputina

Wed, 19 Aug 1998 19:00:00 +0000

"What becomes a legend most?" Melora Creager muses in "The Olde HeadBoard," the booty-shaking baroque 'n' roll track that opens Rasputina's sophomore album. If the Brooklyn "ladies' cello society" is to achieve iconic status, it's doing the most becoming thing already, draining the same vein it opened in 1996 with "Thanks for the Ether." Comprising three cellists decked out in Victorian corsets and lace and their pet drummer, Rasputina concocts such rich, nuanced chamber rock that it's a wonder boys ever bothered with that guitar nonsense at all.

Creager and cello-mates Julia Kent and Agniezska Rybska, abetted by skin-pounder/programmer Chris Vrenna, construct lush harmonies and intricate interweavings of sawed and moaning strings, veering from the pounding power chords and sampled stadium roar of "Leech Wife" to a narcotic string-plunking cover of the Lesley Gore hit "You Don't Own Me." Creager's girlish vibrato wafts trippingly over an elegant ballroom melody of the delicate "Rose K." As did the band's first CD, "Forest" includes a few surrealistic spoken-word numbers. In a childlike voice, Creager details grotesque exorcism treatments over mannered, courtly strings on "Christian Soldiers" and rambles distorted over jerky cello moans and programmed machine noises on "Dwarf Star." "Diamond Mind" is a Fran Drescher-voiced torrent of avarice.