Yesterday was a strange day for many reasons but perhaps the event that most knocked me off balance and which struck me the most was a chance encounter while waling down Park Ave with my son. We had just come back from a walk and a breakfast sandwich at Madison Square Park on 23rd St and were walking down towards Union Square and the East Village where we live when I saw what initially appeared to be a Buddhist monk speaking with a doorman or bouncer at a club (he wasn’t dressed in a doorman’s typical uniform but it strikes me as strange that a bouncer would be working the door of a club on Park Avenue at 11:00am.
Whatever the case may be, I immediately recognized the erstwhile bhikkhu as an impostor. You see, there are some unscrupulous folks out there who dress up as monks and go around (usually midtown) asking for “donations.” As we were walking by I saw the doorman pulling out a crisp, folded twenty and handing it over to the monk as the monk wrote his name in a little notebook. Anger and resentment welled up and, before I knew I blurted out to the donor that “Real monks can’t accept money.”
The man, shocked, asked me “So this guy’s not a monk?” and I swiftly confirmed it for him once again. The fake monk just stood there frozen and my son and I kept walking. So, was I wrong? Should I have done more? Less? Frankly, I’m not too sure but it seems to me that the bhikkhu/ni Sangha fgetts enough of a bad rep without the help of these impostors.
Cattāri Brahmavihārā 