Have a little faith, the scandal monk says

He and his new bride, Suttirat “Ann” Muttamara, appeared on “At Ten” on Channel 3 on Tuesday and have taped an interview for “Woody Talk” on Modernine to be aired on Sunday.

By coincidence or serendipity, or something else, Shibahashi has just published two books in Thai – “Kwam Nai Jai Ajarn Mitsuo” (“Message from the Heart of Ajarn Mitsuo”), about his sudden change of status, and “Bot Tes Wan Sud Tai Na Phet Banpachit” (“Last Prayer as a Commoner”).
The 61-year-old Japanese man – well known in Thailand as Phra Mitsuo Gavesako when he wore the saffron robes – sent a shockwave across the nation three months ago when he returned to the layman’s life after 38 years in service to the dharma – and got married in Japan. Isn’t that, like, a sin or something, maybe multiple sins?
Well, it’s certainly a rarity for a senior monk to jump ship, and so abruptly, so there’s been much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the social media. A lot of the disdain expressed is directed at Ann, and she’s now acknowledged on TV that people seem to think she maliciously “lured” the monk back into the secular world. “People have said I must have drugged him – but that’s just far too imaginative,” she says, and Shibahashi insists he made his own decision fully aware of the implications and consequences.
They’d met four months before he made that judgement. “She’s the first woman in my life,” he says on “Woody Talk”, which we previewed. Ann’s reaction when he told her he planned to leave the monkhood was indeed, “Wouldn’t it be a sin?” “It’s my mind – it’s not you,” he told her, proposing that they promote Buddhism together, as a couple. He knows it will take time for him to be accepted as a lay teacher, but has already started giving lectures again.
He felt stealth and speed were essential for someone as senior and respected as he was to shed the robes, and Ann looked far and wide for another senior monk capable of performing the ritual to absolve him of his holy duties. An elder monk at Bangkok’s Wat Chanasongkram agreed to do it, and the couple swiftly left for Japan.
“He told me his departure from the monkhood had to be done in moranusisatti, which is like someone dying,” Ann says on TV. “He had to do it that way – dying in the minds of his followers and being reborn as a new person, a karawas.”
Why do monks fall in love, and are they fools for doing so? Shibahashi says it was almost love at first sight, but Ann impressed him most as a good Buddhist. “She really worked hard at practising and always arrived at the temple at 3am – even before the temple staff.”
Well, someone on a social network said, “I don’t like the way they kiss each other on the cheek on TV. They should just fade away.” Others counter that at least he left the monkhood in a way intended to minimise the blowback for Buddhism.
The obvious lesson in all this is non-attachment. Just as Shibahashi feels he can carry on spreading the dharma now that he’s detached from his saffron robes, the faithful can detach themselves from him.