What Would Buddha Do?

It sounds like some folks need to spend a little more time meditating:

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Five Thai Buddhist monks have been defrocked and fined after a brawl with monks from a nearby temple, police and newspapers said Tuesday.

The street fight was the culmination of years of antagonism between monks from the two temples who had often exchanged curses, insults and rude gestures as they collected alms on different sides of a road, the Manager newspaper said.

“When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So am I,” it quoted one of the defrocked monks, Boonlert Boonpan, as saying after the brawl in the northeastern state of Nong Khai Monday.

What’s the big deal? One finger is half a peace sign.