Actually, it’s in part to those old discussions, and the constant confusion at E-sangha’s discussions boards that prompted me to write this. Trouble was, until recently, I didn’t have much information myself, so I figured I might as well invest in a little research. The decline of the monastic communities in the last-Heian is part the impetus for the newer sects, and it was a very tumultous time indeed. Kukai would not have written much on the subject as he lived centuries before, when things were still pretty orderly and centralized. If you read the dialogues between Saicho and Tokuitsu, a respected scholar of the Hosso ect, they traded nasty words with each other though, so even then the rifts were beginning.

As for the conduct of monks, I remember Honen once saying one should still make offerings to crooked priests. I thought that was a profound thing because it acknowledges everyone is human, but at the same time I greatly appreciate those brave few who can and do keep the precepts as they give something for the rest of us to aspire to. Again, I like to think of it like a bell-curve.

Ven. Yin-Shun, the late Chinese Chan master, had stated rhetorically in his book that who hasn’t violated the precepts, but he strongly added the proviso that it’s better in the long-run to openly reflect and confess on your faults to others, than to try and pretend they never happened. I happen to agree, so I can respect a man more who openly acknowledges his shortcomings and lives with them than one who tries to reinterpret the Dharma to make his lifestyle seem more agreeable.