HK star, Leslie Cheung jumped to his death. Robin Williams who played the delightful alien, Mork in the 1978 American sitcom Mork and Mindy hung himself with a belt. While the former's death had been attributed to depression, Robin's widow, Susan William said Robin's was due to Lewy body dementia, a debilitating brain disease; and not depression as some have been led to believe. Not only the rich and famous suffers depression, I suppose; normal people too; even lay people who frequent temples. A guy who often frequents and helps out in a local Buddhist temple for one, suffers the malady and has been staying in his own dark world for some time now. Surprisingly, no one from the temple comes to look him up to see how he's doing. I suppose that's one of the reasons why the Christian Church is sometimes a more pleasant place to go to. People there welcome new members and make the old members feel wanted; in short they care about the lay people. In Buddhist temples, much respect and attention is showered on monks; which of course isn't wrong; and while there are metta chanting and sharing of merits activities, members with personal worldly problems, as in this case, don't get the worldly support that they very well need.
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