The holy ones with trust funds are easy targets to get angry with, I agree. It's easy to eschew a life of privilege and don a monks robe when you have a bank account with six figures in it.

@2, when I read stories like this, I always wonder if the person sacrificing is drawing an allowance from his wealth or his family. Or did he *truly* give up his riches

The text of the article says that he's been a monk for 30 years. That jibes with Wikipedia which says that he became a monk in 1985. However the caption of the picture says that he became a monk in 1972. He might have become a Buddhist in 1972, but he didn't become a monk until much later.

@ 2 and @3 Agreed. The film was vague on this point. He's the abbot of a monastery in India (the first Westerner appointed to such a post) and yet he spends most of his time in New York promoting Buddhism and ghostwriting the Dalai Lama's books. Fascinating guy, but this portrait felt evasive. @4 The caption is wrong, though Nicky was studying Buddhism long before he became a monk, so it was definitely not a spur-of-the-moment decision.