The Tiger Apologizes

Tiger Woods has publicly apologized for his infidelity and it was a sincere and dignified performance. Fame and wealth, he said, led him away from Dhamma, into temptation and to feel that the rules did not apply to him - a situation I think most of us can understand and sympathise with. I also thought his account of Buddhism, while very brief, was a good one. He said, ‘Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don't realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint’. I hope Woods’ Buddhist mentor is familiar with these words of the Buddha and will show them to his wife, ‘By three things the wise person can be known. What three? He sees a failing as it is. When he sees it he tries to correct it. When another acknowledges a failure the wise person forgives it as should be done’ (A.I,103).
And one last thing. Woods certainly did the right thing in apologizing to his wife and friends, but I think it was not incumbent on him to also apologize to his ‘millions of fans’. Some surveys in the US shows that up to 50% of males and 38% of females admit to having committed adultery at least once. How many of the others surveyed didn’t admit to it? Did all these people really need an apology?