Ivo B:
Good?! (Good as in making me mad?)
Good as in "I like it when unrealistic expectations are questioned".
... as in "Anger can fuel practice".
I call Ajaan Lee a dog! He said so himself. If he ever disrobes he can be called a dog. He disrobed. Got a little taste of pussy and than ran away like coward. That whole autobio is a display of machistic ego with his devoted followers. And as a bonus we get a cold unemotional half page story of father leaving his family behind. I will not even go into consequences of such an act.
Makes one seriously wonder if person like that can be a pillar of morality. Makes one seriously wonder about teachings. What if he used his religion as an escape from reality?
The pillar of morality thing is no longer interesting to me, since he died years ago. He's not leading by example (or by counterexample) any more.
I agree with Daniel that it is possible to learn from teachers who are not ideal in every aspect of their being. I learned a lot about meditation from random people on the internet whom I don't know very well at all, and who may have all kinds of personal faults.
I like the "religion as an escape from reality" question. I like how you are applying it to yourself, concluding:
Yes, this definitely reinforced my scepticism. I'm a little less of a believer right now.
Good!
So what are you going to do now? It's none of my business actually, but if it were along the lines of, "I'll get to the bottom of this myself, because relying on the comfortable knowledge that people like Ajahn Lee would do it for me clearly is not working", that would not be such a bad outcome at all.
Cheers,
Florian