"There is the case where a certain person, abandoning false speech, abstains from false speech. When he has been called to a town meeting, a group meeting, a gathering of his relatives, his guild, or of the royalty, if he is asked as a witness, 'Come & tell, good man, what you know': If he doesn't know, he says, 'I don't know.' If he does know, he says, 'I know.' If he hasn't seen, he says, 'I haven't seen.' If he has seen, he says, 'I have seen.' Thus he doesn't consciously tell a lie for his own sake, for the sake of another, or for the sake of any reward."

Those lines come from the Pali Canon, which lays down five crucial precepts for Buddhists to follow.

They date back to around the 5th century BC, and have since been translated and incorporated in Chinese Daoism. That particular line was in reference to the rules against false speech.

It's pretty clear. Be open, honest and transparent. I doubt many would argue with it.

Contrast this, for a moment, to recent comments by a Buddhist Association in Henan. The Abbot of the Shaolin Temple has come under fire over allegations he slept with prostitutes.

The local religious affairs bureau has announced they are investigating. So what did the Buddhist Association have to say?

Xinhua reported that the association "hopes the investigation will end soon" because it is related to the image of Buddhism.

This is a discouraging mind-set. With these allegations hanging over the "image of Buddhism," the correct stance is "we hope this investigation is thorough," in order to get to the bottom of the problem. How can the public have any faith in organizations when their paramount concern is not the substance of a claim, but how quickly they can have it swept under the rug?

Somewhat ironically, this "image-first" mind-set is doing extensive damage to the image of organizations and government departments across China. Real leadership involves admitting the possibility of mistakes from time to time, and demonstrating you can learn from them. It also involves transparency and communication.

Admittedly, leaders of various government departments are likely to be nervous about admitting any mistakes during the current, widespread anti-corruption campaign.

But in truth, bureaucratic Chinese organizations have long grappled with issues of transparency and admitting mistakes, so this is hardly a new phenomenon. Ruthlessly ambitious competition within organizations has often placed leaders in a position where they feel they cannot show any sign of weakness.

There are no easy solutions for this, but an easy first step would be for organizations to at least, in words if not deeds, embrace the idea of transparency and encourage investigations to be thorough.

The author is an Australia journalist based in Beijing.