Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

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GraemeR
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Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by GraemeR »

IMHO Thai society, especially urban society has changed massively over the past 30 years. People have become more affluent and have obtained chattels and technology that wasn't dreamed about by their parents.

People are also exposed to often the worst aspects of Western culture through cinema (movies) TV and the all too seedy tourists who can arrive in some areas here. They emulate this behaviour.

Two generations back there were fewer schools children were sometimes taught by monks how were educated and rightly respected by all. Now some people become monks if they cannot find a job.

Religion has severe problems as a result. I feel some temples are blatantly commercial, such as Dhamma Kaya.

Young monks want the use of technology, such as smart phones which their friends have. You can see them sending IMs to their friends outside their temples. Some have WiFi.

Thais love Temples to look big and colourful, the bigger, more golden statues the better. Personally I would rather give money for sanitation or education.

Forest Temples still maintain simple Buddhist teaching and practices, but I generally avoid urban temples because of the commercial aspects.

People are slowly loosing respect for monks who are seen behaving badly: smoking in Temples, asking for money etc plus the all too common scandals). Unfortunately as the urban monasteries seem to be the worst, they are seen the most. There are real gems, but rotten apples too.

Many people have little interest in or education about religion, they are more interested in ghosts and superstition, and this is regrettably reflected in many temples.

Thais need to decide how to keep temples relevant to society and how they can evolve with society, but at the moment, this mammoth task just doesn't seem to be happening.

Graham
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Mr. Grimnasty
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by Mr. Grimnasty »

Considering the degeneracy of this age, wouldn't it be better if Thai monks struggled to become irrelevant?

But wouldn't it be better still if they simply made the Dhamma their sole concern and didn't worry their silly heads about their relevance or irrelevance?

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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by appicchato »

IMHO Thai society, especially urban society has changed massively over the past 30 years.
Forgive me for weighing in here but I'm compelled to take issue...as someone who's been here (Thailand) the last thirty-five, continuously...I haven't see any 'massive' changes...the instruments that catch, or occupy, our attention may have changed, but basically the mindset is pretty much what it's always been...'always' meaning relatively modern times...there is, has been, and always will be, the good, the bad, and the ugly...there's been no seismic shifts in human nature in any urban society, that I can think of...enlighten me if I'm wrong...we are just being (more or less, through the advent of the internet) exposed to more of what's going on in our ever shrinking planet...that's not to say that there will not be 'massive' changes in the near future, as anyone with even a little foresight can see that we, as a race, can actually see our own demise not that far down the pike, while not a lick is being done to address the ills that are creating that demise...

For all but a rarified few, we're all destined to live our lives in our own individual universes, with little to no influence on anyone, or anything except maybe, and not certainly, our families and close circle of friends...best, if I were asked, to concentrate solving the ills there (between our ears) instead of opining the ills of our present day (worldly) circumstances...which is circling the drain...but I digress...

Be well...
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GraemeR
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by GraemeR »

appicchato wrote: Forgive me for weighing in here but I'm compelled to take issue...as someone who's been here (Thailand) the last thirty-five, continuously...I haven't see any 'massive' changes...
Be well...
Dear Appicchato,

I think we will have to agree to differ, maybe we have had quite different experiences.

I teach maths to teenagers and their attitudes and aspirations have completely evolved from my wife's generation, twenty or so years before them.

My father in law was taught by monks, there was no school, TV etc, he learned manners and discipline, so my wife got a quite strict upbringing. I can't say that for many of the kids I teach. It's society evolving.

Problems show in many other ways, for example diet has changed, my wife's generation didn't have the quantity or variety of junk foods that now proliferate. Consider the increases obesity, dental caries and diabetes due to these changes. Some people send their children away to study at 11. Kids live in their own accommodation or in dormitories. Without parents they have problems with drugs etc which. These are recent problems.

We live in a fairly outlying province and problems become more marked nearer to the major urban areas, especially Bkk.

With metta,

Graham
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BuddhaDave
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by BuddhaDave »

I'd have to agree with Graham. I recently spent three months in Thailand along with my principal student, who is married to a Thai woman and speaks Thai. We spent most of our visit in Chiangmai.

We are not ordained but wear white and beads, and follow precepts and live like monks. Yet, just because we were Westerners, many people including monks assumed that we were there for sex tourism. Their attitude towards us was dismissive or worse. Meanwhile, they themselves were living lives of unmitigated materialism. We saw monks with smartphones shopping at the mall and playing video games. Frankly we were appalled at their hypocrisy.

Our intention in visiting Thailand was to offer fellowships to our world-class Spiritual Leadership course. But mainly because we could not penetrate this attitude problem, we could not find a single qualified person even among the monks. Even the groups supposedly based on teachers of integrity, like Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, we found to be rife with politics and petty status games. Ultimately we decided to withdraw our offer and move on to greener pastures.
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Anagarika
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by Anagarika »

Yet, just because we were Westerners, many people including monks assumed that we were there for sex tourism.
The above statement is in my view a bit unfair. I've spent a fair amount of time in Lanna Thailand and know Chiang Mai fairly well. I am a discount card holder with John's Place, if anyone catches my drift.... :toast: Met a number of good, and some noble and outstanding, monks and novices and have had the great fortune myself to live and train at a Wat and temporarily ordain in northern Chiang Mai region.

In any case, Chiang Mai is replete with western foreign students, farang businesspeople, many, many farang tourists looking not for sex but for elephants, etc. One sees husbands traveling with wives and kids in Chiang Mai. The idea that the Chiang Mai Bhikkhus perceives a farang in a white Nehru suit with beads as as a sex tourist seems a bit of an overreach. It might have been the white suit /robes and beads that threw them for a loop. :)

To get back to the main topic, it's ironic that at a time when the role of the Wats and the Bhikkhus is being questioned is precisely the time when the Dhamma is going to be so necessary for Thai life. One day, there may be more Tescos in Thailand than functioning wats.....at that point, it really does fall to the more progressive elements of the Thai Sangha to develop a plan to rescue the Thai populace from the commercialism and greed, and outright delusion that we see here in the US.
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by GraemeR »

BuddhaSoup wrote:
<snip>
To get back to the main topic, it's ironic that at a time when the role of the Wats and the Bhikkhus is being questioned is precisely the time when the Dhamma is going to be so necessary for Thai life. One day, there may be more Tescos in Thailand than functioning wats.....at that point, it really does fall to the more progressive elements of the Thai Sangha to develop a plan to rescue the Thai populace from the commercialism and greed, and outright delusion that we see here in the US.
Dear BuddhaSoup.

I think we have more 7/11 stores than Wats already :)

Nothing is permanent and things need to change.

Unfortunately people are are loosing respect for the Sangha, I know older people who won't wai :anjali: to monks any more as they don't respect them. When we had monks visit my school (sitting around waiting for their food playing with their smart phones) someone called them unemployed with the latest phones coming to be fed.

Of course there are good temples and good monks, but people remember the bad examples and it's to easy to paint everyone with the same brush, Thais do tend to do this too! Luckily I live away from tourist areas, but many Thais get a strange perspective of foreigners from those they see in some places.

Quite how the Sangha can change to meet the needs of the young, well I really don't know.

With metta

Graham
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gavesako
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by gavesako »

Will Thai luck ever run out?
Thailand's culture is a passive and superstitious one that relies on faith, fate and sheer luck, with the ingrained belief that things will always turn out just fine. After all, karma dictates our destiny, and we bribe her quite well. So mai pen rai.
Make donations/offerings at the temple. Hang garlands at the shrine and say a prayer. Rearrange the feng shui of our home and office. We also wear 15 amulets around our neck for good measure.
If the monks of Thailand ride around in Mercedes Benzes and use the latest gadgets and software, it is only because of the Thai people's obsession with making donations to appease karma into providing many happy returns.
Just think - if we actually rethink, reform and re-engineer, if we actually plan and prepare and make changes, then together with luck, fate and faith, we might actually be able to rise from the mediocre to become the magnificent.
Perhaps if I buy a monk an iPhone 5 on behalf of the country, karma will realise this dream for us. ...

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opin ... er-run-out" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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gavesako
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by gavesako »

Analysis of Thai Buddhism crisis today:

Is the Thai tradition of Buddhism on the decline?


Imagine a picture of Thailand and you might well come up with a scene of beautiful scenery and the Buddhist monks that are seen all over the country. Yet that might soon change. Numbers of those in the monkhood are a quarter of what they were twenty years ago; even those serving today don't know if they will continue in the long term. The decline is being blamed on modernity and materialism, with the Thai people increasingly turning away from traditional religious practises.

http://www.france24.com/en/20130123-201 ... b-en-focus" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by Anagarika »

I feel the story made the point well that it's not Buddhism that people are turning away from, but the hypocrisy of the Thai Sangha. As Thailand turns further toward consumerism, and away from their traditional religion, they are going to need more Dhamma, and not less. The key it seems to me is to give the people what they need: an authentic Dhamma If this means using marketing and media campaigns, then so be it.

I've met many, many good and ethical Thai monks so I am not generalizing in the extreme. It may be that the noble and ethical Bhikkhus are marginalized by a Thai Sangha hierarchy that values prestige and art collecting over meditation and the lessons of the suttas. The Thai people need to get to know these good monks and perhaps there will develop ways for the good Bhikkhus to attract a following through media vs. the leadership of the stifling Thai Sangha; ....these good Bhikkhus could learn to become the "Ajahn Brahms of Thailand"

Thailand is going to need them, just as the West does now. Of that, we can be sure. The Dhamma will never go out of style or need.
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by gavesako »

I am not really sure where they have got their figures from but this table shows a significantly higher figure:

http://www.onab.go.th/DataMonk/Monk54.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is of course 3 years old now but if correct would make the figure mentioned in the report (70 thousand) look rather unlikely. Perhaps the more optimistic figures are collected during the Vassa whereas the less optimistic figures reflect the empty temples in many villages (as I have seen especially in northern Thailand) outside of the Vassa.

There are already several very popular Thai monks who are widely admired and respected and appear often on TV and in social media. But they exist outside of the official Sangha hierarchy and present an alternative to it.
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by Anagarika »

gavesako wrote: There are already several very popular Thai monks who are widely admired and respected and appear often on TV and in social media. But they exist outside of the official Sangha hierarchy and present an alternative to it.
Bhante, I am hoping that this will be one way forward for Buddhadhamma for the Thai people.
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GraemeR
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Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by GraemeR »

gavesako wrote: There are already several very popular Thai monks who are widely admired and respected and appear often on TV and in social media. But they exist outside of the official Sangha hierarchy and present an alternative to it.
This is quite sad in some ways.

It's the young people who I feel sorry for. :coffee:

There is a good Dhamma radio station and there is a lot of teaching that can be download free as mp3s or pdf books. But these don't appeal to the young. TV and social media are how to attract them.

Unfortunately most young people seem to have more interest in ghosts and superstition than in Buddhism and the though of doing meditation ... :zzz:

Graham
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by gavesako »

Indeed, as yet another article describes the situation:

The Crisis in Thai Buddhism
Written by Cod Satrusayang
FRIDAY, 01 FEBRUARY 2013

If Thai Buddhism has been corrupted and lost its way, as critics are alleging, you would never know it by talking to Mod and her friends, whose devotion keeps them making merit and seeking solace at Wat Tha Mai, one of Bangkok's scores of Buddhist temples, every weekend.

It's still morning but the heat in Bangkok is already oppressive. Yet that doesn't seem to deter large numbers of worshipers from turning up at Wat Tha Mai on their day off from work. The smell of incense and smoke are part of a palpable, chaotic atmosphere as people mill about, determined to donate their way into the good graces of some higher power.

Mod - her nickname means "Ant" in Thai - is typical of the people who come to the temple. An accountant in a prestigious international firm, she has come this morning to make merit so that "things might be better as it had been a rough start to the New Year."

As Mod darts from one donation box to the next she pauses to slip Bt100 (US$3.35) into a box placed before a statue of the elephant god Ganesha. When pressed on the significance of the Hindu deity in a Buddhist temple, she struggles to place him in a Buddhist context but agrees with her friends nevertheless that he is holy and we should not question such mystical things. Ganesh is actually a central figure in Hinduism who broke off his right tusk to use as a quill to write the Mahabharata and subsequently the Baghavad Gita.

Mod's experience that morning is emblematic of the admixture that is Thai Buddhism - made up of equal parts animism, Buddhism, Hinduism and plain superstition. But many, including the group known as the Forest Monasteries, lament the state of Thai Buddhism as being corrupt, power hungry and as dirty as the rest of the country. A series of scandals has turned up recently, including senior monks sexually abusing their novices. Many monks have been accused of the commercialization of the faith including fraudulent fundraising.

The Thai Forest monks are known for their orthodoxy, conservatism, and asceticism. They model their practice and lifestyle on those of the Buddha himself and his early disciples, keeping alive the practices of the historical Buddha, who frequently dwelt in forests, both during his spiritual quest and afterwards.

"How can we hope to have a good country when not even the religion is pure?" a member of the group told Asia Sentinel. "Some of what these monasteries are teaching is not even real Buddhism!"

At the central building in the temple where Mod worships, people have been waiting since before dawn to get their time before the abbot. Many have come from far and wide with various requests and ailments. Some pay with whatever meagre savings they have for the chance that some miracle might cure their ailing son, daughters, mothers and fathers. Others are willing to drop seven-figure donations to get what they want.

Between accepting donations and chanting ancient Pali incantations that many in the congregation don't not understand, the monks thumb at their cell phones or ask their personal attendants to grab them refreshments.

Corruption within the Thai clergy has not been an uncommon or even recent phenomenon. In 1999, the Associated Press carried a story stating: "At its core, Buddhism is a religion that teaches the renunciation of desire for material comforts is the way to relieve suffering and find the path to wisdom. But instead of shunning material comforts, some senior monks live in plush quarters and drive Mercedes Benzes."

Blessing public buildings - and even the occasional airplane - by throwing water on them in return for donations is not a part of Forest Monasteries religious practice. It occurs nowhere in the Tripitaka, the sacred Buddhist texts.

While real Buddhism might be a theological debate best reserved for another time, Thailand has caught the global headlines with a few unique Buddhism-related stories. The first came on the heels of the death of Apple mogul Steve Jobs when the Dhammakaya sect made a special television broadcast and claimed they have found his soul and presence in heaven.

They later went on to claim that Jobs had been reincarnated as a "divine being with special knowledge and appreciation for science and arts in some Utopia. In this Utopia he is around 35-40 years old with a head full of hair. He serves a role as a mid-level warrior philosophy and lives in a celestial palace."

It should be noted that the Dhammakaya sect is one of the fastest growing groups in Thailand and currently holds widespread public appeal. Its supporters number in the hundreds of thousands and it has temples around the country and the world.

The Steve Jobs story is not the only one that has gained international recognition. Every year millions of Thais buy lucky charms and amulets that are supposed to help in their everyday life. One story that garnered international press was the presence of amulets and tattoos blessed by monks, which hold special properties such as rendering the wearer bulletproof.

Many swear by the amulets, with some even claiming to have witnessed such tests first-hands. But when pressed to offer more proof the seller told this writer that it was illegal to try it out on people although he has many eyewitness friends. An independent test a few years ago by a reporter resulted in a very dead chicken with the vendor then claiming it only works on humans.

Regardless, these amulets and tattoos are amazingly profitable with bulletproof ones going for as high as Bt300,000 or around $10,000 US Dollars.

But while the international headlines may focus on the sensational aspects of Thai Buddhism the local Sangha, or supreme council, has come under increased scrutiny and criticism after a period of sex and corruption scandals. Under Buddhist canon, monks are not allowed to engage in sexual relations because it brings with it attachment and desire which leads to suffering.

Local Buddhism has even taken a page out of the Catholic playbook recently with several monks embroiled in legal battles for having abused their novices.

And while many Thais feel disillusioned about the way some of the Sangha has behaved many are reluctant to speak out. It is taboo in Thai culture to do so. Mod articulates this point.

"We were taught from a very young age that it is okay to not believe but it is not okay to disrespect. While we may not approve of certain things that monks do, they do not represent our religion as a whole. We are Buddhists and we know what we believe."

As she makes her way with her friends to the central building where she will queue with countless other people looking to make their fortune through the purification of their karma, that point has never been clearer.

(Cod Satrusayang is a Bangkok-based freelance journalist)

http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?optio ... Itemid=189" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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rohana
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Re: Thai Buddhist Monks Struggle to Stay Relevant

Post by rohana »

I think, in traditionally Buddhist societies, there are always a small minority of lay people who are serious practitioners, while the majority are just interested in making a bit of merit.

But my guess is it would extend to the monastic community as well. (I'm writing based on my experience of Sri Lankan Buddhism here, and assuming - based on what I've read - that Thai Buddhism is not too different, so I could be completely wrong.) The reason is that most monks are ordained rather young, so essentially the pool of candidates that have been selected for the monastic order is not different from just selecting a random subset from the laity. So in the Sangha, we have a small group which are genuinely interested in serious practice, while the majority are just going through the motions. And as economies prosper and hardships decline, for the majority of monks, along with the laity, there's even less reason to bother even with going through the motions(why bother with a heavenly birth when you can experience plenty of sensual pleasures here and now?). In the long run, if the majority of the lay community are not seriously interested in the doctrine, there's little the Sangha can do. If you don't have some amount of natural interest for serious practice to start with - either that interest is something you always had from birth or developed after some harsh suffering - then you can't be coerced to cultivate sīla, samādhi and paññā. The doctrine of the Ṭathāgatha requires a willing disciple to practice.

In the West of course, people who decide convert to Buddhism (i.e. those for whom it wasn't their cultural heritage) would be serious practitioners for the most part, otherwise they wouldn't bother to convert to a minority religion at all.
"Delighting in existence, O monks, are gods and men; they are attached to existence, they revel in existence. When the Dhamma for the cessation of existence is being preached to them, their minds do not leap towards it, do not get pleased with it, do not get settled in it, do not find confidence in it. That is how, monks, some lag behind."
- It. p 43
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