Today, in a toilet, I got some idea.
It's about the comparison of religion's role in Thailand and in the West.
What came up to my mind was that, religion in the West was seperated from state. As you probably knew, in the West, Church role was often in parrarel to that of the ruling class. Church sometimes even had a conflicting role with the elites. They sometimes competed with each other to gain the influence over the popular masses.
Well, I won't evaluate whether it's good or bad. But will compare that to the Thai case.
In Thailand, do we really have the seperation between "church" and "state"? The answer should be "no".
Especially after the reign of Rama 4. Church has a close relation with King. We even had a king's uncle as the สังฆราช. We had the royal branch of "Church" established from King Rama 4.
I would say, instead of seperation, Buddhist Church in Thailand was used more as a tool for elites in getting control over popular masses' lifes.
This is probably why, Buddhist religion in Thailand has many weaknesses. The system of administration for monks was almost the same as any "ministry". Where the centre
of Buddhist education is in Bangkok, and the monks educated from center are send to administer monks at provincial, district, and tambon level. This system is indeed, very bureaucrat.
It's probably the fact that Thai Buddhist was admisnistered this way, that the main content of Buddhist philosophy as a guidance for enlightened lives was overlooked. It's, therefore, not surprising that the mainstream Buddist philosophy was merged with the local superstition, and the commercialised form of Buddhist emerged.
The light came out during ท่านพุทธทาส time, the idea of Buddhist as a philosophy for enlightened one's mind came back. However, even with the quality, the impact of พุทธทาส was not enough to change the established structure.
I would say, from my experience, many monks I met are great. In fact, so many good monks exist in Thailand. But these monks are not living in the mainstream circle of That Buddhist religion. They are more at the margin of mainstream.
The mainstrem is plagued with many problems. I would argue that these problems actually root in the structure. Thai buddhist, as governed by elites, has a rigid structure that would not be able to carry on any reform necessary to adapt with changes. Givern how the environment has changed rapidly over last few century, it's not surprising why Thai Buddhist now have so much problems.
Anyone has some thoughts on this topic...please share.
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5 comments:
First of all, what is "main stream" buddhist?
Is it buddhism without education of the truth of it? ...
It probably true that the way of administration make weakness embedded in thai buddhism structure.
The most important thing, in my opinion, is that buddhists do not take the study of buddhism philosophy seriously, and the environment does not induce us to, or it does not provide us an easy opportunities to get to know the the truth of philosophy.
By the way, here is a good website having many detail on dhamma information : www.dhammahome.com which is the website of dhamma study and support foundation.^_^
Mainstrean buddhist in my writing here, means the Buddhist monks educated and administered directly by the central regime กรมพระศาสนา in Bangkok.
I'm not sure whether it's a good definition. But I want to use this definition to catch the aspect of monks bureaucratic structure. And the way that the main feature of monks administration is shifted to serve the power srtucture. For example, the ranks (สมณศักดิ์) which can only be obtain if they are in the ladder of administration, and only if they act according to established structure.
This is probably the main types of Buddhist monks, and the most influential, that's why I called them mainstream.
thank you for answering ka.!
herr!! it's a poor thing that even buddhism can not get away from the way the world are i.e. bureacratic things especially in thailand where we have our own way of historical path dependence and it is, kind of hard to change.
As an instrument that you are saying, and as the embedded problem that deter the usefulness for our life that we should get as a buddhism's teaching hub, more than bureaucratic aspect could be useful to view this. my feeling is that, since the system is hard to change(isn't it?),but what if we start at the "person", what if more and more people want to see and want to touch the change of the role of buddhism from what we have today. what if more people want to learn the philosophy when they go to the temple, instead of go there for good deed, make some donation, and be sacred thing, then how this might change the way this system are.
I have a litte different to the one of yours.
Despite the tie between "the church" and "the palace/state affair" is somewhat faded away nowadays; I see there was no difference, conceptually, between Thai and other civilisations in their histories.
In short, any religions had been used as a tool to prevail/protect/empower any monarchic sovereignty anywhere in the world. What's contrast between the Western and Thai was that Christianity (god) had supreme power over western kings. But Thai kings and the church had mutual benefits between one another.
I would say during middle ages the Church were even more powerful than "local" mornachs. Any man who ought to be crowned must had been consented by the Pope! What's more, the Pope were the one who initiated the attack to Jerusalem before the beginning of the crusade wars. The Vatican held "supra-power" that was very subjective to Christianity.
Nowadays Vatican is not that powerful but it still act as an icon to many people and still has some ties with global politics. For instance Pope John Paul 2nd was the very first Polish who became Pope durring the cold war period. He made many comments against communism and abortion and supporting human rights.
In my knowledge, the buddhism church has been serving a more passive role in relationship to Thai palace/government. The king was suppose to be the reincarnated "Shiva", "Vishnu" or "Indra" and whose role was to protect Lord Buddha's dignity. For simplest example: "King Rama" = สมเด็จพระรามาธิบดี where พระรามา = พระราม and พระราม = พระวิศณุ/พระณารายณ์กลับชาติมาเกิด therefore King Rama = King Vishnu. Other example: รัชกาลที่ 5 were once known as "สมเด็จพระพุทธเจ้าหลวง" and his crown prince was known as "สมเด็จหน่อพุทธเจ้า".
Personally I believe that Vatican is a very bureaucratic organisation, similar to the one of Thai Monk Society. They have many many layers/hierachy of prists.
Yes, I agree to you that Buddhism or any religions should have very limited role with state affair/politics. I believe that churches should not ignore relationship with it because some religious comments are still considered as justify reasons to support/against any issues in the society. But I have to say it has to be used with care.
Don't you think so?
To reflect on Mr.Dawdle man; I think religion should play role on people lives. The fact that it plays role on people lifes make it unavoidable to be related to politics. Even, we don't want it to be. If you just look at things realistically, then cannot refuse that religion always has political role.
However, the point I want to raise is that, during time of modern state (not middle age), Western state has experience the seperation between church and state (ruler), which allow people for room not to be manipulate by the state elite through the use of religion.
While in Thailand, during our construction of modern state, buddhist religion and state are unseperable. If you read Aj.Chatthip, he pointed out the similar thing that religion in Thailand was used by Thai elites to avoid resistance from lower class whose got exploited.
Christianity got a big reform which led to a new branch of Protestant. I just wonder, whether the same thing can happen to Thai buddhism. Umm, I supposed may be not.
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