Traditional Buddhist concepts of
moral conduct need to be reinterpreted for the modern world and integrated into
a social ethical theory.
Buddhism is often criticized as a religion that, being mainly
concerned with personal salvation, lacks a social ethics. Although this may
seem to be true, Buddhist teachings on personal conduct do contain principles
that could be reinterpreted and extended to a social ethical theory. Thailand offers
a good framework in which to approach Buddhist social ethics, for it provides
an opportunity to examine sociopolitical issues under the global market economy
at a structural level and from a Third World point of view. Buddhist monks in Thailand are
part of a unified hierarchical sangha (community of monks) which in turn is
controlled by the government. Every day, they also eat food donated to them by
Thai people, the majority of whom are poor and oppressed. This situation makes
it possible to look at Buddhism from a social justice perspective, and thereby
add a new dimension to the Buddhist hermeneutics for the poor. If greed is
understood not just in individual terms but also as a built-in mechanism of
oppressive social structures, then to reduce or eliminate greed through
personal self-restraint will not be enough; these social structures will have
to be changed as well. Many Buddhists seek liberation (Pali: nibbana; Sanskrit:
nirvana) by practicing meditation, but they do not pay sufficient attention to
the way the society in which they live is organized. I wish to offer a challenge
to Buddhist ethical values by interpreting liberation as necessarily involving
social as well as personal liberation.
The Thai Political
Economy
Absolute monarchy was ended in Thailand in 1932. A revolution led
by a small number of members of the civilian, bureaucratic, and military elite brought
about a radical change in the power structure by placing the monarchy under a
constitution. Influenced by the Western idea of democracy, they introduced a
new political system in Thailand.
Since then the country has experimented with democracy for sixty-five years,
during which politics has been overwhelmingly dominated by the military, with
seventeen coups d'etat or attempted coups, and sixteen revisions of the
constitution. During this time, influenced by the global market economy, Thailand has also
experimented with capitalism. From 1932 to the fall of Phibun's regime in 1957,
it was ruled primarily by the military under democratic constitutions. The
monarchy was suppressed, and the economy was dominated by state-owned
enterprises. From the 1957 coup by Sarit Thanarat to the fall of
ThanomPraphat's regime in 1973, Thailand
was under a military dictatorship without a constitution. There was an increase
of private enterprise and capitalism. During the same period, the Thai monarchy
gained wide respect both among the people and the military.
The 1973 student-led revolution and the middle-class
revolution of 1992 were the first uprisings by the people in the modern history
of Thailand.
Although neither revolution changed the fundamental social
and political structures of the country, they demonstrated that ordinary
people, especially the middle-class, have become increasingly powerful in Thai politics.
From the the mid-90s, there was an economic boom in Thailand within the global
market economy dominated by the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, but
this was accompanied by a widening income gap between urban elites and the
rural poor, the destruction of the rain forests, and deterioration of the
natural environment. This economic expansion, which saw the rise of an affluent
upper-middle class, was interrupted by the economic crisis of late 1997 1998.
During successive regimes from 1973 to the present, the
military maintained control, staging a number of coups and dominating
parliamentary government. The monarchy continued to win wide support from the
Thai people, gaining the power to negotiate with the military, as seen by the
king's intervention in the resignation of Thanom Kittikhachorn in 1973 and of
Suchinda Khraprayun in 1992, as well as in the
appointment of Sanya Thammasak as prime minister in 1973
and Anand Panyarachun in 1992. Pro-democracy movements, especially the
middle-class revolution of 1992, gained international support in the post
cold-war era. Business elites became more influential in Thai politics as a
more democratic parliament and a civilian government gradually took shape. The sixty-fifth
anniversary of Thai democracy in 1997 marked a turning point when a reformed
constitution, to which many people contributed, was finally promulgated.
In summary, since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932,
Thai politics has gone through five stages, from constitutional military rule
and military dictatorship through democratic experiments and ideological
conflict to the rise of a middle class and the promulgation of a reformed
constitution. It is the hope of Thai people that when the new constitution has
been fully applied, they will experience a more genuine democracy and Thai
politics will have entered a new era.
The social and economic development of Thailand within
the global market economy in recent decades has increased the division between
urban and rural society. Industries and services have been emphasized in the
cities, while the agricultural sector in rural areas has been neglected.
Education and economic growth have been concentrated in Bangkok
and other urban areas, leaving most of the rural population, especially in
northeastern Thailand,
undereducated, poor, and far behind in access to public services. Tenant
farming and agribusiness corporations have uprooted traditional farmers from
their own lands and pressured many younger men and women to migrate from the
countryside to the cities in search of jobs. This social dislocation has
brought about a continuing decline of rural social structures, tradition, and
culture, and has created the problem of overpopulation in the big cities. Most
of the young male migrants have become low-wage laborers in construction,
factories, and service businesses; since the 1980s, many have left to work in
the Middle East, Taiwan, Brunei, and Singapore. Many young women from
the countryside, particularly from the north, have become prostitutes in Bangkok and other cities.
More recently some have traveled to Japan and elsewhere to work in prostitution.
The widening gap in both income and education between
urban and rural society has turned Thailand into two worlds: the world
of the urban rich and the growing middle class, and that of the rural poor and
city slumdwellers. In 1996, the population was approximately 60.5 million. The top
20 percent of the people in the income pyramid possessed almost 60 percent of
the country's wealth, whereas the bottom 20 percent (approximately twelve
million people) owned only 3.5 percent.[1] While the demand for democracy among
urban Thais is increasing, it remains a low priority in the countryside where
economic concerns are primary. If Thai democracy is to grow, the conditions of
rural people need to be dramatically improved, reducing income and educational
differences between them and their urban counterparts. Unfortunately, the Thai
government, under the influence of multinational corporations and international
capitalism, has failed to address the real problems facing farmers and rural
people. Government development projects tend to draw human and natural
resources from the periphery to the center, leaving the country people in
desperate poverty.
Structural Poverty:
From the Perspective of Thai Prostitution
Thailand has world-wide fame- or rather
shame -- for its well-established prostitution and sex industry. Many Western
and Japanese male tourists go to Thailand simply for a "sex
tour."[2] Donald K. Swearer points out that although Thailand has over a
quarter of a million monks in thousands of monasteries throughout the land, it
still has more prostitutes than monks.[3] A great number of young women in Thailand,
desperate in their search for a better life, have been drawn into the sex
industry. (The international sex industry exploits adults and children of both
sexes, but the vast majority of prostitution and sex workers in Thailand
are women and girls.) In the past, many of them were tricked or even forced
into prostitution by mafia gangs. Today they are pressured by structural poverty,
consumerism, and sometimes a distorted idea of "filial piety." Although
prostitution is illegal in Thailand,
the government, because of the inefficient and corrupt bureaucratic system,
seems unable to help these unfortunate young women. Prostitution, of course, is
against the teachings of the Buddha, but the Thai sangha hierarchy has said
virtually nothing about this issue.
Under the present system, Thai farmers find it difficult
to sustain their families through agriculture. The harder they work, the deeper
they find themselves in debt because of their dependency as tenant farmers.
Both sons and daughters are driven to leave home in search of work, but it is
easier for women to find a "job" because they can quickly become
prostitutes, earning more money than factory workers? This has led some poor
rural families to send their daughters to towns and cities for "jobs"
to support their families.
In the Thai local tradition, especially in the north, parents
prefer the birth of a daughter to that of a son. While a son can help his
parents in the rice field, a daughter can help in both household work and
farming. After marriage, the daughter continues to serve her parents because a
Thai couple traditionally establishes their family close to the woman's
parents. Usually both a Thai son and daughter hold to the traditional values of
filial piety, but a daughter is especially valued because she can do more for
her parents. Unfortunately, this traditional Thai attitude fits in quite well
with the exploitative structures in which young rural women can find
"jobs" in the urban areas, even if such work exposes them to the threat
of AIDS.[5] (The proportion of people in Thailand infected with HIV is among
the highest in the world.) Prostitutes send more money back home to their
desperate families than do male or female factory laborers. Their sin is
forgiven and they are treated well in their village.
Prostitution is basically a byproduct of unjust economic
and social structures and the most obvious form of gender oppression. Although
the phenomenon is well-known in Thailand,
few Thai people talk about it in public. Tod and Buddhist social activists are
beginning to speak up in defense of the rights of their mothers, sisters and
daughters, reminding society that prostitution represents a distortion of
traditional cultural values and is caused by modern structural poverty.[6]
Prostitution and other economic, social, and political problems must be
addressed by a new systematic code of Buddhist social ethics which encompasses
the whole range of national issues, including human rights, drug abuse,
economic exploitation, and environmental degradation.
Outsiders may argue that these young women could live a
simple life at home in the country, and survive by working at their traditional
tasks in the household and rice fields without having to resort to
prostitution. Contemporary pressures, however, are extremely powerful.
Development projects undertaken by the central government have brought roads,
radio, television, and popular magazines to the villages, spreading the
religion of consumerism. People are no longer happy with older lifestyles.[7] Traditional
values are threatened by desperate poverty, the inability to possess land, and
agribusiness; meanwhile, the new values increase the demand for consumer goods.
Most rural Thai families are torn apart by these forces, and under such
circumstances, it is hard for young men and women to stay home and be happy in
rural areas. Today most rural villages, especially in the north and northeast,
are populated only by those left behind, old people and children.
Buddhist Base
Communities in Thailand
In the face of these forces, only a revitalization of
Buddhist values can help rural people retain a level of self-sufficiency and
independence. In the past, before the modernization of Thailand under
capitalism, the Buddhist monastery was the center of village life and Buddhist
monks were its cultural leaders. The Buddhist sangha provided villagers not
only with Buddhist teachings, culture, and ritual, but also education, medical
care, and occupational advice. In such a community, the spirit of sharing and cooperation
prevailed; villagers shared a common local Buddhist culture. However, this Thai
rural social structure, with the Buddhist sangha at its center, has collapsed
under the impact of economic dependence, social dislocation, and cultural
transformation.
What is needed in rural Thailand today is what I call
"Buddhist base community,"[8] with leadership from well-educated or
well-informed Buddhist monks or laity. Such a community would seek to promote
the enduring values of Thai culture, which are ultimately rooted in a religious
worldview. Cultural identity would be fostered through the adaptation of such
values, and Buddhist social ethics would become guidelines for action. The
economic model of such a Buddhist base community would be one of relative self-sufficiency
rather than market dependency. Buddhist teachings, as well as the increase in
self-respect and self-confidence likely in a society based on such teachings,
can reduce the impact of consumerism, which in recent years has been
exacerbated by omnipresent advertising on television and radio and in popular
magazines. A renewal of cultural values, along with practical advice from
well-informed professionals, would help rural Thais regain economic
independence and improve their physical well-being.
Buddhist base communities offer a more participatory
democratic model for society. By regaining cultural and economic independence,
the rural sector of society can take a more active role in promoting Thai
democracy. Once relative economic self-sufficiency, political decentralization,
and local cultural independence is established, rural villages could solve many
local problems in a new way. The task of rebuilding a healthier rural society belongs
to all Thais, with a pivotal role to be played by Buddhist monks, who are
widely respected, demographically represent the rural people, and reside
throughout the country.
It will be useful to look more closely at different types
of Buddhist base communities already existing in contemporary Thailand. Some
of them are centered around individual activist monks, while others are
organized more as networks of people.
A. Phra Khamkhian's
Community
Phra Khamkhian Suvanno's community at Tahmafaiwan in
northeastern Chaiyabhum is an exemplary Buddhist base community centered around
a charismatic leader. Through Khamkhian's leadership, the Tahmafaiwan community
has significantly improved life in nearby villages, both physically and
spiritually. It has become a grass-root movement, struggling to achieve a
relatively self-sustaining local economy and self-determined local polity,
while working to alleviate ecological problems.
Khamkhian, a forest monk and dedicated meditation teacher,
has campaigned to help poor people in the northeastern rural areas where he has
established "rice banks" and "buffalo banks," which
function as independent local cooperatives where poor people can borrow the
necessities for agriculture, such as grain and water buffalo. If necessary,
they can borrow rice for their own consumption. When they produce a surplus of
rice, they deposit it in the rice bank. When a borrowed buffalo gives birth,
half of the young buffalo belongs to the farmer and the other half belongs to
the buffalo bank.
Khamkhian believes that the villagers' constant battle
with poverty and hunger is due to their being caught up in the main-stream,
greedmotivated economy. He encourages them to be self-sufficient by raising
their own vegetables, digging family fishponds, and growing fruit trees,
instead of producing a single crop like tapioca or eucalyptus and buying food
from outside the village. Near his forest monastery, he gave a plot of land to one
family to try vegetable gardening without chemical fertilizers or pesticides,
and the experiment was successful. To broaden the villagers' perspectives, he
has encouraged them to go on study trips to other northeastern villages that
have been successful in this kind of integrated farming.
Khamkhian has managed to preserve against encroachment
about 250 acres of lush, green forest atop the mountain, the only greenery
visible amid vast tapioca fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. He
plans to send monks to live deep in the forest, so that villagers will not dare
damage the sanctified area, which has been declared a forest monastery.[9] Khamkhian
has also led the villagers' fight against local authorities who have supported
illegal logging, a struggle which has gained some degree of self-determination
for the community in regard to local polity. By attacking consumerism with a
renewed affirmation of Buddhist social and ethical values, he has helped the
Tahmafaiwan community win some measure of local cultural independence.
B. Phrakhru Sakorn's
Community
Phrakhru Sakorn's community at Yokkrabat in central Thailand
is another exemplary Buddhist base community centered around a particular
leader. Before Sakorn Sangvorakit came to Wat Yokkrabat at Ban Phrao in Samutsakorn,
most people who lived there were impoverished illiterate farmers. The area was
often flooded with sea water which destroyed the paddies and left the people
with no means of subsistence. Realizing that poverty could not be eradicated
unless new crops were introduced, since salt water was ruining the rice fields,
Sakorn suggested planting coconut trees, following the example of a nearby
province.[10]
Once the people of Yokkrabat started growing coconuts, he
advised them not to sell the harvest, because middlemen kept the price of
coconuts low. With assistance from three nearby universities that were
interested in the development and promotion of community projects, the people
of Yokkrabat began selling their coconut sugar all over the country. In
addition to the coconut plantations, Sakorn got the villagers to grow
vegetables and fruits, encouraged the growing of palm trees for building
materials, and the planting of herbs to be used for traditional medicine. Fish
raising was also encouraged. Within a few years the people's livelihood
improved significantly.[11]
Sakorn believes that a community's basic philosophy should
be selfreliance and spirituality. He encourages residents to determine what
they need in their family before selling the surplus to earn money and buy
things they cannot produce by themselves. In this way, villagers depend less on
the market. This principle of self-reliance also underlies the community's credit
union project; members are encouraged to borrow money for integrated family
farming rather than for large enterprises in cash crops. Since Sakorn is
convinced that there can be no true development unless it is based on
spirituality, in addition to the projects in economic development he has taught
the villagers Dhamma -- the teachings of the Buddha – and meditation.[12]
Sakorn trains the younger generation of monks and novices
for leadership and encourages them to take greater responsibility for their own
local community. Although he "disrobed" some twenty years ago, he has
continued to support the community.[13] The self-reliance and ethical values he
has inculcated have made Yokkrabat an exemplary Buddhist base community in Thailand.
C. Phra Prachak's
Community dictatorship, the Thai military threatened Phra
Prachak Khuttacitto, a Buddhist monk who was campaigning
to preserve a large rain forest in Buriram, Pah (the Thai word for forest)
Dongyai, from further destruction. He was arrested and thrown in jail. It was
the first time in the history of Thai Buddhism that a monk in robes was jailed
by the authorities.[14] Although Prachak was later released, he had to defend himself
in court and was left in a position in which he could hardly resume his work.
In 1992, during the civilian government of Chuan Leekpai,
the deputy Interior Minister went to see Prachak at Dhammachitra Buddhist
Center in Buriram and
promised him and the villagers that the government would cooperate in
protecting the remaining forest in the area. He asked Prachak to leave the
forest but promised to build thirty cottages for monks, along with a hall, a
water tank, and a road in an area of 40 acres outside the forest. He promised
Prachak that the Forest Department would send fifteen laborers to help him look
after the forest, working twenty days a month for eight months during the
initial stage of the project.[15]
The promise has not been fulfilled. A hall was built, but
only through the personal effort of Prachak and with financial backing from the
people. Prachak asked the Forest Department to send tools, a car, and a communication
radio to help in the task of protecting the forest, but to no avail. Without
such equipment, the fifteen assistants can do little to stop the felling of
trees and protect the forest. After the first eight months, the Forest
Department reduced working schedules to only fifteen days a month for the next
six months and then stopped the project. Meanwhile forest-destroying gangs
intensified their operation and the cutting of trees sharply increased. In
other words, under the supposed cooperation between Prachak and the Forest
Department, the destruction of the forest has accelerated. The government even
publicized this situation to convince the public that monks and villagers did
not have the capacity to protect the forest.
There were many attempts to discredit Prachak and to erode
his support. A rumor was circulated that he was paid a lot of money by the
government, which caused people to stop making donations for his work.
Government officials gave money to some villagers and not to others, with the intention
of causing misunderstandings among them.[16] The villagers finally divided into
three groups. The first, the majority, turned their attention to new plots of
land provided by the government. The second group accepted patronage from the
influential people who were behind the illegal loggers and withdrew support
from Prachak. The third and smallest group continued to support his
forest-conservation efforts, since they realized that if the forest was
completely destroyed, villagers would find it extremely difficult to survive,
and the area would face serious problems of drought and water shortage.
Although Prachak's campaign was held back by government
authorities, it represents a grass-roots Buddhist struggle to respond to
ecological issues. Under Thailand's
military dictatorship, the government openly used its authority to destroy the
forest for its own benefit. This prompted people to organize and protest.
Today, under an elected civilian government, the process is more subtle yet
equally destructive, since the bureaucracy remains unchanged and influential
people use covert tactics to invade the rain forest.[17] Through his campaign
against environmental degradation, Prachak has helped awaken an ecological
conscience at the national level.
D. Buddha-Kasetra
Community
Buddha-Kasetra[18] is a group of Buddhist base communities
in northern Thailand
organized under common leadership. It has established a number of schools to
care for orphans, juvenile delinquents, and economically deprived children in
the north and northeast of Thailand.
Its goal is to build strong Buddhist base communities in rural Thailand
to fight poverty, consumerism, and the structural exploitation created by a
centralized bureaucratic government.[19]
The first Buddha-Kasetra school, established at Maelamong
in the northern province
of Maehongsorn, began its self-support program by growing their own rice and
vegetables, producing organic fertilizers, and raising cows to produce milk for
the school children as well as to supply milk at a cheap price to the local
communities. They also initiated some small commercial projects to produce
traditional foods and desserts, weave and sew clothes, and make bricks and
concrete posts for construction. All the teachers and school children, in
addition to school work, participated in occupational training and manual
labor. There was a project to establish a public health center within the
community to care for the health of the local people. The Buddha-Kasetra school
was able to be self-sufficient in most aspects of its work. Three more
Buddha-Kasetra schools were established -- at Nongho in Chiangmai, at Khunyuam
in Maehongsorn, and at Nonmuang in Korat. The number of school children and
teachers keeps growing.
The Buddha-Kasetra is especially interested in the issue
of the exploitation of women and children. It has campaigned to protect women's
and children's rights and to alert people to the problems of prostitution and
child abuse in northern Thailand.
At the BuddhaKasetra school at Nongho, girls and young women from poor,
marginal family backgrounds are admitted to the school for education and
occupational training, as well as instruction in Buddhist ethics. There are six
teachers, all female except for the principal, Phasakorn Kandej, and eighty-six
female students ranging in age from thirteen to eighteen. If these students
were not admitted to the school, it is likely that most of them would have
resorted to prostitution.
The Buddha-Kasetra Foundation was founded in Chiangmai in
1989, with Phra Chaiyot as coordinator of all its schools and activities. The
foundation, which has its own printing press, publishes a monthly newspaper, as
well as a number of books on Buddhism and social issues. The foundation has
been trying to alleviate the causes of social ills by working with the poor and
the unfortunate in a Buddhist base community context, and by training young men
and women to be leaders of their own communities in rural Thailand. Although
the number is still limited, base communities like Buddha-Kasetra are important
in their own right and serve as examples of a new vision of a more humane,
cooperative, and service-oriented way of life.
E. Thamkaenchan
Community
In 1985 a group of people interested in Buddhism and
social and ecological problems came to live together on twelve acres along the
Kwai river in a partially destroyed forest at Thamkaenchan valley.[20] They
helped develop the area, which is in the central province of Kanchanaburi,
erecting a number of buildings and boathouses, growing vegetables, and planting
trees for reforestation. They were committed to the creation of a
self-sustaining Buddhist base community by engaging in natural farming and
raising cows, goats, and other farm animals. They planted part of the land with
herbal plants for the purpose of making traditional herbal medicines. They
tried to preserve forest trees and wild animals and were careful to prevent forest
fires. Buddhist meditation retreats were held in the community from time to time,
and well-known meditation teachers such as Phra Khamkhian Suvanno were invited
to lead a retreat. The community also produced paintings as well as books on
Buddhism and spirituality.
In 1992 the Riverside
School, a school for
children from poor families, was established. Paiboon Teepakorn, the leader of
the community, is convinced that the right form of education is an important
factor in altering the way people think and in creating a new direction for
society. Besides the formal curriculum, the students are given occupational
training in animal farming, natural farming without using chemicals, local
handicrafts, and some knowledge of small engines, as well as training in
Buddhist ethics and local culture. After their training, the students are
supposed to return to their villages and help their own communities. In a way,
Thamkaenchan represents a Buddhist ashrama, helping rural people struggle for a
more just society under an exploitative system.
After visiting the Thamkaenchan community in December 1992,
James Halloran, an Irish Catholic priest, reported:
The Buddhist spirituality of the members gives them a
tremendous regard for creation. Consequently they are deeply reverent towards
the natural vegetation of the place, yet have separated a space for some
organic gardening.... The environment is a major issue for the community. ...
There is also a concern with genuine education, reflected by the fact that they
are helping a group of needy boys who are not just imbibing school subjects,
but a wonderful set of values too. They are courteous, high-minded, and deeply
involved with the chores of the community.[21]
The contemporary Buddhist base communities in Thailand are
grass-root movements going in the right direction. But their attempts are
limited to structural reform, since most of them are concerned with the micro
level -- solving the immediate needs or the day-to-day problems of their communities.
Macro perspective and praxis, therefore, are needed at the national as well as
local levels in order to construct a more serious Buddhist social ethics.
Since the unusual drought and water shortage of 1994, more
country people have migrated to towns and cities, adding to the overpopulation
and traffic problems in Bangkok
and other major cities. The forest fire at Huey Khakhaeng in Uthaithani, a
national park with many endangered species and designated as a world heritage
site, destroyed some 25,000 acres of rain forest in 1994 and another 125,000
acres in 1998, worsening Thailand's water problems. Despite the prohibition
against teak logging and the selfless forest conservation work of individual
monks like Phra Prachak and Phra Khamkhian, the remaining forest has been
further destroyed, notoriously at the Salawin national park in Maehongsorn in
1998. Those involved in this destruction of the forest include influential
politicians and officials, military and police officers, as well as officials
from the Forest Department itself. The unusual flooding throughout Thailand in
1995, the most extensive in fifty years, was partly due to inadequate forests
to absorb water from the monsoons. The floods damaged hundreds of thousands of acres
of agricultural farmland, increasing the poverty of upcountry farmers.
Thailand today faces a systemic problem, as
shown by the economic crisis of late 1997 to 1998. Although the country is
presently administered by an elected civilian government, the bureaucratic
patronage system has remained unchanged and constitutes a major obstacle to the
decentralization of power and to social and economic reform. Despite these
circumstances, the Thai Buddhist sangha remains silent and inactive, largely
due to its bureaucratic administration and individualistic approach to issues.
Most monks maintain that if all individuals were ethical, problems would be solved
naturally. While there is an element of truth to this approach, it naively
ignores the impact of modern economic, political, and social structures on the
everyday lives of individuals. A Buddhist social ethics needs to be introduced
at a structural level if Thai society is to cope with its contemporary
problems.
Buddhist Social
Ethics: A Structural Analysis
Historically, Buddhism arose in India at the time when the Aryan civilization
flourished. Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the main concern of
religious leaders and philosophers during the time of the founder was not
political liberation from social conditions, but personal liberation from human
psychological suffering arising from the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and
death. Although the Buddha also taught ethical principles regarding the social,
economic, and political well-being of people, the main theme in Buddhism was
personal liberation from psychological suffering. Since social and political
conditions have changed tremendously in Thailand, I maintain that Buddhism
needs a structural vision and a new emphasis on social liberation.
Before the country became modernized, Siam -- the original name of Thailand -- was
a traditional society whose values were articulated in terms of Buddhism. The
name was changed to Thailand
by the government of Phibun Songkhram, soon after he become prime minister in
December 1938, as a step toward westernization or modernization. Although
Siamese people, measured by modern economic standards, were poorer in terms of
material wealth and public health, members of older generations report that
they were generally happier and more humane than the Thai people today. The
contrast between yesterday's Siam
and today's Thailand,
however, developed over time as a consequence of basic economic and social
changes, themselves the product of government efforts to modernize the country.
This modernization has shattered the self-sufficient economy of local
communities and centralized the relatively self-sustained polity of the
provinces. Ultimately, this process has tied the country economically to the
global market economy, and politically to the new international order. These
economic and structural changes have had a great impact on all social and
cultural aspects of Thai society, and consequently have affected the social
values and well-being of the Thai people.
A retro-utopian view, such as Buddhadasa's dhammic
socialism,[22] which uses the older form of traditional Buddhist society as a
model for a contemporary society, does not take sufficient stock of the
intractable nature of structural problems. If the life of the Thai people in
the past was "better" than today, it was mainly because of the
self-sufficiency of their local economy and the decentralization of political
power, ensuring the integrity of local culture and social values. To advocate a
change of form without changing the underlying structure is to miss the point.
To ask society to return to an older form of Buddhist society is to advocate
the impossible, and to risk ignoring the systemic nature of modern problems (in
Buddhist terms, dukkha). Without changing unjust, inequitable and violent economic
and political structures, a dictatorial dhammaraja is not so different, in
today's context, from an absolute dictator, and a sresthi with a rongthan is
not very different from the contemporary beneficence of the exploiting
billionaire.
Buddhist social ethics must do more than advocate
mindfulness and the ideal of simplicity. To construct a healthier Buddhist
society requires a change of the economic structure into one of more local
self-sufficiency, and the political structure into one of more local
decentralization, with moral and cultural values adapted to a contemporary
context. Only then can Buddhist social ethics take root in society as it did in
the historical past. The Buddhist spirit of loving-kindness, compassion,
sharing, and cooperation expressed in Buddhadasa's dhammic socialism will then
prevail, at both a personal and structural level.
If we consider Buddhist social ethics in contemporary Thai
society from a broader perspective, we are forced to recognize that greed,
hatred, and delusion,[23] which Buddhism identifies as the root of all harmful
things, currently prevail. A systematic and structural greed can be found in
the present economic system, in which millions of traditional farmers have been
uprooted from their farmlands by tenancy and agribusiness, causing massive dislocation,
unemployment, and poverty. Centralized political power and an economic system
of dependency have caused group hatred to arise as elites grow richer while the
vast majority of people are driven into greater poverty. A structural delusion
comes from the expanding influence of commercial advertising in the mass media,
leading local people to discard their cultural values and embrace consumerism.
In order to overcome greed, hatred, and delusion, a person
needs to change not only his or her personal conduct or lifestyle, but also the
system that creates them. Buddhist ethics, such as the Five Precepts (sila),
needs to address this structural change more vigorously. For example, the first
precept is to refrain from killing and harming living beings; in applying this
to a poor country like Thailand,
it becomes clear that the military budget, which comprises a large portion of
the GNP, should be reduced. The violation of human rights, including political
or economic assassination, the torture of prisoners, and child abuse, has to be
halted. There must be an end to the slaughter of wild animals, especially
endangered species. The rain forests that shelter wild animals need to be
recovered and preserved. Obviously, if the moral precept forbidding killing
were made more meaningful, many of these measures could be implemented.
The second of the Five Precepts is to refrain from
stealing. If we look at the situation in Thailand, we will see that a more
just social structure is needed in order to prevent politicians, the military,
police, civil servants, and businessmen from engaging in corruption and
systematically robbing the common people. Furthermore, destruction of the rain
forests and degradation of the environment and world's ecology are stealing the
future of our children and grandchildren.
The third precept is to refrain from sexual misconduct.
Prostitution is a systematic violation of this rule, a problem Buddhists need
to take more seriously. Among other things, a substantial improvement in the
economic well-being of rural areas, as well as the enforcement of laws punishin
profiting from the business of prostitution, are needed to reduce pressure on
rural young women to resort to prostitution. The fourth of the Five Precepts is
to refrain from false speech. Buddhists need to advocate truthfulness, even
when this means challenging the status quo and a corrupt system that often
violates this demand. Political and bureaucratic reforms, laws guaranteeing a
free press, multiple political parties, and grass roots participation in
democracy are required to establish and maintain this precept at a structural
level. The fifth precept, to refrain from intoxication, is systematically
violated by the widespread drug trade. The smuggling of drugs from Thailand has
contributed to the worldwide drug problems, and this must be stopped. In
general, if a Buddhist social ethics is to have any significant meaning for
contemporary society, Buddhists must reexamine the Five Precepts not just at a
personal but also at the structural level.
Toward Buddhist
Social Liberation
The mind is not an independent entity; human beings also
have bodies. Where the body is, the mind is; they are mutually dependent.
Without the mind, the body is not different from other nonliving things;
without the body, the mind cannot exist. Physical activities affect the
development and quality of the mind. At the same time, the quality of the mind
also affects the well-being of the physical body. We are not born in a vacuum
but in a society and a culture. Our life is affected by the quality of food,
health care, and the physical environment, as well as one's social, cultural,
economic, and political environment. We do not live alone, but in a network of
complex social relationships. These truisms bear repeating because many
Buddhists believe that they can automatically overcome socio-political problems
through inner liberation from psychological suffering. Such a conception of
Buddhism lacks a structural perspective from which to address social, economic,
and political problems of the modern world.
Such an individualistic attitude might work for a hermit
who renounces the world. But most Buddhists are not hermits; they live in a
complex, interconnected world. Indeed, today even a hermit cannot avoid this
complex nexus. The Thai Buddhist sangha has been controlled by the government
since the 19th century. Buddhist monks all over Thailand eat their daily food given
them by Thai people, the majority of whom are poor and oppressed, whose sons
become poorly paid laborers in construction and factories, and whose daughters
are exploited laborers or even prostitutes. Under such circumstances, how can
Buddhists avoid their social responsibility?
From a Buddhist social ethical perspective, the solution
of Thailand's
structural problems is threefold. First, Buddhist base communities all over Thailand should
be linked, forming a grass-roots movement to combat social injustice and
environmental destruction. Their more self-sustaining economy and relatively
decentralized polity can serve as models for a better society.
Second, Buddhist intellectuals and social workers at all
levels should learn more from the oppressed. By listening to the poor, they can
contribute to Thailand's
broad-based reform, helping raise people's consciousness in regard to
structural problems, organizing all those conscious of existing structural
injustice -- the underprivileged, the middle class, as well as the
intellectuals -- and fostering a determination to work for meaningful change.
Third, a more just society could be obtained on the
national level by pushing for political reforms advocated by the Buddhist
thinker Praves Wasi.[24] The newly won constitution, which includes a reformed
democratic process with a structural check and balance of power --including
elections, government administration, parliament and the judicial system -- is
a first step toward structural change in politics. The Thai bureaucracy, now
the biggest obstacle to social and political reforms in our country, needs restructuring
in order to become more efficient and decentralized. All those who advocate Buddhist
social ethics must continue to work for the political, economic, and social
reform and structural change at the national level. By supporting the
grass-root movements of Buddhist base communities and a broad-based
consciousness-raising process, they can help build a more just society.
As a major world religion, Buddhism deals with the issues
of human suffering and liberation from those sufferings. There are, however,
two main types of human suffering: psychological and socio-political. Buddhism provides
a unique psychological treatment of the problem of human inner suffering
through meditation. Liberation (nibbana or nirvana) in Buddhism is basically
the liberation from this psychological suffering. As Leonard Swidler puts it,
Buddhism uses the language "from below" or "from within," whereas
religions with God-centered orientations like Christianity use the language
"from above" or "from without."[25] From this perspective, Buddhist
language and concepts are closer to those of modern critical thinkers. Or as
Antony Fernando puts it, the way the Buddha dealt with his disciples is similar
to the way a psychotherapist deals with his patients in a clinic.[26]
Buddhism seems to lack a precise theory and praxis to
address the concrete issues of contemporary socio-political suffering and its
liberation. Traditional Buddhism provides guidelines for personal moral conduct
such as self-restraint, patience, zeal, compassion, generosity, and
mindfulness, but these moral concepts need to be reinterpreted in modern context
and integrated into a social ethical theory. Buddhadasa's theory of dhammic socialism
tends to be too utopian and abstract. Although his theory addresses the issue
of "surplus" in a manner similar to Marx's "surplus value,"
it still needs interpretation and clarification as a social praxis. A
comprehensive perspective on socio-political suffering and its liberation from
the existing exploitative system under global capitalism, a consciousness-raising
process in regard to socio-political suffering and its struct the emergence of
Buddhist base communities struggling for social justice in solidarity with the
poor and oppressed are steps toward the construction of a Buddhist social
ethics.
Notes
1. Matichon Weekly (Bangkok: Matichon Co. Ltd., 1996),
April 9, 1996, 36.
2. For more details about prostitution in Thailand,
see Pamela S. DaGrossa, "Kamphaengdin: A Study of Prostitution in the
All-Thai Brothels of Chiang Mai City," in Grant A. Olson, Crossroads 4,
no. 2 (DeKalb: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois
University, 1989), 1-7.
3. Donald K. Swearer, "Dhammic Socialism," in
Bhikkhu Buddhadasa, Dhammic Socialism, 23.
4. Young women make up about 80 percent of Thailand's
low-wage factory workforce. The fire on May 10, 1993, at Kader Industrial (Thailand) Co. Ltd., a factory in the
Phutthamonthon area fifteen miles west of Bangkok, which killed at least 213
and injured 500 workers- most of them young women-- revealed what the working
conditions and safety standards in factories are like for most rural women. The
blaze may have been the deadliest factory fire in history, surpassing the 146
killed on March 25, 1911, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Factory in New York City. See Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 12, 1993.
5. For more details about the AIDS crisis in Thailand, see Mark A. Bonacci, Senseless
Casualties: The AIDS Crisis in Asia
(Washington, D.C.: Asia Resource Center, 1992).
6. For a Thai feminist view of prostitution, see
Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, Thai Women in Buddhism (Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax
Press, 1991).
7. Sulak Sivaraksa, Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for
Renewing Society, ed. Tom Ginsburg, foreword by H. H. The Dalai Lama, preface
by Thich Nhat Hanh (Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax Press, 1992), 3-9.
8. I have refrained from defining "Buddhist base
community" in the hope that this concept, which conveys the notion of a
community of study and praxis, will be more adequately explicated by the
examples in this section. The term itself is obviously adapted from the concept
of Christian base communities in Latin America.
9. See Sanitsuda Ekachai, Behind the Smile: Voices of Thailand
(Bangkok: The Post Publishing Co. Ltd., 1991), 65-69
10. Sulak Sivaraksa, Seeds of Peace, 50.
11. Seri Phongphit, Religion in a Changing Society (Hong
Kong: Arena Press, 1988), 48.
12. Ibid., 51-52.
13. In Thai Buddhism there is a tradition that if a monk
feels he no longer is fit to live a monastic life for any reason, he can
disrobe and become an ordinary man. The status of monkhood does not follow him
after he disrobes.
14. In the past, Buddhist monks in Thailand who
were arrested by the police were forced first to disrobe before being put in
jail. Most of them wore white robes to defend themselves and their status.
15. Aphichai Phanthasen, "The Monk Is Still Destroyed,
the Forest Is Still Raped," in Sayamrat
Weekly, 40th Year, 37th Issue, February 13-19, 1994, 36-37.
16. See Phra Prachak Khuttacitto, "Luangpoh Prachak
Khuttacitto: Conservation Monk Whose Determination Has Never Changed," in Krungthep-Thurakit,
January 22, 1994.
17. Phanthasen, "The Monk Is Still
Destroyed...," in Sayamrat Weekly, 38-39.
18. Kasetra means agriculture. Thus, Buddha-Kasetra
literally means "the Buddha's way of agriculture for
self-sufficiency."
19. The data in this section are based on my visit to the
Buddha-Kasetra communities and my interviews with people there.
20. The data in this section are based on my visit to the
Thamkaenchan community and my interviews with the people there. Also see
Thamkaenchan Ashrama, Thamkaenchan
Education Center,
1-15.
21. James Halloran, "Counter-Witness on the River
Kwai," a paper circulated among friends, 7-8.
22. Buddhadasa portrays the ideal leader of a dhammic
socialist state as dhammartija, a leader with the ten royal virtues
(dasarajadhamma). He argues that "dictatorial" (Thai: phadetkan) --
meaning to handle things expeditiously by moral people -- is a proper exercise
of virtue and wisdom to end the hatred and turmoil and to lead society to peace
and justice. Buddhadasa makes the distinction between a "capitalist"
(Thai: naithun) in the Western sense and a "wealthy person"
(Sanskrit: sresthi) in the Buddhist sense. For him, a capitalist is one who
keeps accumulating material wealth far beyond what he or she actually needs. A
sresthi, on the other hand, is a wealthy person who uses his or her accumulated
wealth to build a rong-than (almshouse) for the sake of social welfare. A
rong-than was an almshouse or a communal place where the poor could come and
receive what they lacked materially. The status of sresthi was measured by the number
of their rong-than. If they had no almshouses they could not be called sresthi.
The more rong-than one had, the wealthier one was considered to be.
23. In the Theravada Buddhist tradition, it is very common
to list these three defilements together when describing the condition of the
common man or woman.
24. Praves Wasi was the chairman of the Committee of
Democratic Development that set the agendas for political reform supported by
Thai intellectuals and the middle class. For more details, see The Committee of
Democratic Development, The Political Reform of Thailand (Bangkok: Thailand Research Fund, 1995).
25. For more details on interreligious dialogue, see
Leonard Swidler, After the Absolute: The Dialogical Future of Religious
Reflection (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).
26. See Antony
Fernando, with Leonard Swidler, Buddhism Made Plain: An Introduction for
Christians and Jews (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1986).
Cross Currents, Vol.
48 No. 3 Fall 1998, Pp.347-365
Copyright by Cross
Currents