OldSarge

Odd that you should choose a hotel as a case.

A few years back a letter was published in the BKK Post in which a Thai graduate of a European University described his experiences as an employee of one of the very well known top end BKK Hotels.

He described how he had been appointed in a lower post than a fellow graduate of his university (Same class), despite he himself having graduated with the University’s award for best student on the course, despite having received the top grade and despite the other student who was employed in a senior position (and rising) having barely passed the course.

A few days later the personnel manager of the hotel replied. What he said was telling. They noted the qualifications of the letter writer during his interview, but also noted that he was from a poor background and were not able to reconcile his background with having attended one of the most prestigious universities in Europe. He went on to say, that while the other candidate had lower grades there was no doubt over his access to the university.

But it did not end there.

A few days later, the director of the NGO that had sponsored the poor student to attend the university wrote to outline the history of the student. He had been spotted as an extremely bright student by a teacher working for the NGO at the student’s up-country school. The NGO had provided the student with a scholarship, including language training and sent him to sit the university entrance exams. He passed entry and later graduated as the top student, reaffirming their faith in his abilities.

There, then, it would seem is your answer.

I am having a hard time understanding how it explains it too. What happened after the director of the NGO wrote the hotel?

Why absolutely nothing happened. That is the "punch line", the explanation. Even though the young man actually had genuine credentials and had done better at university than the young man from a background more consistent with "...having attended one of the most prestigious universities in Europe", the young man from the "hi-so" background got the better job. Why? His social standing was more important to the employer than was his university academic standing. The answer is implicit in the hotel personnel manager's reply making reference to the poorer young man's background.

In the "for what it's worth" category, I was denied admittance to the U.S. Military Academy Prep School - a long time ago, I admit - on substantially the same criteria: social class. I mention that to address in advance the tendency of non-Thais to judge Thai practices harshly, without realizing or perhaps knowing that nearly identical practices were common in America within living memory(and probably still are in most of Europe).

I have enough difficulty trying to figure out what all of the terms refer to, without being challenged to post the correct English transliteration of a Thai transliteration of a Pali word used as a "word of art" in the Dhamma.

My nickname is OldSarge and I haven't been posting here for quite a while. Since the old boards, if I remember correctly. Still haven't made it to Thailand, yet, but since I'm being retired for age from the Army Reserve in January, I may make it yet!

sabaijai: Precisely and concisely. Well-said!

I believe the article is referring to Henry Steele Olcott and his Buddhism revival in Sri Lanka. Excerpt:

"The most Protestant of all early “Protestant Buddhists,” Olcott was a culture broker with one foot planted in traditional Sinhalese Buddhism and the other in liberal American Protestantism. By creatively combining these two sources, along with other influences such as theosophy, academic Orientalism, and metropolitan gentility, he helped to craft a new form of Buddhism that thrives today not only in Sri Lanka but also in the United States."

I apologize for not writing more clearly. I did not mean to say or imply that the characterization of Buddhism as a religion of protesters was your imagination or that it had not been so characterized in history, but that it was applied to it by Westerners rather than being a perception of Oriental Hindus or Buddhist. Further, that neither early Buddhists nor their Hindu neighbors considered them to be "protestants" in the sense that Mr. Olcott's writings made Buddhism out to be and that it was Westerners who applied that label or characterization to Buddism, rather than Buddhists of an earlier age.

There may very well be some truth to the characterization and it is entirely possible that modern Asian Buddhists might agree with it. However, unlike Christian Protestantism which was self-consciously a "protest", Buddhism was simply another path to salvation, according the Oriental definitions of salvation, not intentionally a protest or cry for rectification of the religions contemporary with the Buddha's lifetime. And that last was my point, albeit clumsily written.

camerata: While his rationalism may have been a response to exposure to Western thought both in religion and science, Rama IV's life seems to me to have been a demonstration of his personal intellect and rationalism. One does not spend half a lifetime learning six or eight languages and a number of utterly foreign scientific disciplines unless one is a rationalist, at least in part. And the reforms of the Sangha in the Fourth Reign were precisely rationist trimming of some of the worst of the cultural accretions of superstitious practice upon the Dharma, as well as restoring the primacy of the Rules for the Sangha over corrupt practices and customs which had taken hold since the sack of Ayuthaya.

One of the unfortunate aspects of Western scholarship is the (nearly always unconscious) belief that many things of importance which occured in non-Western cultures after contact with the West were caused by the influence of Western thought, culture or religion. In some cases, there is evidence to support this belief; in many there is not. That belief colors most if not all of the writings of academics and learned amateurs from the 19th and 20th Centuries and is that explanation of the changes is usually the first theory advanced in academic writings to explain them. That the contact influenced all the other cultures is undeniable; that it was the primary cause seems to me to be unlikely in all instances. In this case, I believe the balance of the historical evidence is that Rama IV was an exceptional man who caused exceptional changes in his nation, intentionally for the purposes of protecting it from foreign dominance and occupation, as well as improving the lot of his people. In addition, Thailand in the Fourth Reign was undergoing a transition from a more fragmented feudal state into a centralised one and the changes in the kingdom enhanced the roayl authority. That process continued, as a matter of deliberate policy, in the Fifth Reign as well. So, my claim is that it was motivated largely by a pious man's desire to purify his religion, to protect his people, and to improve his own position within the political system of the kingdom. Not primarily in response to Western influences, although very likely in response to a perceived threat of conquest by Western nations.

As incredible as it may seem to us, as Westerners, the words of the traditional Sukothai coronation ceremony which are still a part of the modern Thai coronation - "To rule in righteousness for the good of the Siamese people" - was taken quite literally by Thailand's kings, the present Reign included.

OldSarge, welcome to the Buddhism branch of ThaiVisa.com. Question: where did you obtain the spelling 'nirbana'? I've only come across nirvana (Sanskrit) and nibbana (Pali). A quick Google for 'nirbana' finds it used only as a place name or personal name.

I am only transliterating what I hear. The sounds I hear when a Thai monk gives a sermon or when they chant using that word, I spell in English as "nirbana". Perhaps my ear is not as perceptive as it ought to be. Perhaps it is my mind that interprets it wrongly.

In Thailand it seems that the fear of colonialism resulted in the emphasis on scholarship over meditation and enlightenment in the late 19th and early 20th century.

As much as I dislike having to disagree, I have to say that I don't believe that statement is true either. The emphasis on scholarship over meditation arose historically during the reign of Rama III. His older brother who one would have thought the heir was passed over because the younger brother had been active in the government and army. That older brother became a Buddhist monk for the next 26 years and in the course of that time learned to speak, read and write English, German, French, Dutch, Latin and a couple other language I have forgotten. Oh, Japanese and Chinese. When Rama III passed away, this brother was crowned and took the throne as Rama IV, also known as King Mongut. During the time he was a monk, because of his interest in scholarship and because the Thai Sangha was - to be polite - in a disreputable state, he advocated a reorganization, strengthening and purification of the Sangha in Thailand. When he became King, quite naturally he continued his rectification of what he saw as abuses and improper behavior, with considerable success. It is true that his reforms regarding the literacy of monks and the study of the Triple Baskets as written scriptures was widely regarded in the West as being evidence of the cultured and civilized character of the "Siamese" people and nobility, it wasn't - in my opinion - a fear of colonialism which motivated Rama IV's reforms and emphasis upon the study and scholarship regarding the Buddhist scriptures. Rather it was his piously conceived desire to remedy what he saw while he was a monk as being improper behavior within the Sangha and his ability to effectuate those changes once he ascended to the throne.

Upon Rama V's taking the throne, those trends within the Sangha continued of their own momentum and continuing royal sponsorship of the "new" order of monks that had been initiated by Rama IV, as well as a modernization of the kingdom. That modernization was intentional and the intention was two-fold: to improve the conditions of the people and to fend off Britain and France. The emphasis upon the study of the written Dharma and the attendant scholarship has continued to be encouraged by successive monarchs. So, it is only natural that it would seem that it has supplanted the "meditation and enlightenment" method previous dominant. The "forest meditation" school of Thai Buddhism is alive and well. See, e.g., Forest Dhamma of Phramaha Boowa and The Mode of Practice of Venerable Ajarn Mun. (These are English translations, just in case you begin to think too much of my scholarship.)

Any idea why, when the Buddha and his senior disciples were about to die, they all meditated through the jhanas up to the highest level of meditative absorbtion, then back down to the first jhana and back up to the fourth? There must be a reason but it isn't explained in Great Disciples of the Buddha.

And a related question: Why did the Buddha and other arahants meditate? If they have already attained nibbana, do they need to meditate? After nibbana, I wonder if there is any objective to meditation - any more of reality to be discovered?

I believe the answer to the first question is simply that doing so is the completion of unbinding. That is to say, it is like a golf swing's follow-through. Is that a simplistic explanation? Well, yes, but it is my belief that is what is going on in those events.

As to the second, I suspect that it is because an understanding and knowledge of all of reality is not the object of meditation and so therefore I believe that there is more of "reality" to be discovered. The properly trained heart can enjoy more, which is not physically present around a person, in meditation.

Both simplistic answers, but if you look through the Theraveda tradition, you will find that the simple answers are preferred to more complex and "theological" answers.

There is considerably more and more explicit sexual depiction and description in the folklore of the East than there will ever be in the West. That includes religious imagery and folk tales etc which have accumulated around all of the religions of the East. See, for instance, the older version of the story H.M. the King graciously sponsored and translated into English just a few years ago. I have forgotten the name of it, but the older version was considerably "sexier" by Western standards than the more recent version. Read the Ramakien in various translations and pay close attention to the actions of Hanuman.

The West's cultural expressions have been considerably restricted as to sexual depictions both in words and pictures by the Christian element in our culture. Note that mention is seldom made of the "sexy" parts of the Christian Bible, but I refer you to the Song of Solomon and the tale of Lot, with particular attention to what happened after the destruction of the city of Sodom and his wife's being turned into a pillar of salt, just for two instances. Read earlier editions of the "Brothers Grimm" and "Mother Goose", etc, as well as the more traditional "fairy tales", those which were published prior to about 1890 give or take were considerably more blunt than the "bowlderised" editions of later years. Read Sir Richard Burton's "Arabian Nights" in the first edition. It has been largely within the last 120 years, in Europe and perhaps since the Great Revival in the 1830's, in the U.S. that those "sexy" parts of traditional tales and stories have been supressed as being "not healthy" or "dreadfully sinful" or something like that. And, of course, Christianity itself doesn't think well of sex, in general and that distaste on the part of the Roman Church's heirarchy shows over the centuries .. not in their own behavior except in the last 200 or so years, but in what they "allow" to the laity. And do remember what the Victorians - both in America and Britain - thought about sex: if we just ignore it, it will go away. Rather like late 20th Century Americans about war, eh?

So, in short, it is hardly surprising that such content is contained in stories in and around the Buddhist tradition; nearly every other religion in the world has them, apart from Islam and Christianity; and to be honest, I haven't read the Quran thoroughly so there may be what our British friends call "juicy bits" in there as well. And what those parts have to do with the stories is fairly simple: it is in part "realism" so that the readers will understand that the persons were in fact human and, in part, they are re-tellings of traditional morality tales complete with the "nasty stuff", as moderns might characterize it.

it was Westerners who created the rational protestant Buddhism of modern Sri Lanka and then mistook it for an indigenous Sri Lankan product, and so also did a Sri Lankan Buddhist spokesman, Dharmapala, sell this protestanized Buddhism back to West when he appeared at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893.

Any idea what form this protestant Buddhism took, i.e. was it something like what happened in Thailand around the turn of the century?

Historically, Buddhism was a "protest" against the Hindu religious dogmas revolving around caste, what Christian theology would call "predestination", and numerous other features and consequences of that body of religions we in the West call "Hindu religion". It was, if I recall correctly, labelled in this way by some Western academic (whose name or university I do not recall) who was consciously analogizing Buddhism to the Protestant religions which arose from Marth Luther's "protests" contained in the 95 Theses. This characterization is entirely the product of Western Academia and is, so far as I know, without foundation in the historical record.

Jenkins' title reveals why the phenomenon he describes exists and what causes it: "...Courses in Buddhist Studies". A similar course in any of the various Christian religions would likewise and from equal necessity (if conducted out of the culture context in which Christianity is embedded) suffer from the same or very similar difficulties in perceiving what the true object of such a course is: the religion or its cultural context. For an authority, if you need one, on this issue, I refer you to Mark Twain's short bit about the study of humor being rather like disection of a frog: the student learns something, but the frog dies. The point being - in case I am being rather too obscure - that the academic study of any subject which arises or arose in the context of a human culture and society necessarily lacks life and consequently lacks verity and completeness when it is studied in the academic manner. Particularly, I would add, in these days when everything under the sun is so highly politicized in the Western parts of the world.

Oh, and I apologize to the moderator or moderators for not mentioning pizza in my post.

The first precept is sometimes rendered into English this way:

"The first precept admonishes against the destruction of life. This is based on the principle of goodwill and respect for the right to life of all living beings."

One of the fundamental differences between Buddhism - as I understand the Dharma - and Christianity is this idea of sin, violation of the Commandments, violation of the Precepts. The point of the precepts is not the simple avoidance of those acts or acts like those in the precepts. The point is to restrain our behavior and - for lack of a more concise way to say it - refine our moral sense and compassion so that we are a person who would not violate the precepts. The Christian emphasis is upon each commission of sin or sin of ommision; each violation and the consequent need for repentance, for confession by some method or another, for punishment and for forgiveness by God or his represenative for the violation of his law. As I understand the Dharma, the emphasis is upon following the precepts to avoid the consequences to ourselves, both literally in life and in our rebirth via kamma, of violations of the precepts. There is no violation, no need for repentance etc, and of course, the subsequent re-commission, etc. Rather there is a lesson learned, a resolution, a self-restraint, which avoid our repetition. Followed by meditation to examine the connection between this restraint and our freedom from contamination, ultimately breaking the bonds tieing us to rebirth. Whether we are forgiven or not, our actions cause consequences; this is the law of cause and effect, the law of conditional origination, which is the foundation of the Dhamma. Refraining from the acts - as acts of intention - reduces the ill consequences. But intention is not a requirement for causation.

Observe that in the very act of living, our bodies' natural immune systems and all that create the necessary and sufficient conditions for our physical existences, whether we will or intend it to happen or not, kills millions of living things, so that we may continue to live. If nirbana requires that we kill nothing ever, then we are all doomed - are we not? - by the very character and nature of our means of living, literally. Plainly, that is not what the Dhamma means. The precepts therefore, I take to be guides to creating a habit within our hearts of self-restraint, so that we may learn and train our hearts further to our own eventual freedom. It is not possible to never violate the precepts; that isn't what the Dhamma is about.

I do not answer this way to make fun of your question, but to express the opinion that you ask the wrong question, as a Buddhist who intends to adhere to the precepts. And to explain why that is my opinion. Nor do I intend by my answer to insult those of our brothers and sisters who are Christian, but rather to explicate what I perceive to be an important difference between Christianity and Buddhism.

To desire to be or to become enlightened is a desire, which gives rise to attachment, thereby causing dukkha .... so, even considering one's progress would seem an impediment to achieving it, because the pursuit of nirbana becomes a desire.

Well put...this is a big difficulty. It takes desire for an outcome to motivate one to practice, and then that very desire becomes a hinderance.

The Buddhist Catch-22!

But it isn't a Catch-22 at all. That is the point of my post, replying to questions to the effect of "Who is enlightened?" "How can one determine if another is enlightened?", etc. If my understanding is correct, the entire notion of asking the question as to whether one or someone else is enlightened and who is more enlightened, etc, are forbidden by the Rules governing the Sangha precisely for that reason: to avoid that desire, to forstall that attachment, to avoid giving rise to that dukkha. It is not the desire for an outcome that should motivate one's practice and study, for exactly that reason. Rather term it a search for one's true essence, an investigation into the true nature of existence, a journey toward wisdom ... all of those euphemisms we all have heard and read are not merely cloaking the Dharma in mystery or making an enigma of it. Rather, they are for the expressed purpose of avoiding attachment to the desire for being unbound. It is the approach to insight meditation which avoids that desire. Remember that the three fundamental desires are expressed this way: the desire for sensations (both mental and physical), the desire that nothing change, and the desire that everything change. By using all the euphemisms and consciously examining oneself for the purposes set out in the Dharma alone, with carefully direction of the heart by satti-panna "...away from delusion and improper objects, restraining the heart from consideration of improper objects of meditation ...". A better explanation of my thought, I hope and thank you for assisting me in clarifying my own meaning to myself as well.

As I understand the Dhamma, in the Theraveda tradition, nirbana is also referred to as "unbinding"; releasing oneself from the "defilements" that bind us to the wheel of life. In that tradition, words and phrases and terms are often used for the purpose of evoking disgust within us toward whatever object of desire we are considering. Hence, the word, "defilement". One might as well say "chains" but the purpose served by the use of perjorative or disgusting terminology is to assist us in freeing ourselves. What else do you suppose is the purpose of meditation upon the reality of a corpse? There is, of course, the lesson of impermanence, but that seems to be secondary to the goal of evoking "disgust" as a emotional reaction in the student, toward things which are ordinarily attractive.

It seems to me to be a journey, rather than a competition. There is no "prize" for "achieving" "enlightenment" first or fortieth or ... you see what I'm trying to say? If I recall correctly, the prohibition on remarking on one's state of ... whatever, is in the rules for the Sangha. Forgive me, but I've forgotten the Pali word for that basket. To desire to be or to become enlightened is a desire, which gives rise to attachment, thereby causing dukkha .... so, even considering one's progress would seem an impediment to achieving it, because the pursuit of nirbana becomes a desire.

"Who sees the Dharma sees the Buddha." and by implication, all of them, were we to take that sentence literally. But I do not believe it is intended literally. "Seeing the Dharma" is to experience the insight, the revelation, the "unbinding"; thereby experiencing the Buddha event and there "...seeing the Budhha". One of the central tenets of the Theraveda tradition is that the path is traveled via meditation, not by intellectual contemplation of the Dharma.

Am I wrong? Am I right? Am I ....? I don't know. This is what I believe to be the Dharma. So it is time to end this speaking of mine.

I have been married to a Thai woman for going on 40 years now and we speak Thai at home and have for that entire period. I have tried, with her "teaching" to learn to read and write and, while I have some of the very very basic spelling rules and the alphabet down, I doubt that I could read to save my life. Let me repeat for you all what my Thai friends in outside of Thailand tell me, for whatever that may be worth.

I am told that my Thai is not especially badly pronounced - although I have an accent of course, unless I'm in a conversation for some time (ten minutes seems to warm up my brain I think), but I speak as an up-country farmer of my age (won't tell you; notice my handle ) who never attended school. Unfortunately, I have a tendancy to be too polite in everyday speech with close friends and have rather more of a expressed sense of humor in Thai than is considered quite proper for a man past his fifth-cycle birthday. All of which marks me, as illiterate; fluent, but illiterate, to my Thai friends. At least, to the ones who will express what appears to be an honest opinion.

So, I suspect that in order to speak Thai as if I were educated, I'll need to learn to read and write and, also, to read a number of commonly-read Thai books, magazines, newspapers, and some of the Thai "classics". That is to say, the Thai equivalent of Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, etc. Not all of them, just enough to catch the literary references!

That's my take on the "speaking without reading" question, based on my experience. Am I any of you? No, of course not: my abilities and liabilities with regard to learning and speaking Thai are uniquely my own, but I relate my experience to you in hopes of adding something to the discussion. Thanks!

Thank you, Fester, for taking my post in the spirit in which it was meant.

Rinrada:  That was the implicit message I was sending.  Poor Richard's Almanac (Benjamin Franklin):  "A fool and his money are soon parted."

P.S.  The owners of The Nation (or at least some of them) are exceedingly well-connected within the Kingdom and have a bit more license than, say, the writers at the "Wall Street Journal, Asia Edition", who were threatened with expulsion about a year ago.

Your most recent news article describing one of the more recent swindles practiced on the greedy and unwary in Thailand is entitled, "Welcome to my kingdom, foreign fools".  While I am certain the article is factually accurate, I am posting to mention that the Thai -- both the individuals and the government -- are extraordinarily sensitive to things that foreigners say or write which might be interpreted as being critical of the King.  This title falls into that category, in my opinion.  It could be interpreted as depicting His Majesty in a less than favorable way.

I enjoy the news and information at thaivisa.com and now with the forum there is even more to read and enjoy.  However, I cannot help but wonder if the difficulties experienced by some of those who have posted here (and, of course, those who only have the difficulties and don't post here) arise because of similar unintentional insults given to their Thai hosts?  Or if not begun by such a slip, at least made larger than the difficulty might otherwise have been.

I am, myself, an American by citizenship and birth.  However, I lived in Thailand for four years back in the late 1960's and early '70's, have been married to a Thai for 35 years, speak the language well enough not to need a "guide", and plan on retiring to the Kingdom next year.  I mention all that just so the reader will know that I have some basis for this post.