Buddhist Monk And Skin Colour

[tom yum goong]

Many of the younger people in saffron robes are not monks by conviction but by necessity, so it is not all that easy for abbots and senior monks to stop them from breaking the rules.

Imagine yourself going through puberty in saffron robes and living by the quite strict rules required by monastic discipline. How well would you have managed?

I saw quite a few monks who weren't teenagers anymore, but (probably) had been monks for many years - shopping at Big C and 7-Eleven, travelling by taxi, etc. etc.

We are getting way off topic now but i have to agree. Buddhism in Thailand is no longer what i thought Buddhism was supposed to be about. Superstition, materialism and corruption are everywhere. The Sangha is a joke and is run like a cartel (although that isn't a recent development). Temple donations don't go towards good works but to build bigger and more opulent buildings and statues, while the poor and sick can get stuffed. Its their karma after all, i guess.

However, the same can be said of any organised religion. Thank god i was born an atheist

[lilBob]

Going on from what Meadish wrote, that is the kinda though, what the Dhammakaya sect would teach. They also teach their disciples that during World War 2, it was only through the meditation powers of their monks that America nuked Hiroshima instead of Bangkok. And not forgetting, their nuns were witnessed levitating in the sky while the bombs dropped around Wat Dhammakaya. As for their founder 'Luang Phor Pak Nam', he is the Thai equivalent to the miracle man fraud of India 'Sai Baba'.

Again though, further to what Meadish wrote, this kind of belief is more of a fringe sect belief than mainstream Thai Buddhism. Same kinda crap you'll find in Christian sects.

While i wont disagree that Dhammakaya teaches a load of weird nonsense, i'm pretty sure that the belief of skin colour from karma is not restricted to that sect, if it can be attributed to them at all.

Buddhism (in Thailand) teaches that you are rewarded in this life for the merit you made in your past life, or punished for your misdeeds. If that is a given, then the fact that you are born poor, disabled or ugly can be attributed to your bad karma. Is it so hard to believe that many Thais, with their constant obsession with skin color, would believe that undesirable dark skin is also due to karma?

I'm even more sad to say that there are definitely a lot weirder beliefs than this that are quite mainstream in Thailand.

This may be a misquote from the Bible "reap what ye shall sow" or have you ever heard the saying "what goes around comes around" The mention of skin colour was unfortunate

Christians and Islamist had and still have wierder beliefs remenber the Spanish Inquisition and Islamists (some) believe we all deserve to die."judge ye not lest ye shall be judged"

I had a conversation with a Hindu whilst in India and he told me all politicians would be reincarnated as dogs (I kinda liked that) I am a completely non religious person but each to their own.

[howtoescape]

I was busy flicking through the channels Tuesday night but hasten to say that i didn't find any program with a monk preaching such a thing.

In fact, no monk ever did say such a thing on prime time TV on Tuesday 9-10.

In fact, it is just the kinda thing a Farang would make up, and he obviously did.

What was the point in making up this nonsense thread? Were you just trying to stir even more animosity?

Seems you should have studied at monk school a little harder.

[garro]

I was a bit reluctant about posting on this subject but it decided to say my piece anyway.

My Buddhist beliefs are important to me; as I know they likely are for quite a few people on this forum.

The same as the beliefs of Christians, Muslims, Jews ,Atheists and others are important to them here too.

I have been a Buddhist since my early teens but wouldn't claim to be in any way an expert.

This is just my view so feel free to ignore it.

I think that their is a lot of misunderstandings on this thread so far.

A lot of this likely comes from judging Buddhism through Western eyes.

The first thing is the view that Kamma is about punishment, it isn't.

Most Buddhist's believe that it is just a natural law, just like gravity, and so is value free.

To say that one skin colour is better than another wouldn't make any sense to my understanding of the Buddhist path.

To say that actions in the past led to unfavourable conditons for you in the present would make sense.

Monks do sometimes say silly things or say them in a way that could be easily misunderstood.

Edited November 22, 2007 by garro

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

Completely off-topic but HAVE to mention this - i am amazed each time i go to Panthip and see MONKS shopping for PORN VCD's! And yes, i see them every time i go there......... and they seem to buy LOTS of that stuff.

Best regards.....

Thanh

[mark henry]

My understanding of the dark skin issue is that it's related to your occupation, if your working on the land (and there for poor) ect then your likely to have darker skin and i think thats how it relates to Buddhisim/Karma?

My Thai wife is also hung-up on skin colour and looks down a bit on darker skin Thai's and black folks.

[Scott]

I don't agree with it, but there is a weird logic to it. Dark skinned people are often (and in the past were definitely) treated more poorly than races with lighter skin. Thus the connection with Karma that isn't good. Now, however, throughout the world, this is changing, with many dark skinned people attain fame, prestige etc. So the logic falters as societies change.

It might be better if the 'laws of Karma' were less fickle and didn't rely on the whims of societial discretion.

[bonviveur]

This does not surprise me at all, most religions at one time or another thought black or darker skin folks were inferior, punishment for something or someone have done in the past. How do you think they went and got all these people from Africa and brought them to America as slave.

I don't buy in to this but there are people who still think when people say things like, black magic, it was a dark day for ..., a dark heart and on as being prejudice. They even call the Monday Wall Street crashed some years pass as black Monday as, these are funny to me when I hear people say these things

As recently as the early sixties the mormon church had it in there books that darker skin people were not the children of ... they had a vision in the mid sixties that told them it was not so, mostly the rise of the civil rights so they have change their views since.

I just finish a nice book Called God IS Not Great (How Religion Poison Everything). Religion has and will always look like or mirror who is in power as a matter of survival, as long a regime does not prevent from preaching a religion will never oppose them.

[Payboy]

Hi

Completely off-topic but HAVE to mention this - i am amazed each time i go to Panthip and see MONKS shopping for PORN VCD's! And yes, i see them every time i go there......... and they seem to buy LOTS of that stuff.

Best regards.....

Thanh

they're just helping take them off the market ....

[camerata]

To say that actions in the past led to unfavourable conditons for you in the present would make sense.

Yes. There are some specific effects of karma discussed by the Buddha in the Pali Canon. For example, being generous leads to wealth in a future life, and being cruel leads to ill health. I'm sure there is nothing about skin pigmentation. This is just a Thai extrapolating from his own parochial perspective, i.e. dark skin is associated with ugly, poor people in Thailand so those who have it must have done something bad in a previous life.

The irony is that many of the Thai aristocracy - those without any Chinese blood - have brown skin because they originated from the central plains or former princedoms in the provinces.

[rixalex]

Hi

Completely off-topic but HAVE to mention this - i am amazed each time i go to Panthip and see MONKS shopping for PORN VCD's! And yes, i see them every time i go there......... and they seem to buy LOTS of that stuff.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Are acts of self-gratification not permitted? One would have thought that yankee-ing the doodle would be enforced daily, so as to ward off unwanted carnal desires.

[camerata]

Are acts of self-gratification not permitted? One would have thought that yankee-ing the doodle would be enforced daily, so as to ward off unwanted carnal desires.

The point of being a monk is to cultivate the mind so that one becomes free of desires. So indulging in carnal desires to ward them off wouldn't make much sense. Masturbation is a violation of the monastic code.

[rixalex]

The point of being a monk is to cultivate the mind so that one becomes free of desires.

All sounds like mumbo jumbo to a cynic like me. But what do i know?

[IMA_FARANG]

Whilst watching a Buddhist monk on TV last night, i was surprised to hear the views/preachings he offered about skin colour.

He said that people with lighter skin were good in their previous life, hence why they were blessed with fair skin, he then went onto say that people in this life who are prejudice or rude toward darker skin people will thus come back with darker skin in their next life. Hence it would appear that he views dark skin as some kind of punishment.

He did mention climate as a factor in this, but was very vague about these factors, what he was saying would most certainly give someone with dark skin a inferiority complex, is this really the line that gets preached or was this guy a one off?

Maybe he is sponsored to spout this drivel by one of them whitening skin companies.

I don't think he would represent the majority of Thai Buddhist monks in his thinking. I wouldn't pay much attention to his nonsense. Most buddhists would be more concerned with their own actions (as in meeting a personal spiritual/moral standard) than in being critical of the actions of others

[Kna]

Well, if it comes from DMC then I suggest you ignore all those bogus. By the current Sanharaja's (Supreme Patriach) decree their abbot aren't monk anymore (there were four in fact, Sanharaja send one after another but they're all ignore by DMC's abbot) what's more DMC didn't teach Dhamma in the way it should be. They twisted in around for their own gain, for example.... Nervana is atta. and for all those incorrect teaching it eventualy made the Sanharaja discommunicated the DMC from Songha (not doing Pattimokha together and so on so on...)

Now I guess you wonder why DMC still live 'till these day. Well, it's because their tie to the political power like TRT or Mr.T and the gang if you prefer. and with those discommunicated and stuff it makes Mr.T's governer want to reduce the power of the current Supreme Patriach so they made up the story of the current Supreme Patriach's health has worsen and can't do the job anymore and then they made Somdet Kiaw, The acting Supreme Patriarch who has strong tie with him and DMC too. (a little fact : the only person who has the right to appoint those titles to someone are HMS only but Mr.T did it anyway, I might add) politic politic....... and thus DMC lives on....

The only thing DMC's good at is their marketing. anyone who want to learn about MLM should study from DMC, lol.

They use merit as a merchandise and well... it works.... btw did you know they even teach that Thailand has survive the WWII because of them. They said the USA was gonna drop fatman and littleboy on Thailand but because of the power of DMC master and mae chee, they send the bombs away off Thailand and those bomb went from Thailand to Japan because the Jap has so much sin.

There's more but since it's abit off topic so I guess that's enough for DMC.. for now.

about the skin colour, I see nothing in bali canon saying white skin are superior or any of that nonsense. but they said the fair skin, hair face blah blah blah.... you have in the life it is because you made a good merit in your last life. The key word is 'fair skin', you can have fair skin even when your skin are black, yellow, brown, red..... though I know that Thais think white skill is the best. so they might say they has white skill because they made a lot of merit in their last life.

btw sorry about my english, it's not good. I know. and beside I'm not good about those techical term in english so please bear with me