OPINION:

Thai Buddhism in need of immediate, serious reform

 

BANGKOK: -- Religious flaws begin like tiny black stains on our shirt. The specks are small but the ugliness is creeping. Until, of course, the whole cloth is dyed black.

 

Yet whereas the dyed shirt can be “made right” once again, a thoroughly blackened religion is anything but. Everyone knows we shouldn’t paper over religious deficiencies, but the bad news is that we do it all the time.

 

Over the weekend, Thailand gained a new Supreme Patriarch. The respected and compassionate monk will oversee a Buddhist fabric spattered with black spots that are threatening to consume the whole garment. Reducing the size of the stains is no easy task, further complicated by the different measures of right and wrong in the clerical and the layman’s spheres. Most well-intensioned religious scholars, though, truly believe that the task is an urgent one that cannot be postponed further.

 

The biggest ecclesiastic “crimes”, according to the Buddha’s teachings, are mere everyday occurrences that most of us take for granted. As ordinary citizens, if we steal, the punishment may be a couple of years in jail. But if we claim supernatural powers of, say, being able to predict winning lottery numbers, nobody bothers. Lord Buddha, however, would make no such distinction, and banish any monk for either offence without a second thought.

 

Full story: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/opinion/tulsathit/30306339

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-02-15

Do not criticise the police, corrupt generals or government. The real problem is the monks with there knowledge of the lottery numbers.