Bad Buddhists beget bad Buddhists

The salacious nature of the news surrounding the former monk Atichot Thanprasert all but ensures it will dominate coverage for days and weeks to come. But the issue of an esteemed Buddhist leader betraying all the values he represented in spectacular fashion and what that means for Thailand’s faithful is unlikely to be the core of the discussion — and that is the real problem.

The now-defrocked ex-abbot of the widely recognised Wat Phutthaisawan in Ayutthaya was taken into custody this past Thursday on accusations of embezzlement. Police also arrested a female aide who was caught engaging in a sinful sexual relationship with the monk and is now suspected of assisting in his alleged crimes, enriching herself in the process.

The case involves pornographic surveillance footage, a gross abuse of status and wealth, and likely hundreds of millions of baht in misappropriated funds — all the elements needed for engaged public interest.

That interest may extent into whether major temples in the country receive enough scrutiny, the modern temptations members of the Buddhist clergy in Thailand face, whether ill-intended typed have contaminated the religious institution, and maybe whether stories such as this are why the “younger generation” has turned its back on temples.

What is not often seen in the discourse following yet another of these very frequent scandals is whether a flaw in Thailand’s approach to Buddhism is enabling these sins and affronts to not only perpetuate, but seemingly grow in severity.

A quick search of headlines from just the past two to three years reveals numerous temple scandals featuring embezzlement, inappropriate carnal relations or some mix of the two.

This week’s revelations from Ayutthaya are already being compared to the case at Wat Phrabat Namphu in August last year. The diversion of donations at that temple in Lop Buri led to an estimated 10 billion baht in damages.

More relevant to the present case, perhaps, is the saga of Wilawan “Golf” Emsawat, widely referred to as Sika Golf.

She was arrested in July of last year as a central figure in a massive scandal involving comprising footage of multiple senior monks and close to 400 million baht that should have gone to religious activities.

In April of this year, the former abbot of Wat Bang Khlan in Phichit surrendered to answer allegations of corruption at his temple, misappropriating an estimated 9 million baht over an 11-year period.

Crisis of faith?

Even a casual follower of news here in Thailand would likely have concluded by now that offences such as these are a common occurrence. Many likely understand that the true number of such crimes is even greater, as only the most egregious ones come to public attention via the media.

Yet interestingly, where one might also expect a glut of articles and think pieces on some variation of the “crisis of faith” theme, there are surprisingly few.

It is easy enough to find writeups on how the newer generations in Thailand no longer engage in the ceremonies and rituals of their elders, or how Thailand in general is moving further away from its Buddhist morals, but these discussions focus more on whether modern life has undermined traditional values. The ones that do account for the impropriety talk about how the faithful need only look beyond the actions of individuals.

Just a day after the scandal involving Atichot broke, Tourism and Sports Minister Surasak Phancharoenworakul felt the need to remark that the news was not likely to dampen the sentiment of people travelling to Wat Phutthaisawan because visitors can “separate the actions of an individual from a temple’s importance”.

Very little has been said about whether it is the very practices of Thai Buddhists, their eagerness to donate and adorn the people and places they revere in gold and jewels, their need to see high-profile monks as infallible, their need to associate good karma with worldly success and riches, that has created the circumstances that breed these sins.

This line of debate is often seen when tackling disgraces in other religions such as Christianity or Islam, if members of those faiths can disengage from problematic practitioners without turning their back on their chosen beliefs altogether.

But the unique aspect of Buddhism, at least as far as this non-scholar has been taught, is that there are no rituals or practices that are a requirement of being a Buddhist.

The path to enlightenment and exit from the cycle of reincarnation is personal. It does not demand attendance at a religious site on a set schedule, it does not demand regular prayer, it does not demand tithing of any sort.

Rather conversely, it asks the devout to introspect, to question the sources of their desires and suffering, to question the reality that is presented around them and to adhere to a path that foregoes the trappings of the mortal world, which one would imagine includes opulent compounds and well-funded monastic organisations.

Look inward

Unlike other faiths that have an inherent need to reconcile their higher aspirations with the shortcomings of humanity, Buddhism provides a ready answer for when the fallibility of being mortal becomes an impasse: cast it off and continue introspection.

It would require more than this article to parse the basic teachings of Buddhism from Thailand’s own superstitions and spiritual practices, and likely require a level of debate that this writer concedes he would be poorly equipped to join.

But it can be said with certainty that Thai Buddhists have every ability to repair the state of the religion, if they would allow themselves the discomfort of a communal introspection into which of their practices lead to the scandals of Wat Rai Khing, Wat Phrabat Namphu, Wat Phutthaisawan, and so on.

The Buddha famously taught his followers to pose questions, to not even accept his teachings on blind faith. The embezzling of donations and amulet purchases, secret sexual rendezvous and the many other disheartening actions committed by men of the cloth in Thailand could be curbed considerably if self-identifying Buddhists simply engaged in the act of questioning.

We could start by asking why we should donate to organised groups and offices when our karma would be just as well served by a kind act, or better yet, by a denial of the temptation to seek personal betterment of any kind, for the sake of deeper insight into the noble truth.