Sulak Sivaraksa. 4

 

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CHAPTER 20 Seeking Alternatives

On December 8, 1995, I received the Right Livelihood Award in the Swedish Parliament. The award committee cited the judgment from my recent acquittal in which the court stated, "He warned the students not to live a luxurious, consumer lifestyle, not to worship being rich, not to admire people in power, and to be concerned about justice and righteousness." The Right Livelihood Award is widely considered the alternative Nobel Prize (an award I'd been twice nominated for but didn't win). I felt very privileged to receive the Right Livelihood Award on the same day the Japanese Buddhists celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment. In fact, "right livelihood" is itself a Buddhist term meaning a livelihood that is nonexploitative to oneself or others. A group of four Buddhist monks chanted in Pali at the ceremony—probably the first time there was Buddhist chanting in any Western parliament.

Alternatives to Consumerism

This award reflects my recent concern for developing an alternative to consumerism—the new, demonic religion. It reduces life to only one purpose—to acquire money in order to consume, to put it very crudely. This new religion is very powerful. Even the churches and temples are building more and larger buildings, and the monks are leading a more luxurious lifestyle. The media teaches people to be aggressive, offering violence, crime, and sex. People learn to look down on their own family and cultural heritage. We are urged to consume more, and this leads to the destruction of the environment.

My main work has always involved alternative development because I believe the present model of development is wrong. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the rich do not even become happier. I have come to see that alternative development will not work

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unless we tackle this core of consumerism. Of course, we cannot match their promoters with money or technology. But they dont have spiritual depth. That's why I created a project on Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim alternatives to consumerism. I feel that these three leading world religions should collaborate to wrestle with this issue.

I planned the Alternatives to Consumerism project ten years ago with Chandra Muzaffar, Uthai Dulyakasem Chaiwat Satha-anand, David Chappell, and George Willoughby. It was not funded back then, but just like anything I start, I kept pushing for it all these years. A small Swiss and French group called Foundation for the Progress of Humanity agreed to support us as part of their commitment to environmental balance and social justice. The Catholic Comité Contre la Famine et pour le Développement, also supports us, and we have the collaboration of quite a number of friends from the three religious traditions. The project tells the stories of simple, self-reliant, spiritual, and harmonious lifestyles that confront consumerism.

We bring people together in Asia, Europe, and America. It is a more or less practical forum to meet people. In 1997 we held a big "Alternatives to Consumerism" conference. We invited all kinds of people—Native, African, and European Americans; Europeans; Africans; and Asians. The whole gathering was about spiritual reflections. We need spiritual force for social justice and environmental balance. There are many people around the world seeking something beyond the usual development model or the usual intellectual approach. We are seeking something that reaches deep down into our common roots. We all need the earth, the water, the clouds, the sun. If our organizations can learn something spiritual, we will cultivate more love and less hatred. In fact, I think the world should concentrate on peace and the spiritual dimension of life throughout the next century. Although we have some differences, we can work with each other to do something for the benefit of all beings.

We have also been working on alternative media for the past few years, since the mainstream press and media promote violence, greed, and lust. Our friends Chee and Sok Nai from Malaysia are producing alternative images. The so-called primitive people in India; Christian communities such as L'Arche in France; and the Muslim Baan Krua in Bangkok and Luang Pho Nan in Northeast Siam are all struggling within their own religious traditions against consumerism, although they don't call it that. We hope to televise some of these struggles.

The Spirit in Education Movement (SEM)

At home in Siam I recently began the SEM. The idea for SEM arose out of the need to counter a mainstream education that promotes a compartmentalized, "head" learning. Education has become a means to a certificate or a job. It doesn't matter whether that job is a right livelihood or a wrong one. The only thing that matters is how much money you make. Education has lost its ethical dimension. SEM is based on Buddhist principles, encouraging teachers and students to learn from each other and the environment. We work to develop and strengthen meditation practices and artistic creativity. We must all find our inner strength and learn who we are in order to cultivate inner peace. Education, for us, is building friendships and having time for more than intellectual pursuits.

We try to integrate alternative politics and alternatives to consumerism into our courses. Our first course, Alternative Development from a Buddhist Perspective, ran for three weeks. It was open to everyone and was very successful. We had professors from Canada, Germany, and India, and maechi (nuns) and monks with almost no education. They all loved it. We do not limit ourselves to Thais and Buddhists. We have Quakers, Mennonites, and Maryknoll priests. We run courses for Cambodians, Sri Lankans, and Bangladeshis. We recently trained thirty Baptists from Burma. Most of our SEM courses are very small. They are intensive and allow deeper discussion. The subjects are all interrelated and non-compartmentalized. We do not address the usual issues taken up by academic institutions. Our courses always include meditation practice. We try to link the heart and the head.

We are developing dialogues with existing educational institutions and alternative thinkers and educators who believe in inner spirit and environmental balance. Some of these have included The Naropa Institute in America, Schumacher College in England, and the Institute of Total Revolution in India. I often teach at these places, and their teachers and students come to us. We hope to link with institutes in Japan and Taiwan. Mainstream educational institutions

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are also linking with us. They have asked us to teach courses for them. Some business groups have asked us to run courses on conflict resolution because they feel they lose too much time on infighting.

As part of our work, we have revived the Pajarayasara magazine started by Bibhob Dhongchai over twenty years ago. He started it to give voice to new ideas in education, but we focus now not only on alternative education but alternative economics, politics, and environmental issues. We have a related project focusing on alternative politics. The prevailing politics promotes hatred and violence. Most political regimes around the world, especially in Asia, are a heritage of the colonial past. I'm looking for alternatives. We Buddhists are working with like-minded people from different cultures and religions. Luckily, there are a lot of people thinking in these terms—Maurice Ash in England, Chandra Muzzafar in Malaysia, Helena Norberg-Hodge in Ladakh, Abdulrahman Wahid of Indonesia, Bishop Labayan and Walden Bello from the Philippines, and Satish Kumar of India, now living in England.

Lately we have been fighting the gas pipeline coming from Burma into my country: As the local people become aware, they want to fight for their own safety: Then, they want to fight to preserve the forest for their children and grandchildren. Finally, they realize that they are fighting not only for the local people in Kanchanaburi but for the entire country: the region, and even the world. They are concerned about the ethnic Burmese who have been deprived of basic human rights and forced to work without pay, for the villages that have been uprooted, and for child laborers. It's a fight for human dignity all over the world.

I only play a small part because ultimately people have to empower themselves. Perhaps I can help them by reminding them not to hate the oppressors. I speak with fellow Christians and Muslims, as well as Buddhists. I don't have the ability or network to destroy consumerism, globalization, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, or the International Monetary Fund. But if these things don't change to serve the people, they will destroy themselves. They have no moral legitimacy but only greed to drive them, and this will be their downfall. Meanwhile, I hope that the small people, with alternatives, can survive.

CH21 Reflections

These memoirs are being published for my sixty-fifth birthday. Sixty-five is old by Asian standards, where you're an old man by the age of sixty. The average life expectancy in Siam is fifty-seven for men. I feel I have lived eight surplus years already.

When I reflect on my life and my achievements, I see that I have managed to make many good friends. The Buddha said, "Good friends are the whole of the holy life." Good friends become your other self. They help you, encourage you, and are critical of you. For me, encountering new people and strengthening old friendships has been a wonderful part of life. I have many good friends who, like me, are critical of the mainstream, especially friends in the West. More people misunderstand me in my own country because I am a challenge to them, but I am gaining more Thai friends among the younger people.

Some people might ask if I am not wasting my time attending so many meetings and talking with so many people. We waste a lot of fuel flying to and from conferences. We eat junk food. Sometimes we use too much paper, wasting the trees. But I want to expand my work to include more people who think alternatively: We must come together to speak out. The more you talk with people in power, the more chance that they will eventually listen. Eventually they will be fair. We can make good friends and listen to each other. When I go to talk with the Archbishop of Canterbury or the president of the World Bank, I don't think they can change things overnight. But it is always good to talk. It is a sign that they are ready to listen. That kind of exchange is essential. Sometimes you can change things for the better. That is why I develop and maintain my international connections.

One of my contributions to this process is that I can bring the best from the various traditions. I recognize that my people are not really just the Thais. My ancestors came from China. We are in debt to

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the Indians and to the Sri Lankans for our Buddhism. I try to look profoundly into my own cultures with all their positive and negative elements and to bring them into the modern world. My aspiration is to help my people discover their roots—our spiritual and cultural heritage. Our most fundamental starting place for this project is the breath. There is no denying that this is one thing we all share. If we can begin here, many beautiful things will grow. With breathing, 1 feel we can even overcome consumerism. "I breathe therefore I am" means that everyone is important, not only human beings but animals, trees, rivers, the land.

In the Buddhist tradition, development toward happiness is an important aspect. We develop towards bringing our body and mind into harmony with our heart, with our environment, with society. This is not development at the expense of the environment or of the poor. It means development in a useful fashion. This past July we had an economic crisis, and the value of our currency dropped drastically. Many people were unhappy. They didn't realize it is all an hallucination. Even the dollar might become scratch paper within a few decades. So why worry? Our ancestors existed on fish, rice, water, the fields, and the trees. These are our roots. We should look to the poor, to the people who are self-reliant. Why concentrate on money?

The West cut off its roots the year that Columbus claimed to have discovered America. Of course, people had already been there for hundreds of years, living with their own local wisdom. But when the West claimed superiority, they began to look forward without ever looking back I am very critical of the mainstream Western approach—technology, capitalism, consumerism. Even so, I learned a great deal from my Western education. I am indebted to writers of Western literature for their social commitment and analysis of society. My tradition alone would have made me very conservative, even as an engaged Buddhist. English writers really helped me to become concerned about the poor. While our Buddhist roots are very important, these roots must spring into contemporary society. In much of our forest tradition in this country, there are wonderful monks. However, they have no idea about social justice. They don't know that the forests are being destroyed. I think the West has that awareness of social justice.

But ultimately, for me, Buddhism has always come first. We Buddhists must not only become aware of unjust social structures. We must try to eliminate or overcome them with awareness and nonviolence. We must be mindful. We must see suffering with understanding, and with that understanding, perhaps we can be skillful in doing something. Just this past New Year's Eve several of us were on our way to a party at my in-laws' house. On the way, the car spun out of control and went straight into a ditch. Fortunately, no one was hurt. As we were waiting for a truck to come haul our car out, a neighbor came out of her house and told us this is called "death corner." The tow truck driver was amazed that no one was hurt and wanted to know if I had a special amulet. I said, "Yes, I have the Buddha. The Buddha kept me alive. If you know the Buddha, you have mindfulness, you have peace." This is the message I am always sharing with others. I guess it's not time for me to stop yet.

APPENDIX

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

39

Accepta1nce Speech for the Right LivelihoodAward

December 8, 1995

I feel very privileged to be here at the Swedish Parliament to receive the Right Livelihood Award—especially today. Everyone knows that the awards are widely considered the Alternative Nobel Prizes.

What everyone may not know is that December 8, according to some traditions, is Buddha's enlightenment day—the day an ordinary human

being awoke from attachment to greed, hatred, and delusion to become fully enlightened and compassionate. Selfishness was transformed into selflessness and intellectual arrogance into a real understanding of the self and the world—the kind of real understanding necessarily accompanied by loving kindness toward all sentient beings.

Right Livelihood itself is a Buddhist term, a key element in the Noble Eightfold Path, or Middle Way, the Buddha taught as a way

for all of us to transcend greed, hatred, and delusion—or at least to

lessen them. The stages on the Path are Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right

Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Right Livelihood means a

livelihood which is nonexploitative to the self or others, and, as a Buddhist, I am happy to be recognized as one who tries to lead this

kind of life. In my own country I am usually known as a troublemaker or rabble-rouser, one who challenges the economic and technological "development" destined to make Siam the fifth "Tiger" among the newly industrialized countries modeled after Japan. This "Gang of Four" already includes Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

This model of development has no ethical or spiritual dimension, and its technological advances involve massive ecological devastation

while its economic progress widens the abyss between rich and poor, even while subjecting whole populations to the voraciousness of the

barely masked greed called consumerism. There are no human rights within it, especially economic, social, and development human rights, even as it sometimes pays lip service to civil and political freedoms. This model of development is called "progress," which comes from the Latin root meaning madness. Since I want to be sane and to live in a saner world, I have spent my life attempting to offer alternatives, not only in my country but throughout Asia and beyond. To paraphrase Shumacher, my efforts are "small" but attempt to be "beautiful."

The Thai authorities do not always find my criticism of the status quo beautiful, however, especially when we have military coups, which we do quite often in my country. The powers that be become very angry with me; sometimes they burn my books, and sometimes I am forced into exile lest they put me in jail. I have been persona non grata with the Thai authorities since 1967, and in 1976 the Thai military junta wanted to arrest or perhaps kill me. Fortunately, I was in England at the time, so they only drove my business into bankruptcy. Many of my contemporaries and students were murdered, maimed, or imprisoned. The lucky ones managed to flee abroad. I remained abroad for two years. I wish to thank the Swedish government and people who were most generous to Thai refugees. The Swedish Ambassador in Bangkok took personal risks to help Thai intellectuals reach Sweden, and then-Prime Minister Olaf Palme was friendly and helpful to many of us.

In 1991 my open criticism of the military junta again drove me into exile. Unofficially the junta tried to kill me; officially they charged me with lèse-majesté, an extremely serious crime in Siam with a maximum penalty of 15 years. I was fortunate in that the German Ambassador in Bangkok helped protect me. When I was able to escape abroad, my first destination was, of course, Sweden. My Swedish friends did not disappoint me. We have now formed a Thai Studies Association among my Thai friends in Sweden and elsewhere in order to help people within Siam work for social justice and social welfare. Friends provided me with hospitality and arranged teaching work in Europe, North America, and Japan. Among other positions, I was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii and received the Naropa Institute Founder's Award, as well as giving cours-

38

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es there. My alma mater, the University of Wales, Lampeter, also provided me with an honorary fellowship. Both International PEN Centres in London and Toronto elected me their honorary member. Not only did the Thai PEN Centre ignore me, ten years ago its former president was the instigator to bring the case of lèse-majesté against me.

I remained in exile for fourteen months this time before being able to return to face court hearings on the charges oflèse-majesté. Compared with my friends from Indonesia, Burma, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and elsewhere, this is very light. Yet exile can be miserable; only friendship, hope, forgiveness, and the practice of mindful deep breathing helped me to keep my head above water. I must admit that when I see senseless killing and human rights abuse, I sometimes become angry. But Thich Nhat Hanh, my Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, taught me to become aware of anger in order to surround it with mindfulness. He says that anger is like a closed flower which will bloom when the sunlight penetrates it deeply. If you keep breathing mindfully, shining compassion and understanding upon it, your practice will penetrate the anger, and you will look into its depths and see its root. When this happens, the anger cannot resist. The flower will bloom and show its heart to the sun. The same is true of greed, lust, and delusion.

With this mindful practice of breathing, I learned not to hate the

military junta, nor the corrupt politicians, nor even the executives in the multinational corporations. I became more aware of the unjust social, political, and economic structures as the source of injustice and violence. The rich and powerful benefit economically and legally from the system, but they are also trapped by it, and neither they nor their

families are made happy.

My court case on the lèse-majesté charges lasted almost four years, during which time many friends and organizations assisted. They

included Amnesty International (London); the International

Commission of Jurists (Geneva) and the Human Rights Desk of Bread for the World (Stuttgart), among many others. My attorneys

were wonderful, fighting the case patiently, courteously, and courageously; and my colleagues gave me much encouragement. My wife has always been and continues to remain a tremendous support to me.

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH 41

I was acquitted on the charges oflèse-majesté, which is very unusual. My acquittal made me proud of our judiciary system, making me believe that our progressive judges no longer blindly follow oppressive laws, many of them decrees of the military junta, but now care more for justice and mercy. The judges went so far as to praise me in court stating, which is unprecedented within living memory, that, "It is clear that the defendant aimed at teaching the students to be conscious of the essence of democracy. He warned the students not to live a luxurious, consumer lifestyle, not to worship being rich, not to admire people in power, and to be concerned about justice and righteousness." I was pleased when the Right Livelihood Award Committee cited this part of the judgment and encouraged me to go forward with new projects.

My latest projects concern interfaith Alternatives to Consumerism and the Spirit in Education Movement (SEM). The Foundation for the Progress of Humanity (France, Switzerland) has helped initiate the first project which calls for Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims to work together in developing awareness of the problems of consumerism and demonstrating viable alternative ways of living. The second project, SEM, has already begun with assistance from the Sharpham Trust (England) and the Heinrich Boll Foundation (Germany). We have already given courses and will initiate SEM formally with a public event on December 12, with the Head of Shumacher College (England) as keynote speaker. I hope SEM will provide an alternative to prevailing educational trends which concentrate on the head rather than the heart and reward cleverness without regard to ethics. The Naropa Institute (Boulder, Colorado) already attempts to introduce engaged Buddhism as part of its curriculum, that is, to teach its students how to confront suffering and be mindful of ways of overcoming it nonviolently both at the personal and the social, economic, and other structural levels. The Institute ofTotal Revolution (Vecchi, Gujarat, India) also trains in a Gandhian method of education.

At SEM we try to develop friendship in the Buddhist sense of kalayanamitra, among students and teachers—to learn from each other and from the environment; to develop meditation practice and artistic creativity; to understand and respect indigenous cultures; to

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plant seeds of peace within ourselves and our world; to develop beauty, goodness, and critical self-awareness in order to become transformed personally. This, in turn, will lead us to care less for ourselves and more for others; to combine understanding and compassion; to work for social justice and ecological balance; and to develop Right Livelihood as part of our Buddhist practice.

SEM participants will not avoid contact with suffering or become separate from our awareness of suffering in the world but will find

ways to alleviate suffering wherever it is found. Above all, they will try to understand the ways in which prevailing economic, social, and political systems contribute to suffering, to violence, and to the culture of violence that surrounds us, in order to provide a countervailing force of nonviolence, compassion, and understanding.

At the deepest level, the causes of suffering are always greed, hatred, and delusion. At the more immediate level, these causes have become

embodied in consumerism, militarism, compartmentalization of thought and practice (e.g., the use of such strategies as "social engineering"), and the separation of efforts to resolve social problems from the process of personal transformation.

In SEM we hope to understand that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless so that we can learn and practice nonat-

tachment to views, to become open to receive the truth that resides in life and not simply in conceptual knowledge. I hope SEM participants will be able to learn throughout their entire lives and to observe the reality of the world and within ourselves at all times.

In order to do this, and not to lose ourselves in dispersion in our surroundings, we need to practice mindfulness, especially the breath-

ing which brings us back to what is happening in the present moment—with what is wondrous, refreshing, and healing both within and around us. We hope to continually plant seeds of joy, peace, and understanding in ourselves in order to facilitate the ongoing work of transformation in the depths of our consciousness.

I am very grateful to be in this wonderful company, to be accepting this Right Livelihood Award, and to be able to share with you

some of my work, my hopes, and my dreams. I welcome all participation in our projects, especially in the new work on Alternatives to Consumerism and in the Spirit in Education Movement. It would

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH 1243

be wonderful to welcome any of you as teachers and/or students in our SEM courses.

Before I thank you all, both for this wonderful award and for your interest in our work and projects, may I ask the four Buddhist monks—constituting the Sangha—from Burma, Siam, England, and Germany,

to chant words of the Buddha for peace and happiness of all sentient beings.

Sulak Sivaraksa Stockholm, Sweden

December 8, 1995

 

Sulak Sivaraksa. 3

 

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Ch15 Interfaith Connections

I had been educated in a Catholic secondary school, and although I

was never tempted to convert to Christianity, I was very much influ-

enced by the good teachers at the school. At Lampeter, I was interested in the Christian way of thinking. I read St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and all the church fathers in philosophy courses. I was also fascinated by the intellectual endeavors of Anglican theologians like Richard Hooker and John Henry Newman.

Later, I became interested in the ideas of some leading Catholics such as Paulo Freire of Brazil. I was deeply affected by his idea of consciousness raising through a literacy campaign empowering the poor. Ivan Illich was another. Eventually, I got to know him personally. He came to see me at my bookshop in Bangkok, and I visited him twice in Mexico. I was instrumental in getting his book translated into Thai, and he became popular in my country. I like Thomas Merton's books and ideas on contemplation and action—that religious people should take a social stand on issues of war and peace and on social justice. I came to admire Dorothy Day and felt that she was working not only for social welfare, but for social revolution. I also admired the Berrigan brothers, two leading American Jesuits. I came to feel close to Hans Kung because of our similar predicaments—accusations against me oflèse-majesté and against him of lese popery. My Singhalese friend Tissa Bulsuriya was also outspoken against the Vatican.

These are the people I feel close to. Though we come from different religious traditions, we take a similar stand on social issues and our work for peace. We are committed to our own tradition, but we are on the fringe and want to radicalize the tradition.

Projects with Catholics

After Pope John =I's Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church in Asia became more open, particularly the Jesuits, with their headquarters in the Philippines. The church wanted to change people through education, so they held a big workshop called the Educators' Social Action Workshop (ESAW) in Kyoto, Japan, in 1971. About fifteen educators were invited from each country in Asia and the Pacific, both Catholics and non-Catholics. These included officials in the Ministry of Education and people from Catholic and government schools. They happened to select me. I was not really in the schools, but I suppose they thought of me as somebody useful.

I went to Kyoto for three weeks. In the workshops, it was the first time I came across so-called group dynamics and group process to change people's outlooks. It was fascinating. I learned a lot about Asia and the Catholic way of thinking. One of the organizers, Father Bulatao, a Filipino Jesuit, said, "We apologize to all you non-Catholics. We have been haughty, on our high horse all these years, and we must now ask for forgiveness from our brothers and sisters." That had a profound effect on me. It helped me to see the Catholics in a much better light. When I had been a student, Catholics were not allowed to attend Buddhist ceremonies. All their rites were in Latin, and the priests and nuns always wore their habits. Now, Mass was being said in the vernacular, and many priests and nuns dressed like everyone else. I felt that the Catholics had become more broad-minded and were willing to listen to people of other religions.

At this meeting I got to know the Thai Catholics and educators. When we came back, we wanted to change things at home, so I formed a sort of Thai ESAW group. I got to know the Thai priest Father Boonluan Mansap, who was very active with credit unions in Catholic circles. I had never heard about credit unions—a kind of savings scheme empowering the poor to run their own affairs. I helped him try to move the credit union movement beyond the Catholic pale to include the Buddhists.

Through my development work in Siam, I was involved with quite a number of Catholic development organizations. The Asian Partnership for Human Development is a consortium of Catholic organizations, mostly in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. They asked me to give one or two keynote addresses from a Buddhist perspective to challenge them on their development. Through the Catholic Comité Contre la Famine et pour le Développement (CcFD), from France, I came to know quite a few French Catholics and became fairly well known in France. I became a partner of Misserior, a Catholic development organization in Germany.

More connections

My dealings with Catholics and Anglicans are understandable given my early schooling and years in Britain, but I hadn't had much connection with Protestantism. In my country, there are only about thirty thousand Protestants out Of 56 million people, and they have been there for only 150 years. Through the Social Science Review, I met Dr. Kosol Srisang, who eventually became secretary-general of the Church of Christ in Thailand. My relationship with the World Council of Churches (wcc) began through Kosol's predecessor, Ray Downs, and he introduced me to many leading Christians. I was invited to their interfaith meeting in Sri Lanka in 1974—in those days it was still called Ceylon. The meeting didn't inspire me, but I met a lot of religious leaders—Protestants, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims.

Strangely enough, it had been at this meeting that I first met the Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh. He has since become a good friend. His work and thought have influenced me a great deal and expanded my outlook on engaged Buddhism. My concern about the suffering in Vietnam became more real and intense when I met him. Vietnam was then in turmoil, and Thich Nhat Hanh wanted the Singhalese bhikkhus to issue a statement supporting peace in his country. He was from the Mahayana tradition, and he hoped to get all the Buddhist traditions to join together. But they refused. They were awful, very insular. Thich Nhat Hanh was very disappointed, since he was desperately in need of international support. I have had all his works translated into Thai. Some appeared in Thai first, notably The Miracle of Mindfulness. The first English edition was also published in Bangkok.

When my own society was facing a lot of violence between the right wing and left wing in 1976, I proposed to the general secretary of the Church of Christ in Thailand that we of different religions

162 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT INTERFAITH CONNECTIONS 1163

come together to appeal for nonviolence. Women's foundations got together and put up posters everywhere: "In the name of mothers, wives, and daughters, we ask you not to use violence." It was very effective. I called a meeting in Bangkok at the women's department of the Church of Christ in Thailand. The Buddhist abbots, Catholics, Muslims, and Protestants all got together. I said that students and women were leading, and we religious people were far behind. We should come together and issue a statement. This was my commitment. Eventually, it became the Coordinating Group for Religion and Society (CGRS). This became the only viable group actively doing reconciliation work. After the '76 coup, they were the only ones brave enough to visit the students in jail. Even the students' own parents were afraid to visit them, because all the students were supposed to be traitors. They also gave flowers to the soldiers who killed the students.

Buddhist-Christian dialogue

After the World Assembly of the wcc that I attended in Vancouver, we felt we needed more Buddhist-Christian dialogue. I was often involved with this at Bad Boll Academy in Germany. I was invited by an organization called Diakonia, "dealing with neighbors," to attend meetings in Crete and Cyprus. I traveled to Spain to prepare catechism for youth in the postmodern age. The first American-organized Buddhist-Christian dialogue that I attended was at the University of Hawaii in 1980. These meetings brought me many friends, friends who call themselves both Buddhist and Christian. They were genuine and very concerned about social justice. We treated each other as equals and had a lively intellectual exchange, challenging one another like friends. In our Buddhist-Christian dialogue, the idea that one religion is better than the other simply doesn't exist, at least among these groups.

One of the most significant events for me took place in 1989. I was at a meeting of the Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter at Hsi Lai Temple near Los Angeles. This group is known as the "Cobb-Abe" because it was started byJohn Cobb, a leading Christian theologian from Claremont College, and Masao Abe, a leading Zen scholar and chief disciple of D.T. Suzuki. It is a group of only about twenty-five "hard-core" people. One has to be invited. I must have been the first to join from the Theravada tradition in Southeast Asia. On Palm Sunday, during our meeting, Hans Kung celebrated Mass for us. He made it so informal and welcoming. He invited all of us to take the bread and wine with him if we wanted to be Christ's friends and remember Christ. This was the first time that I ever took Holy Communion. When I was at the Catholic school and Anglican college, if you were not baptized and confirmed, you could not take the bread and wine. There was a sense of separation. But when Hans Kung invited us to take the bread and wine, we were so pleased. For me, it was wonderful.

Among the Christians closest to the Buddhists are the Quakers. We both regard friendship as very important. They call themselves the Religious Society of Friends. Similarly, the Buddha said the most important element outside each of us is a good friend, kalayanamitra, a voice of conscience to develop critical awareness. We Buddhists can learn from the Quakers' social awareness, commitment to change, and nonviolence. My encounter with them has helped me to reexamine my own Buddhist upbringing. They don't make their beliefs compulsory, not even for their own children. A person must himself be convinced. For me, this is great. The simplicity of their worship—no ceremony, very Zen—also appeals to me.

Two people who stand out are George and Lillian Willoughby. George is a real pacifist. During the Vietnam War, anyone who wanted to resist the draft would go to George, and he helped them with all the technical details. He challenges his country by refusing to pay taxes. He was once arrested for taking a boat out into the Pacific where they were going to test a bomb. He walked all the way from New Delhi to the Chinese border on a peace march. (He wanted to march to Beijing, but the Chinese would not allow him.) George and Lillian were helpful in creating ACFOD. We have become good friends. They are instrumental even today in helping our young people with training in nonviolence. Their lifestyle is so simple. They don't live for money or fame, but for peace, for principles. They have a rebellious spirit similar to mine.

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World Conference on Religion and Peace

In 1989, I attended the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) at Monash University outside Melbourne, Australia. John Taylor, then Secretary of the WCRP, invited me as one of the keynote speakers. A lot of people suggested His Holiness the Dalai Lama also be invited, but the Chinese said no Of course, if the Chinese say no, the Japanese usually say no, and the WCRP funding came mostly from the Japanese religious organization, Rissho Koseikai.

The local Australian chapter pressed the issue, so as a compromise, His Holiness was invited to send an observer. He sent a senior monk, Amchak Rinpoche—a very learned and humble man. Amchak Rinpoche brought a brief written message of goodwill from His Holiness, but the Chinese objected to his reading the message because he had been invited simply as an observer. The Buddhists and local people were unhappy because they wanted to hear His Holiness' message. Some of them asked my advice. I said, "Give the message to me. I will read it before my own speech."

Mr. Chao Pu Chao, president of the Buddhist Association of China, was furious when I read the statement. He walked out. When he walked out, Mr. Niwano, president of Rissho Koseikai, walked out, too. John Taylor, the secretary of the conference, reprimanded me. He said, "Sulak, you must know that at this kind of international gathering, we must behave and not divert from the text." I said, "I have been to many international gatherings, and nobody has ever censored me. I speak my mind, and I'm willing to go to jail for what I f say. If you don't like it, then don't invite me again." Later on, John Taylor apologized to me. He said he had no choice but to reprimand me because he was pressured by the Japanese and their money.

Afterwards, I tried to talk to Mr. Chao. During an earlier visit of his to Bangkok, I had arranged a private meeting for him with the president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, even though they recognized Taiwan instead of China. I said to him, "I helped you when you came to Bangkok even though no one recognized China. That's what Buddhists should do for each other. His Holiness may be condemned by your government, but as a Buddhist you should not tow your government's line." He didn't reply and walked away. I felt very sad. We Buddhists compromise too much; we often put our national interests above Buddhist principles.

CHAPTER 18 More Organizing

 

 

Pacjfic Youth Forum

After my visit to Tibet in 1984 we held the first Pacific Youth Forum in Japan. I had renewed my relationship with the International House ofJapan. Mr. Michio Kato was director of programs there and agreed to help me financially to create a permanent youth ashram based on our earlier Pacific Ashram, as I had begun to do back in 1976. It would be primarily for Japanese and Southeast Asian youth. Since Mr. Kato felt the word "ashram" was a problem for the Japanese, we changed the name from Pacific Ashram to Pacific Youth Forum. He wanted me to run it from Bangkok because of all my connections in the region, but he felt it would be easier to hold our meetings in Japan.

Our first meeting was at Kiyosato Village, not far from Tokyo, and it was beautiful to see young people of so many backgrounds—Japanese, American, Southeast Asian. We discussed social and economic development in Asia and the Pacific. They liked it, so they invited me to do it again the next year. In 1985, we went to Morioka City and Takizawa Village and met around the theme "Participation, Development, and Peace." During our third meeting in 1987, we gathered in Hiroshima in connection with the fortieth anniversary of the Second World War bombing of that city. Soedjatmoko, my old friend and the rector of U.N. University, attended. My whole family was invited, and it was wonderful to have my wife and two daughters join me. My son was studying in America at the time.

We organized one more youth forum in Japan in 1991. Our theme was "Asia-Pacific Community in the Twenty-first Century: Challenges and Opportunities for Youth." In the end, the Japanese changed the name to Asian Cultural Forum so they could include people beside youth. They wanted to invite young entrepreneurs to encourage them

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to develop a more holistic view of life. They asked Soedjatmoko to become chairman of this group. Wang Kang Wu, the vice chancellor of the University of Hong Kong and Frankie Jose' from the Philippines also got involved, together with Yeneo Ishii from Kyoto University. They planned to meet in Japan every year or two. They thought a week was enough for the young people, and for more senior people one long weekend would be enough. I did not think it would work, and I stayed with the idea of starting an ashram.

Wongsanit Ashram

This idea of establishing a permanent ashram had been with me since beginning the Pacific Youth Forum in 1973. My vision was to provide a place for social activists to take time to read, think, write, and reflect on their work for as long as they wanted—a place for people to synchronize their head with their heart and develop themselves in a serious, spiritual way. It would be a new kind of temple run by laypeople.

I'm sure my ideas were influenced by my own life. With my many activities taking so much time and energy, I needed to go on retreats every now and again. I would go to temples. Unfortunately, these traditional Thai spiritual centers were disappearing. Those still remaining taught traditional meditation concerned only with the heart, not the head. They had so many rules and regulations and preserved only the Buddhist tradition. Many have not adapted to the modern world and don't serve the people who use them. Religions have to adapt their wonderful teachings to the modern world.

I wanted a place where people could opt to live an alternative lifestyle, grow their own food, weave their own clothes. The idea was to live in community, both for personal growth and social commitment. "Work locally, think globally," because we are all interconnected. The ashram would contribute meaningfully to society. It would offer training and meditation for social activists to help them gain skills and understand the structural problems in society. It would be a kind of international, alternative training center to empower people through practical and spiritual training. I wanted to get scholarships to support people to come, particularly people from our neighboring countries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma.

I saw many different types of centers to prepare for starting our own ashram. My German friend Michael Baumann took me to see German "ashrams" in the Black Forest run by Karfield Graf von Durkheim. I also went to see Christian academies in Germany and Italy. The German Christians started these academies after the Second World War because they felt that ministers and priests had been too weak to resist Hitler and stop the Nazis from killing Jews. The idea was to make the priests and the lay church leaders more aware of

social injustice and learn ways to confront it through Christian ethics and theology. Practicing Christians could develop the moral courage

to challenge the government and society. But I thought that the Protestants stressed too much the head and not the heart. At the Catholic monasteries I visited, it was the other way around—too much prayer and not enough social concern. I thought it was out of balance.

In India I saw the Gandhian ashrams. Unfortunately, these have become a kind of religious institution, and Gandhi has become something like a god. The ashrams were a nice place to do a little bit of spinning, to weave your own clothes, and to eat simple food. Many of these ashrams are subsidized by the government. They have become just like some of my country's Buddhist temples—wholly irrelevant to the larger society. Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village in France, on the other hand, was much more to my liking than any of these places. He enlivened traditional Buddhist teachings to be relevant to the modern world, stressing our interconnectedness with one another and our environment. He teaches mindfulness as the basis for nonviolent social change.

I had been looking for land and money for some years. When the karma was right, I thought, someone would give me a plot of land. It finally happened in 1984. The land I ended up getting was just a rice field on a canal, seventy kilometers from Bangkok. One hundred years ago there had been elephants living there. It was cleared by Dr. Yai Sanidvong, the first Siamese medical man to be trained in Europe. It was passed down through his family to Princess Samur and her husband Prince Subhasvati Wongsanit. Samur wanted the land to be used for something spiritual, a Buddhist contribution to world peace and personal growth. When she died, her daughter Saisawadi persuaded all her sisters to give this land to the Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa

184 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT MORE ORGANIZING 1109

Foundation. Saisawadi was a good friend of mine. We founded the Mitra Thai Trust together in 1976. The S-N Foundation's board agreed to take charge of the property and use it for an ashram. We called it Ashram Wongsanit in honor of her parents, Prince and Princess Wongsanit.

Wongsanit Ashram is only about ten Or fifteen acres, but this is fairly large by Bangkok standards. Unfortunately, the land was not very good, and things did not grow well. Two or three people came at the start to try it out. We assigned them a plot of land to see if they could grow something. Although it was difficult to grow rice, they did grow some vegetables and caught enough fish to live on. One family lived on part of the land for a few years. In another area, a group of young people formed a small project to look after street children from Bangkok. Our land was an ideal place for them—not too far from Bangkok and with a nice, country atmosphere. The children stayed from two or three days to a few weeks or months. They learned how to fish, raise chickens, and grow tobacco.

The center of the ashram, I felt, should be a hail where we could run seminars and retreats. It was through our activities for the Phya Anuman centenary celebrations in 1988 that we raised enough money to build this hall, which we located in a special area named for my

The main hail atAshram Wongsanit

teacher, Phya Anuman. In the time of the Buddha, this kind of multipurpose hail was called a santhagara, a meeting hail. You could dine or sleep there, and monks could preach there. I tried to embrace the whole tradition and put it in the modern context. The santhagara became our main building.

For improving the grounds I used the old custom of "Thot Pha Pa. "In our Buddhist tradition, forest monks typically do not take robes offered to them by anyone directly. Instead, people leave robes in the jungle, hanging them on trees and letting the monks find them. Nowadays, we use this tradition to raise money for building or repairing a temple. I adapted the tradition into a big celebration and asked for trees to reforest the ashram. The ashram had only rice fields. People gave trees, or if they didn't have trees, they gave money to buy trees.

As we continued to grow, many other people supported us. The Green Party in Germany agreed to fund buildings and programs through the Heinrich Boil Foundation, which supported our concern for environmental issues, spiritual and intellectual growth, and social justice in a nonviolent and ecumenical way. A German friend, Reinhard Schlagintweit, who had been a counselor at the German Embassy in Bangkok back in 1967, helped us gain this support. We were able to build the library, and we had money for publications and programs for the next three years. We received a little help from a Protestant organization in Sweden called Diakonia. Although we didn't get any official Buddhist money, some Japanese and Thai Buddhists also helped.

The ashram has contributed at the local, national, and international levels. We have used it for International Network of Engaged Buddhists meetings and many workshops and training programs. Out of our training for Khmers, we planned a peace march from the Thai border to Phnom Penh in 1992. Venerable Maha Ghosananda, the leading Cambodian monk, started off the march by circling our santhagara three times. They began the march on the traditional Cambodian, Siamese, Burmese, and Laotian New Year of April 13. They went slowly, and along the way people came offering food and talking with the marchers. They planted bodhi trees along the road. It started out as a small group but ended up with thousands. With

186 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT MORE ORGANIZING 1107

these sorts of things happening, I think my dream for the ashram has finally come true.

Buddhist connections around the world

The term "engaged Buddhism" was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh in the 1950s. The idea is that Buddhism is for social as well as personal

liberation. This was in direct contrast to the Buddhism I encountered

at the Buddhist Society in London in the 1950s- I was told that Buddhism was for meditation, and that Buddhists had nothing to do

with society. That shocked me. It seemed very selfish, as if Buddhism were being used solely for one's own ends. Meditation alone may have been relevant for the British Buddhists at that time, but I felt it was not quite right. It entirely contradicted my upbringing in traditional Buddhist society.

Even so, I also encountered this attitude back home. The World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) had established their headquarters in Bangkok. Dr. Malalasekera, their founder, wanted it to be an organization in which Buddhists could develop a social and ethical message. I attended one or two of their meetings, and I found that it had become a sort of club for Buddhists from around the world to come together to pat each other on the back and say, "We Buddhists are wonderful people. But they did nothing. When it was proposed that we discuss the Buddhist stand on military conscription, many members said, "That's a political issue. We can't talk about it." "What about capital punishment?" They said, "Ah, that's political, too." It reminded me of the Buddhist Society in England. Again, I felt there was something wrong.

By the time I came home from England, Buddhism was being destroyed in the villages in my country. In South and Southeast Asia, the heart of Buddhism is the village temple, and the present model of development was destroying villages. I felt my role was to restore Buddhism at the rural level. Those of us who had been educated abroad could help people understand the larger social realities and how they relate to the villages. A few friends and I began working with village people, helping them at the grassroots level to preserve the environment, to make them feel proud, to empower them nonviolently.

We have been working with the villagers for the last twenty years, joining not only with Buddhists, but also with non-Buddhists who work with the poor for their liberation. We formed the Thai Interreligious Commission for Development, the Coordinating Group for Religion in Society, and other groups, all at the local and national levels. But we saw that our work at the national level was not sufficient and began trying to work with our neighbors, the Burmese, Laotians, and Khmers, while working with the grassroots people in our own country. This was an important step, since we Thai tend to look down on our neighbors for having been colonized. We regard the Laotian people as very backward, the Burmese as very poor, the Khmers as nobodies. The Buddha taught that we are all equal, and that we must respect each individual and each culture. That is how our international network started to grow.

Many more connections were developed together with a friend named Pracha Hutanuwatra. He had spent eleven years as a monk, and, when he left the monkhood in 1986, I sent him to live among the poor Buddhists and non-Buddhists in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. In India, he met a group of newly converted Buddhists. They really wanted to understand Buddhism, but many didn't know even the basic Buddhist precepts. We started a program to bring these Buddhists from India to be trained in Siam. Pracha also talked with Buddhists among the tribal people in the north of Nepal. They had been Buddhists since the time of their ancestors, but as a minority in Hindu society, they were in a desperate situation. We tried to find some concrete ways to work together in the future. In Sri Lanka, he was involved in a peace mission to Jaffna, a Tamil area, with another interreligious group. This was the first time that Buddhist monks from the south had come to visit Jaffna. We tried to provide them with international encouragement and support.

In 1987, I sent Pracha to Japan as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion and Culture at Nanzan University. I had talked to the

Japanese before, but I didn't get very far until Pracha went there. He

was much better than I at making connections. He spent a lot of time with radical priests, many of whom were former Marxists like him-

self. He brought them to talk with me. They also saw the need for some kind of international group so that we could work together. Our

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MORE ORGANIZING 1109

main concern was not only for those of us in Asia and the Third World but to make people in the First World aware of people's suf-

fering as well.

Back in the late seventies I had heard about the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) from Nelson Foster, who had helped found it with the American Zen teacher, Robert Aitken Roshi. I felt that BPF could help us form a link between Western and Asian Buddhists. We made links with the Japanese, Americans, English, and Germans. I also became involved in Mongolia and the former Soviet Union. We had other connections in Asia and the Pacific through ACFOD. It was a

large network.

International Network ofEngaged Buddhists

When the chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in Britain contacted us, we felt it was appropriate to formalize this international network. That's how the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) came into being. Although I am supposedly the founder of INEB, it was really more Pracha Hutanuwatra?s work than my own. We organized our first INEB meeting in 1989. It was held in Siam, in the town of Uthaithani, my wife's birthplace. We met on a houseboat owned by a temple that had been headquarters for Buddhist education at the time of King Rama V. The supreme patriarch during the reign of King Rama VT was also very active here. It was a very auspicious meeting place to begin INEB.

Two men almost prevented INEB from getting off the ground. A German fellow wanted INEB membership to be very strict: no smoking, no drinking, no superstition, no, no, no. I told him, "It is wonderful if you yourself want to take these precepts seriously, but the strength—and weakness—of Buddhism is that we do not place prohibitions on such things." He didn't like it, but he remained. A British man was even worse. He wanted things his way. He insisted we use

voting, while the rest of us wanted to use consensus in the Buddhist manner. This caused a leading Japanese man to suggest to me, "Sulak-

san, let's not make this an international network but simply an Asian network. Western people will never understand us." I had to tell my English friend, "Please, shut up." He was very nice, he shut up, and

INEB came to be.

All along, we have received a lot of help from the Japanese chapter of INEB. They have provided much of the funding to run the office

and INEB activities. We have very little structure, and, as I learned

from my experience with ACFOD, it is best not to have too much money or power. I also learned that we need a strong spiritual ele-

ment, and so we include meditation and spiritual practice at INEB meetings. We started very small. Pracha was paid as a part-time executive secretary, and a volunteer helped him. We couldn't take on very much and had to work on things one by one.

First, we organized a human rights campaign for the Buddhist minority in the Chittagong Hill tracts in Bangladesh. These tribal people were being killed or forceably relocated to India. The Japanese took this issue quite seriously and invited the Bangladeshi representative, Venerable Bimal, to speak all over Japan. Japan was a major source of foreign aid for Bangladesh, so our efforts had a great impact.

Next on our agenda was to work with the students and minority groups living along the Burmese border. This was just after the 1988 uprising in Burma, in which a lot of people had been killed. They had been fighting in the jungle, generation after generation, for forty years and had very little communication with the outside world. This was our first chance to get to know them. Since other organizations were already helping with clothes and medicine, we concentrated on the students' requests for education and training. We arranged basic health and medical training because many of them were dying from malaria. Our most important work was to expose them to the world outside Burma. With our help, they set up a "jungle university" right across the border. We arranged for teachers from Bangkok and the international community to visit the university and run training sessions for a period of time. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Greenpeace helped arrange a communication system for the border.

After the third annual INEB conference, we focused on Sri Lanka. Historically, there's a very close link between Sri Lanka and Siam. Buddhism had been imported to Siam from Sri Lanka eight or nine hundred years ago and exported back to Sri Lanka during the eighteenth century after the monkhood had disappeared there. On their request, we arranged a six-week conflict resolution training for thirty Sri Lankan monks. The trainers were the American Quakers George

190 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT MORE ORGANIZING 1191

Lakey and George Willoughby and Tord Hovick from the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. The whole approach was very Western—how to solve conflicts from the viewpoint of modern sociology and political theory.

When we were invited to do a similar reconciliation training with the Khmer monks and lay community in Cambodia, we used a Buddhist approach. All the factions involved in the Cambodian conflict came except the Khmer Rouge. We tried to understand their country's situation within a Buddhist framework using the concepts of upadana (attachment or clinging), right speech, and so on. At the end of the training, one of the Cambodian patriarchs, a faction leader, noted, "All the factions in this conflict are under the illusion of upadana." It was a very good experience for us all.

INEB has worked closely with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, War Resisters International, and Peace Brigades International. We also work on more theoretical issues such as Buddhist social analysis and women in Buddhism. Our annual INEB conferences have been an inspiration to everyone. These conferences are only possible because our members in the First World often pay double so that members from the poorer countries can be invited. We have received donations from friends in the U.S. to help us continue our work. After much initial support from Christian organizations, INEB decided that for the organization to survive meaningfully it must be supported by Buddhists. From then on, we have received support from Buddhists throughout the greater international community. Rev. Teruo Maruyama, INEB's cofounder, said of our group, "We must do everything possible to maintain the international network. It is the only really viable network we have in the Buddhist world." I am very proud of INEB. It does wonderful work.

Reviving our democracy

In 1988, I founded the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute. The name came from Dr. Puey's well-known book, Santi Pracha Dhamma (Peace, People, Righteousness) that I had published at Klett Thai in 1973. This name and the book's ideas had become well-known among many progressives during the 1970s. With this organization, I wanted to carry on both Dr. Puey's and Dr. Pridi's ideas for democracy and social

justice. I began it with Dr. Puey's blessings. The institute does research and arranges public forums on social justice and Buddhism under the umbrella of the Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation.

In the early 1990S, some of us worked to have August 16, 1995, recognized as the fiftieth anniversary of Peace Day. The first Peace Day had been declared by Mr. Pridi, then regent of King Ananda Mahidol, on this same date in 1945. It signified the end of the state of war between Siam and the Allies. As the military is still a state within the state in Siam, the civilian government did not want to tread on the military's toes. They were reluctant to commemorate Peace Day because it celebrates the power of nonviolence and the wartime Free Thai Movement, the clandestine but popular freedom movement headed by the regent himself.

Nonetheless, we managed to gain approval from HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. She agreed to preside over a Peace Day ceremony at Thammasat University. We arranged a big gathering. Adam Curle, the Buddhist Quaker from London, delivered an opening address before Her Royal Highness. We named Dr. Puey Ungphakorn the "Man of Peace." In the evening, Lady Phoonsuk Banomyong led a peace march from Thammasat to the Democracy Monument on Rajadamnern Avenue. There, hundreds of people joined us. We had a minute of silence amidst the Bangkok traffic to honor all who had died for peace. We prayed that there would be no more war, that justice and peace would prevail in the world. Two years later on this date, the City of Bangkok dedicated a large, beautiful park—Suan Seri Thai—to the Free Thai Movement. This has become a significant day for all of us, a reminder of the meaning of nonviolence.

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Monks and laypeople offer their support

on false witnesses. That was fifty years ago, and the police had still not changed. Fortunately, the judges have changed, and when judgment of the court came, I was acquitted. Even more, I was praised for defending democracy, defending the monarchy, and alerting students to the dangers of consumerism. This was a first in Thai legal history. The judgment was quoted in the law report of Thammasat University. I hope my case has set a new trend.

To top it off, the new public prosecutor did not appeal. He had the right to appeal within one month, and he even extended the period of appeal for another month. But in the end, he was very brave and did not appeal. Normally, the case would have gone through two more courts. It could have lasted at least three more years. Of course, there had also been international pressure. The International Commission for Jurists wrote a nice letter to him asking him not to appeal and praising the judgment. Legally, my case ended on June z6, 1995.

====

Sulak Sivaraksa. 1

 

Other Books written or edited by Sulak Sivaraksa

Seeds ofPeace:A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society Siamese Resurgence.-,4 Thai Voice on Asia in a World of Change A Socially Engaged Buddhism: By a Controversial Siamese Siam in Crisis   ENGAGED      Demands

A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society: CollectedArticles by a Thai Intellectual BUDDHIST           Dissent

Religion and Development             

Radical Conservatism. Buddhism in the Contemporary World                 

Search forAsian Cultural Integrity             

Modern Thai Monarchy and Cultural Politics          

Buddhist Perception for Desirable Societies in the Future            

SULAK SIVARAKSA

Foreword by

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

PARALLAX

PRESS

PARALLAX PRESS

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

Other Books written or edited by Sulak Sivaraksa AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OFAI'J

Seeds ofPeace:A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society     ENGAGED

Siamese Resurgence.-,4 Thai Voice on Asia in a World of Change BUDDHIST

A Socially Engaged Buddhism: By a Controversial Siamese Siam in Crisis

A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society: CollectedArticles by a Thai Intellectual

Religion and Development

Radical Conservatism: Buddhism in the Contemporary World

SearchforAsian Cultural Integrity

Modern Thai Monarchy and Cultural Politics

Buddhist Perception for Desirable Societies in the Future

Loyalty demands dissent: autobiography of an engaged Buddhist /

by Sulak Sivaraksa.

Foreword VII

Editors'Introductjon Ylil

Acknowledgments XIII

I Early Years 3

2         L?fèasa Novice Monk 16

3         School Days 24

4 An English Education 30

S         Living in London 57

C Back in Siam 72

V' 7 Working with the Monks 07

1"J Forging Relations 93

Clashes 101

Organizing 100

Getting Married 121

Political Unrest 134

In Exile 141

Back to Work 152

Interfaith Connections 159

16 Lèse-majesté 165

17 Traveling 174

71       More Organizing 191

,19 Lèse-majesteAgain 192

20 SeekingAlternatives 207

21 Reflections 211

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I Siamese Calendar 217

APPENDIX 2 Siamese Government 210

APPENDIX 3 Regression ofDemocracy in Siam 221

 

Ch2 LIFE AS A NOVICE MONK 117

I'd always found school oppressive. We were supposed to be on time

to line up and salute the flag. The teachers never smiled, and I nat-

urally wanted to outsmart them. If they asked me to write from A to Z for homework, I just wrote "A to Z." At the Christian schools, they taught that Christ was the Lamb of God, but I'd never seen a lamb, and it didn't mean much to me. I didnt mind making friends, but the kids my age liked going to the movies, reading comics, and other things I didn't particularly care for. I felt different. I liked traditional music, dance, drama, and going to the temples to listen to sermons. I liked being with older people; I could sit and listen to them for hours.

Being in the monastery was the first time I really enjoyed life. Once you were ordained as a novice, a samanera, you were treated as an adult. In our culture, different pronouns are used when talking to children. Kids are looked down upon. But when I was ordained, although I was only twelve years old, twenty-five and thirty-year-old monks used adult pronouns when they spoke to me. My master, Phra Bhadramuni, had a strong influence on me. He was a great astrologer, and his life was kindness itself. He was sometimes very stern to the other students, but he was always kind to me. When I was a novice, I used to go and massage him, and he would teach me. He told me that I must always do my best and not settle for anything mediocre. Instead of seeking fame and riches, I should

16

My teacher Phra Bhadramuni

 

           As novice monks (I'm in the center)

strive for excellency. Other monks in the temple were also important influences on my life. I loved the whole monastic atmosphere.

The temple gave me liberty. I could study whatever I wanted, and I became addicted to reading. Before, because I had been forced to read, I never got into it. But at the temple I would pick out books, even large volumes, and read them from cover to cover. I read all kinds of books—religion, history, literature. I've loved books ever since. I also became interested in traditional medicine, fortune-telling, and arts and crafts, which at school we'd been told were old-fashioned. I learned to meditate from a lay teacher who was well known for his insight-meditation technique.

As a novice you have to be observant. I was very good in this way, and my teacher gave me the sort of acknowledgment I never got at school. At school, if you learn your lessons by rote, you are considered capable. But in the temple you have to observe ceremonies and other monks' behavior in order to learn. You must be attuned to your own culture. Most of my contemporaries stayed at the temple for only a few months. They found the life too antiquated, but I felt like a fish in water. I wanted to stay for good. In school I never got to the top of the class, but at the temple my teacher felt that I was smart. I was the only one who dared to ask the abbot questions. In our culture, children and even grown-ups are not encouraged to ask questions, especially of an abbot. The abbot looked very formal and severe, but I asked him all kinds of questions, and he liked that, too.

Although I was the youngest, the superior of my house felt that I was special, and of course I liked that. In our temple, Wat Thong-

          

18 I LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT   LIFE AS A NOVICE MONK 19

nopphakhun, there were thirteen houses, each headed by a superior, with five or ten monks, as well as novices and lay attendants. Our superior, Phra Bhadramuni, later became the abbot. When he was ill and had to go to the hospital, he gave the house key to me. I was twelve years old and in charge. I got senior monks to help, and together we had the house properly cleaned and everything carefully arranged. When he returned from the hospital, my master was very pleased that I had done as he would have wished.

At home, my father had treated me specially, and I was spoiled. He always felt a little guilty; that I was like an orphan because my mother had walked out on him. We slept in the same bed, and he told me tales. I enjoyed his company, but I treated other people badly. I never made my bed. I demanded whatever sort of food I wanted. My father would consult with me and tell the cook what I wanted. If the rice was too hard, I would complain and not eat it. If it was too soft, I wouldn't eat it either. I was a terror. At the temple, there were no servants. I had to make my own bed, wash my own dishes and clothes, and go out to beg for alms every morning. The culture of the temple was wonderful, and we were very proud to follow the rules established by the Buddha. Everyone was equal. Even my master washed his own dishes.

I attuned myself to the temple's system, but I also rebelled. Every morning and evening we were supposed to go to the consecrated assembly hall for prayers and meditation. One morning when we went, the hall was locked. The monk who was secretary of the temple wasn't there to unlock it. Nobody complained openly, but they gossiped about him. So I complained openly. I even wrote notices and posted them on the temple—that this monk was no good, that he was corrupt. He was furious. I was a troublemaker.

This life was Buddhism with a capital "B." I began to understand the distinction between Buddhism for educated people and popular Buddhism. I learned that a spirit house, which is said to house the guardian spirit of every household, is not quite Buddhism. In the temple, we are supposed to preserve the pristine teachings of the Buddha. Of course, some monks also become astrologers and so on—not for pay, just to help people. Buddhism and culture are intertwined.

During the Second World War there was bombing all around the temple because of the Japanese factory next door. Fortunately, bombs never hit the temple, but it was dangerous. The abbot asked us, "Since there's bombing here, would you like to leave?" One monk said he wasn't sure. Another lay attendant said he might leave. The abbot asked me, and I said, "Wherever the master is, I'll go along with him." He was pleased with my answer, but still decided that I should evacuate first. He felt that the children should be safe, and he would follow later. We moved about eight miles from our temple. In those days we had to go by rowboat, and it seemed far away. Although this temple was just on the outskirts of Bangkok, it was quite rural. The people were very devout. When we went out for alms, they offered a lot of food. It was a different atmosphere. On the full moon, new moon, and half moon, we walked all the way back to our temple in the city to perform the ceremonies.

I came from an upper-middle-class family and had only known people from that class. At the temple I met people of all classes. Because Phra Bhadramuni was a well-known astrologer, all kinds of people came to see him: princes, nobles, merchants, rich, and poor. Although he treated them each according to their rank, he was very polite and kind to everyone. At the end of the war, King Ananda Mahidol returned from Switzerland, where he was educated. There were big ceremonies and great joy. My teacher was invited to arrange the flowers for the altar in front of one of the large Buddha images at Bangkok's Marble Temple, and he invited me to help him. The king walked by to pay his respects. Had I not been a monk, I would never have seen the king face to face like that. When you became a

Wat Thongnopphakhun school, built by and named after my great-aunt Lom Hemajayati

20       LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT          LIFE AS A NOVICE MONK 121

monk, all social barriers were removed. I felt that I could go anywhere. I've felt very close to the monkhood ever since.

In the early morning, as soon as there was enough light to see the lines on the palms of our hands, we went out to beg for almsfood, sometimes walking together in a long line, sometimes walking alone or with a senior monk. There were many people offering food then. Traditionally, the monks would eat together first, the novices would eat after, and the boys who looked after the temple would eat last. We had prayers and chants to promote mindfulness about the simple acts of daily life. At mealtimes, we cultivated the awareness that meals are only to prevent hunger from arising and to keep the body strong. The monks recited this in Pali at every meal. Every time monks put on their robes, they recited "These robes are not put on for beauty but to protect us from cold, heat, and insects. Do not be attached to the robes." When going to sleep, the monks recited, "This is our house. It is only temporary, just to protect us from cold, wind, and rain. Do not be attached to its beauty." When taking medicine: "It is only to keep us well so we may help others." Food, clothing, shelter, and medicine—these are known as the four requisites.

When we finished our meal, we would express our gratitude to all who offered food to help us survive. In turn, we would help them by offering the teaching, the Dhamma. If we didn't offer the Dhamma or if we misbehaved, we would be considered thieves, and our food would burn like hot iron in our throats. But the merit of giving and receiving was not just for ourselves. It was shared among all beings, living and dead. Following the morning meal, we had prayers in Pali, taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Then we would recite other verses from the scriptures. Afterwards, we had sitting meditation. The novices did cleaning work for a short time before the day's last meal at eleven in the morning. Sometimes the monks were invited out. Since my master was well-known, many people came to offer food at lunchtime. All of us at the temple benefited from this, so that despite the war, we were not starving. After lunch, there was a little time to rest. Then we had formal teaching. For several hours we studied the life of the Buddha, Buddhist history, the discipline (vinaya), and the discourses (suttas).

Pleasures of the Rains Retreat

For the three months of the rainy season, monks don't travel. This is called the Rains Retreat. Throughout most of the year monks are encouraged to travel freely and to propagate the teachings. Traditionally, monks walk everywhere, but in the rainy season they might step on and harm the sprouting plants, so from July through September we were not allowed to travel or to spend the night outside the temple without special dispensation. And so, during the rains, all the monks would assemble, and many laypeople would also come to the temple for the preaching and ceremonies each night. Young men were often ordained while the best teachers were in residence. The Rains Retreat is also called the Buddhist Lent, because some laypeople would give up smoking, drinking, rude speech, fishing, and so on for this time. Others would vow to do good things. It was a good opportunity to practice Buddhism, to be mindful.

During the Rains Retreat, we had a sermon every night. Usually we heard Jataka Tales of the Buddha's earlier lives. In Buddhism you are not required to believe in previous lives if you dont think it's helpful to you, but the stories are still wonderful. Our culture is an oral tradition, and many people came to listen—mostly older women and young people.

There was no television in those days, but we had this preaching.

I went to listen to sermons every night in the sala, the preaching hall. This is how I came to know Buddhist culture at its best. There was

a nun, about eighty years old, wearing white, who noticed me. She

said, "It's wonderful how this twelve-year-old boy comes to listen every night. At the end of the Rains Retreat we must invite him to preach." She proposed it to all the ladies, and they accepted. The abbot said, "Okay, give it a try, but you have to learn to sing and chant." So they gave me a small part in the story of the Buddha's next-to-last life as Prince Vessantara, one suitable for a young novice. I had to recite the verses telling how beautiful the forest was, what kinds of animals and plants lived there. I learned all about ecology and even some tricks to train the voice, like swallowing a whole boiled egg.

That year I collected more money than any other preacher, not because of my ability—to be honest I chanted very badly—but because

LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT

I was so young. Most boys my age hardly read, much less preached to the public. They had to carry me up to the high pulpit. People offered all kinds of delicious fruit—bananas, pomeloes, oranges, coconuts.

The end of the Rains Retreat is followed by the Kathina ceremony. The village offers robes to the whole community of monks. They offer other things as well and make donations to repair monastery buildings. Often two villages would collaborate.

The monks go their own separate ways at the end of the Rains Retreat. Those still in the temple on the last day perform a ceremony known as Pavarana. Once a year, each monk must come forward in order of seniority—beginning with whoever was ordained first, not by age or rank—to request of the whole assembly: "Out of pity for me, out of your generosity and kindness, if you have heard, or seen, or suspected that I have done anything wrong, please speak so that I will have an opportunity to change and behave properly." This was a helpful ceremony for me. I have used it in some of our groups: "Please tell us what we have done wrong so we can change." In the temples today, this sincere request is often just a formality. The same with the Kathina. Now the abbot usually receives the robes instead of the monks who are most skillful or whose robes are in rags. The Pali Canon spells out the meaning of these ceremonies very clearly, and it is wonderful when we can create the essence from the form. Unfortunately, they are now often performed as empty rituals.

When schools reopened in 1945 after the war, my brother left the temple. I stayed for one more year even though my father wanted me to come home. I had needed his permission to be ordained and leave home, but once one joins the monkhood, nobody can ask you to leave unless you are expelled. I enjoyed life at the temple so much that I didn't want to leave. I hated the thought of going back to school, wearing shorts, and being treated like a child. My father said, "I have land for you; I will build you a house." He would invite me every evening to see the house being built. But I was not interested in houses. I was interested only in the monkhood.

British troops came to Bangkok after the Japanese. There were also lots of Indians and Pakistanis, British and Dutch. There were bars for the foreign troops, and outside the bars were noodle shops

LIFE AS A NOVICE MONK 23

for the taxi drivers and chauffeurs who drove the officers. Each evening I had to walk back to my temple past these shops. I had never been especially interested in food before, but now it smelled so good. I began to think, "Perhaps going back to school and my family might not be too bad after all."

My father continued his pleas: "What happens if you want to leave the monkhood at the age of twenty or twenty-five? What will you do for a living? In this competitive world, you need to have some skills. By the time you are twenty, I may be gone. Who will support you? After your education, if you want to rejoin the monkhood, I won't object." Finally I agreed. I left the temple and returned home to be with my father in the house he had built for me.

22

Our house on the

Bangrak Canal

86       LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT          CHAPTER

in that style all the time. I was more or less his unofficial secretary. He asked me to do some writing for him. I would type things and send them to him to be edited.

Though Prince Damrong died before I ever met him, he had twenty-five children by his eight wives, and I had come to know his eldest daughter, Princess Jongjit, quite well, partly through having published their correspondence. She was a woman of great character. She was also a great cook. She invited me to have lunch with her every Sunday, and I would bring along various friends—English, American, anyone else. The only condition was that we enjoy her food. She was almost eighty at that time. While we ate, she would talk about King Chulalongkorn and his various queens, her father, the good old days, and life in the palaces. Princess Jongjit's sister, Princess Poon, later complained that her sister should not have told

me all the family secrets. Princess Jongjit told me everything      she

was very honest and sincere, and she trusted me. At first I thought I would write about all this, but she trusted me so much that I found it hard to write. I had become one of the family.

Ch7 Working with the Monks

During this period I started working with the monks, aiming to make them more aware of social issues, conservation, and peace. These included such radical monks as Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu P. A. Payutto. The Sangha was acquiring a more visibly active role in the contemporary world. This work began in 1962, in collaboration with Don Sweetbaum, a Peace Corps teacher at Mahachula-longkorn Buddhist University in Bangkok I presented his idea to the Asia Foundation for a training program to make monks more aware of social issues. But the Asia Foundation had no money and recommended another foundation. I suspected it was a CIA foundation but didn't know for sure. They gave us a lot of money to train student monks up and down the country in social work We also invited monks to attend courses at the university dealing with social injustice. The monks asked me, "Is this CIA money?" I said, "I have no idea, but even if it is CIA money, it doesn't matter, because we are left to do whatever we want." Eventually, it was revealed to be CIA money.

There was a lot of communist activity in the countryside, so I described Buddhism as the only safeguard against communism. With this language, we got support even from the supreme commander of the armed forces, General Saiyud Kerdphol, who was in charge of the anticommunism unit. He was the most enlightened of all the generals. When I wanted to take our donors from America to visit the young graduates in the remote provinces, the army provided us with a helicopter. They sent one colonel along with us, and as we talked, he became convinced of the value of our work. He said, "You know, we've been fighting the Communists and spend too much money on weapons; instead, at least a percentage of that money should be given to you to help these monks. It would be much more effective." Later on, I got money from the government to support the monks.

I was very ambitious. I wanted all the monks to be concerned about

conservation, peace, and society. I felt we should teach them at the universities where they studied. I didn't want the training to be limited only to Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University but to include Mahamakut University, belonging to a second Buddhist sect. The first time we sent the monks up to the northeast, those from both sects stayed in one temple together. They became very friendly and began to trust each other. Although these two Buddhist universities were teaching modern subjects, I thought they were too big and too much in imitation of secular institutions. I wanted to start a new college at our Wat Thongnopphakhun to teach Buddhist philosophy, Sanskrit, and Pall. We would study Mahayana Buddhism, integrate meditation with education, and help with social awareness.

A bright, young novice named Sathirapong Wannapok came to our temple. He was the first novice to complete the grade-nine Pali examination during the reign of the present king. Since 1782, only two novices before him had done so, and both eventually became Sangharaja, supreme patriarch. Grade nine is a kind of doctorate. I talked to the abbot of my temple, a great Pali scholar himself, and told him that this novice was very bright, and that we should send him abroad to study Sanskrit and get a college education in England. I argued that our monasteries had to become more modern, and our monks needed to understand the West. We can't keep Buddhism as it is. It has to change to meet the modern world. Young monks should be encouraged to study abroad. Perhaps Sathirapong can help reform the system of education and make the Sangha more active in the contemporary world. The abbot agreed, and a friend of mine secured him

a place at Trinity College, Cambridge. Sathirapong became the first Siamese monk to study in Cambridge, get his degree, and return

home. I told him I wanted him to help teach at our temple, but he wanted to disrobe and get married. He became a lay professor at a university in Siam and a fairly well-known journalist. He was also appointed a royal academician.

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

At that time, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu was the most important Buddhist thinker in Siam. I had read some of his work as a student, but he was too advanced and radical for me since I had been brought up con-

WORKING WITH THE MONKS 189

servatively and my temple was conservative. Buddhadasa was very

pro-democracy. He wanted to rewrite the history of the Buddha without using royal language. That was very progressive for the time, and

for me. He shocked a lot of people. He was the first monk to stand

up at a podium and use his hands when he lectured. Traditionally, monks must sit down and preach quietly without emotion. They must

not try to convince people by arguments or actions but merely make the teachings available for people to take as they wish. That is the form, and I was very much for form and formality.

One of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's lectures was a real bombshell. He said that the Buddha image could be a hindrance to the Path, to the

Buddhadhamma, because a lot of people become attached to the

image. He said that the Buddha discouraged images. During the time of the Buddha, there were no images at all. Images came much later,

from the Greeks. To provoke people, he said that if he had absolute power, he would order all images dumped into the river! I became upset because in our temple we paid respect to the images every morning. A lot of people were attacking Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, and I did-nt like him either.

After my return from England, when I was more mature, I began reading his books in a new light. His most important book was

Following the Footsteps of the Buddha. It was very sensible and taught

me a great deal. I went to visit him at Suan Mokkhabalarama, the Garden of Liberation. I was just starting the Social Science Review

and was surprised to find that Buddhadasa Bhikkhu had read my magazine. By that time he was a very well-known and controversial monk, but he treated me as an equal. He gave me a good interview, and we had a long chat. I barely knew him, but he invited me to go with him to visit all the islands as a kind of pilgrimage. I thought he was an intellectual and provocative monk, but when I followed him, I found him to be very humble. He prostrated at all the images and said that the Buddha image could also be a help if you paid respect not to the image but to the Buddha. He also paid respect to the senior country monks, some of whom were illiterate, prostrating to them as if he were prostrating to the Buddha image. He explained to me that he did not prostrate to a monk as a man but as a representative of the Sangha.

We traveled with Khantipalo, the English monk whom I had been responsible for getting from India to Bangkok. I was asked to be the interpreter. Buddhadasa encouraged the English monk to speak, despite the fact that Buddhadasa himself was much more senior and all the people had really come to listen to him. He even allowed me to speak. He allowed everyone to participate. We went by steamer, and people came out in canoes when they saw him. it was wonderful traveling with a famous monk. Everywhere we went there was a beautiful reception. People came offering food and fruit, and he would preach to them. He ate only one meal a day, of course, and he ate very little, so we ate what was left over.

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's books, writings, and thinking became a great inspiration for me, in particular his book on Dhammic socialism. He found socialism and even communism in Buddhist teachings. Sangha means commune or community. The monks do not own anything except one alms bowl, three robes, and one needle and thread. The rest they own jointly, or it belongs to the community. I think if we used this model for laypeople, it would be something wonderful.

Bhikkhu I? A. Pay utto

Although my abbot had been disappointed in Sathirapong, his adopted son who left the order, another monk, Bhikkhu P. A. Payutto, became the second novice in the present reign to reach grade nine in Pali before his higher ordination. This monk was very humble. At the early age of twenty-five, he became deputy secretary general of Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University. He more or less ran it. I

WORKING WITH THE MONKS 91

worked closely with him from the time he was a newly ordained monk He was very active at the university, and I realized he was very talented. I told him not to spend his time on administration but to do more creative work. Buddhadasa was then the only one doing creative work in Buddhism, and we needed more young monks to capture the minds of the younger generation.

In the sixties, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu had come to debate with the well-known writer Kukrit Pramoj. Kukrit said that Buddhist thought is a good way to cultivate personal happiness, but to develop the country, there must be greed. "Greed is a wonderful ingredient in development. In Buddhism, you say greed is bad; that is okay for monks. But in lay society, I want my bank to be bigger, my salary to be higher." They debated. Although Buddhadasa was very good, he could not outdo the wit of Kukrit, who was much more versatile. But in the seventies, this young monk Bhikkhu Payutto was even sharper than Buddhadasa, in a humble way. His remarks stirred everyone up. He used Buddhist terms to help us understand things properly. In response to a book on development by American scholars condemning Buddhism's attitude, he pointed out that they ignored the destruction that development caused to the environment. He was very eloquent, very scholarly.

In 1974 as part of Prince Wan's eightieth birthday celebration, we asked people to write articles for a book to be published in his honor. Bhikkhu Payutto wrote an article on Buddhadhamma. It was the best of them all, and we invited him to give a lecture at Thammasat University. His lecture captured the essence of the Buddha's teaching and captivated the whole audience. His article was translated into English and later expanded to ten times its original length. It could be considered the whole corpus on Theravada Buddhism. It is very scholarly and convincing, written in beautiful language. Since then Bhikkhu Payutto has become a great Buddhist writer and inspiration to many people. Years later, when I was working to organize monks around environmental and social issues, I asked him to name our group. He chose Sekhiyadhamma, meaning "to make the teachings of the Buddha relevant for the modern world." I got most of my own ideas from him and Buddhadasa.

90

With Buddhadasa Bhikkhu in 1991

92 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT                       

Abbot Dhammacetiya          

I worked with the monks via Mahachulalongkorn Buddhist University all through the 196os when Bhikkhu Payutto was in charge, but I switched when he left the university. Phra Dhammacetiya, the abbot of Wat Thongnopphakhun, which my family has supported for five generations, was promoted to ecclesiastical governor of the Thonburi Sangha across the river from Bangkok. I followed him, moving from an academic involvement to a more practical involvement. Teaching at the university was mainly theoretical and had no real power to direct the monkhood. The abbot, in his new position, had the authority to tell the monks what to do.                            

I began working closely with the abbot, acting more or less as his lay secretary. I gave him a lot of ideas about administration. I told him we must look after the art in all the temples; we must use our money wisely and keep a record of our expenses; we must preserve the buildings, and any new buildings should have his approval; and we must train the monks to be aware of social issues. Monks must understand larger social issues and be involved in society. We were no longer living in villages. He agreed, so we formed lay and monks' committees that were very effective.                               

The 1971 coup consolidated Thonburi and Bangkok into one big city, and the abbot lost his position. He was asked to become governor general of the fourth region in the center of the country. The patriarch of the entire northern region also wanted him in charge of training and educating monks throughout this area. The abbot asked me if he should accept. I said yes, and against the advice of many other people, he did. I got money from a Christian foundation from Germany, Bread for the World, to support his work on conservation within the Buddhist Sangha. The Sangha had no conservation policy. The monks were not proud of their temples. They liked building new ones. I felt we had to teach them about architecture, art histo-                         

ry, and preservation. We became very active. The abbot's work as a scholar and administrator was very much appreciated. Unfortunately, he worked very hard—unlike most monks—and died when he was only about seventy-one. I worked with the Sangha until his death in                            

'979.                       

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