Why can’t we as Buddhists live in peace?

Why can’t we as Buddhists live in peace?

Visakha Bucha Day came and went quietly yesterday in our so-called Buddhist country, where people now look ready to tear one another’s throats just for having different political views.

Maybe I am wrong here. Maybe the crux of the matter is not just different views on politics, but political ideologies bordering on religious fanaticism — on both sides.

Visakha Bucha marks the day of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. As the most important day in the Buddhist calendar, it should remind us about the law of nature, or dhamma — all that arises passes away.

Everything, whoever we are, whatever we own, whatever we believe — is all in constant flux, subject to continual change. Everything stays with us for a certain period of time, then goes away. Being beyond our control, there is no such thing as me or mine, nothing worth to cling on to, to kill for, or to die for.

Our country would not have arrived at this dangerous juncture if Buddhists on opposite sides of the colour-coded divide realised this truth. But it is clear they won’t let anything stand in their way in order to triumph.

For the pro-government side, it’s an election. For the anti-government camp, it’s a clean government. Neither side, however, can promise their path leads to real democracy and good governance. Yet they vow to fight on till the end without heeding calls for compromise.

Who can blame them when supposed peace-makers in saffron robes don’t want to compromise. Just ask the maverick monk Luang Pu Buddha Isara. When his security guards attack innocent people, he condones the violence. When Visakha Bucha came, he returned to his temple to receive alms and raise money, ready for battle the very next day.

If our country needs peace, is this the kind of monk we need?

Maybe this is the wrong question. Maybe we should ask ourselves what we should think and do as Buddhists to make peace possible. With the feudal clergy being unable to stem temple corruption and rogue monks, many tend to think that Buddhist morality is on the decline in our country.

If that is the case, how can we explain the rapid expansion of meditation movements, the mushrooming of meditation masters who are both monks and lay teachers, the louder demands for female ordination, and the popularity of dhamma books and websites among the younger generation?

When I was young, only the elderly went to temples. Now, nearly everyone I know pai patibat dham or attends meditation retreats. Now that we meditate everyday, why is our society not more peaceful? Is something important amiss?

Is it possible that this meditation retreat movement is essentially a middle-class phenomenon? After all, if we can afford not to work for one week or 10 days to attend retreats, we must be financially able to a certain extent. Is it possible that this movement serves modern individualism perfectly well in one’s quest for less stress, but falls short of making one see the linkages between individual suffering and structural injustice?

Don’t get me wrong. Meditation is important. If we want to end the cycle of lifetimes, the endless rounds of birth and suffering, watching how we breathe to cultivate mindfulness is a necessary first step to realise the truth of impermanence, and to be able to let go eventually.

But Buddhism is not only about watching how we breathe. It’s also about realising the interconnectedness of all beings — that all are one and the same under the same laws of nature, all related in one way or another in our past lifetimes, and all similarly struggling to stay above the ocean of suffering towards the shore of nirvana.

This realisation fosters compassion and tolerance, the most important things we need right now. Thailand is going through rapid social changes that empower people to break old norms and question old powers. It is a time of upheavals that calls for great compassion and tolerance.

It is also a time when we need to test what we have learned from our meditation retreats in real life.

If we can listen to opposite views that challenge our sacred values without feeling a surge of aversion and a desire to eliminate them from the face of the Earth, then we pass the test.

If not, we still have a lot of work to do to save our souls.


Sanitsuda Ekachai is editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.

Sanitsuda Ekachai

Former editorial pages editor

Sanitsuda Ekachai is a former editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post. She writes on human rights, gender, and Thai Buddhism.

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