Craving Buddhism

Re: "Save true Thai Buddhism", (PostBag, May 2).

I appreciated Felix Qui's letter, and especially his endorsement of the Kalama Sutta. If Thai Buddhism is to be reformed, it will have to be by practising Thai Buddhists, not by outside foreign interlopers like Felix Qui and me.

The experience of the late, great Thai reformer-monk Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1906-1993) is instructive. Buddhadasa wanted to get back to the original Buddhism, before it got junked up with fortune-telling, temple fairs, amulets, merit-making, and similar accretions. He identified the central insight of the Buddha as a Pali verse that translates as "Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to." No clinging to what you have, no grasping for what you don't have -- that was Buddhadasa's ideal. No craving, in short.

Unfortunately, craving, otherwise known as wanting things, seems to be hard-wired into the human psyche. Telling people to stop wanting things is like telling them to stop breathing.

The late MR Kukrit Pramoj realised this, and engaged Buddhadasa in an exchange of views. If nobody wanted anything, Kukrit maintained, nobody would ever do anything or buy anything. All social and commercial activity would grind to a halt.

Not so, contended Buddhadasa Bikkhu. People would continue to act, but in a spirit of detachment, without wanting anything. Left unanswered was the question of why people would bother to act if they didn't want something.

The conundrum seems insoluble, except by an unpalatable compromise. An interpretation of Buddhism that would promote Buddhist principles but still ensure a functioning society might encourage believers to reduce their wants to the greatest extent possible, but still want enough to keep society going.

This is a craven retreat from anything resembling pure Buddhism, and I would welcome alternative solutions from concerned readers.

Ye OldeTheologian

Sickness riddle

Re: "Dept denies 'Penguin' seriously ill", (BP, April 30).

How is it that an individual can go from Olympic-athlete measures of vital signs related to blood pressure, temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturation one day to a hospital bed the next? The public is clearly being misled with respect to the condition of imprisoned protest leader Parit "Penguin" Chiwarak.

Samanea Saman

Jabs galore in Laos

My young wife in Laos has just had her first Astra-Zeneca Covid injection free of charge. Her second vaccine injection is planned with a given date in the next three months. She was also provided with a formal neat clear Vaccine Card. In fact she was offered either the Astra-Zeneca vaccine or the Chinese option but was given the AZ vaccine. Either way she has been vaccinated along with queues of other Lao citizens.

How about that ... Laos is frankly but endearingly, years behind Thailand in development but here they are actively injecting even the young adults ... long before Thailand even has a plan ... let alone implementing it!! Well done Laos.

Concerned Citizen

Lockdown blues

Yesterday I went into a coffee shop in Chiang Mai province and I saw people in line who were very close to one another. By contrast, before the lockdown I could be sitting in a bar or restaurant and be 10 feet or more away from the next customer. So I ask the provincial governor: Wouldn't social distancing be better than a lockdown which is driving thousands out of work?

Eric Bahrt
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