Human Rights in Thailand. Don F. Selby
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Lanka and Burma (Bartholomeusz 2002; Obeyesekere 1990, 167–174; Tambiah 1992, 1, 86–87).23 The point in each case is that Buddhism and national politics entwine. Kittiwuttho offered, however, two sorts of clarification in response to criticism. The first concerns what counts as killing according to Buddhist doctrine, the second just what he pictures himself to advocate killing. On the first count, he said, “I still hold the opinion that killing communists is not demetorious. This is because for an act to be considered as killing and thus resulting in demerit it must fulfill the following conditions. First there must be an intention (cetana). Second, the animal must have life (pana). Third, one must know that the animal has life (panasannita). Fourth, one must intend to kill (vadhakacittan). Fifth, one must act in order to kill (upkano). Finally, the animal must die by that act (tenamaranan)” (cited in Somboon 1982, 152).
Kittiwuttho claimed that his comments in Jaturat met none of these conditions. He claimed, further, that when he said Thai should kill leftists and communists, he meant these as ideologies. “Communism is a complex compound of false consciousness, delusion, greed, jealousy, malevolence and anger. It is not a person or a living animal. Thus killing communism is killing ideology” (cited in Somboon 1982, 153). In 1977, he seemed to obstruct this backpedaling (that is, wishing to kill only an abstraction, an ideology, not living humans). In a speech commemorating the founding of the Buddhist order, Kittiwuttho told his audience of monks, “Let us take today as an auspicious moment to declare war on communists. Let us determine to kill all communists and clean the slate in Thailand. The Thai must kill communists. Anyone who wants to gain merit must kill communists. The one who kills them will acquire great merit” (Somboon 1982, 153).
Throughout these passages, Kittiwuttho’s central concern is whether or not killing leftists gains or loses merit, and he marshals Buddhist doctrine to claim that it gains merit. The initial passage from Jaturat suggests, however, that his dodge—he wishes only to exterminate an ideology—is not what he took to be at stake. If the communists on whom he rallies Buddhist Thai to declare war and eliminate completely (in order to gain merit) are like the fish he suggests killing for the curry you would put in a monk’s bowl (to gain merit), then in fact he advocates killing actual, living persons and not abstractions, just as he advocates giving actual, not abstract, curried fish to monks. Kittiwuttho called on Buddhism to justify large-scale murder but denies that the dead are, in fact, fully human.24 Against this backdrop Saneh writes,
Buddhism as a social reform movement, has its own dynamic attitude towards life and great innovative potential. On the other hand, Buddhism, as an institution, could be vulnerable … to a relapse into mere dogma, incapable of living up to new challenge, that is, the crisis of change. There will then be a danger in that Buddhism, too, would serve the status quo and the powers that be, instead of humankind, which is the central purpose of Buddhism. There would be a further danger in that it could even degenerate into becoming a coercive and oppressive instrument, instead of promoting Path towards human liberation, which is the ultimate goal Buddhism. If such is the case, Buddhism, like any other religions, would need its own transformation to be of true service to mankind. (Saneh 2002, 60)
This passage is not just an indictment of the sorts of theo-politics Kittiwuttho extolled but also takes a side in debates ongoing at the time (1979) that Saneh first drafted it. A distinctive feature of Buddhadasa and his followers’ teachings can be glossed as a focus on nirvana, rather than the stress on karma favored by the religious and political establishment. I have noted above that Saneh and Khunying Amphorn connected Buddhism and human rights in the pursuit of a vision of Buddhism departing from the popular emphasis on individual merit, and their primary view, which they share with Buddhadasa, is that the relevant Buddhist quest is the world here and now (on this emphasis in Buddhadasa’s writing, see Tambiah 1976, 411). In doctrinal terms, Buddhadasa opposed a vein of eternalism that he saw dominating Thai Buddhism (the picture Kittiwuttho promoted), in which there is an eternal soul that gains and loses merit (a view he criticized as Hinduism or Brahmanism), and argued instead for an immanentism that finds nirvana possible at any and every moment (Buddhadasa 1992, 51–52 passim; Tambiah 1976, 412). This is not to say that he saw nirvana as easily attainable, but he did see it to be the original condition of the mind and in principle available to any practitioner, not just long-practicing monks (Jackson 2003, 137).
The repercussions of Buddhadasa’s challenge to traditional Thai Buddhism extend beyond religious doctrine and practice to touch Buddhism’s legitimating role in Thailand’s political structure. As one of the three pillars of Thai politics (nation, religion, and monarchy), a chief justification for social stratification (as a reflection of kamma), and a conceptual ground for monarchical legitimacy (the king attaining his position via accumulated merit), “even apparently theoretical debates on Buddhist doctrine may have political implications” (Jackson 1987, 123). We may then approach the relationship between Buddhism, politics, and Buddhist alternatives by recalling the normalizing role Buddhism plays. Contests over interpretations are unavoidably contests over legitimate forms of authority, sociality, and morality. This relationship naturally works in reverse, too. The political use of religious symbols (say, during demonstrations) shows how Buddhism becomes not just a political resource available for diverse agendas but also a stake in political struggles.
While egalitarian Buddhism of the sort modeled on Buddhadasa’s teaching provides a sort of ethical and philosophical grammar for emergent human rights, in doing so, it turns back to ethical visions that resist the normalizing role of Buddhism. That such a model of Buddhism participates in the secularization of Buddhism and politics in Thailand makes it part of the story of distinct Buddhist movements like Santi Asoke and Wat Dhammakaya25 that arose as contemporaries of Buddhadasa (Swearer 1991, 654–655) and show how an insistence on egalitarianism can slide into an insistence on conformity. As influential Buddhist movements that have stood, at times, in dramatic tension with the Thai sangha, in what relation would they stand to human rights? For reasons that I explore below, the first cohort of the NHRC proposed a relationship of Buddhism and human rights that not only diverged from Wat Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke’s models of Buddhism but also placed them in revealing ways on the opposing side of a push toward a more secular state and religion.
Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke
Late in 1988, as part of a youth exchange in Thailand, I went to a spacious and distinctive temple near Bangkok. Rather than the ornate gold, red, and blue typical of Thai wat, with layered roof tiers and intricate carving on the tympana, this temple was minimally adorned, with white soaring columns and walls supporting a simple, dark roof of two steep, concave arches that met in the middle. We were brought into a comparably spare interior, where we were seated facing a monk who instructed us in meditation and fielded our questions. In this chapel at Wat Dhammakaya, he had us visualize an orb moving through seven points in or near our bodies (corresponding to chakras), finishing near the navel, where we were to visualize progressively refined images of ourselves. This stress on meditation, especially through visualization, rather than on doctrine and concepts, is central to the Dhammakaya movement.
Initiated by the former abbot of Thonburi’s Wat Paak-naam, who is known popularly as Luang Por Sot, the Wat Dhammakaya movement has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity and influence since the consecration, in 1980, of its ordination hall in Phathum Thani province (Jackson 1989, 199–200; Swearer 1991, 656–657).26 This growth in popularity coincided with a wave of religious intolerance in Thailand (Jerryson 2011, 63–64), and one reading sees both Santi Asoke and Dhammakaya as fundamentalistic reactions to the secularization of Buddhism (in which reformist Buddhists like Buddhadasa participated), albeit in distinct ways (Swearer 1991). The Dhammakaya movement was institutionalized by two of Luang Por Sot’s disciples (Phra Dhammajayo and Phra Dattajivo), who maintained the emphasis on meditation technique, principally organized around concentration on a crystal ball (as I described from my own experience, above), a method of meditation characterized in Buddhist tradition as samadhi, concentration meditation (Keyes 1989, 135; Jackson 1989, 203). In this respect, Wat Dhammakaya offers a view of Buddhism that differs from Buddhadasa’s in a way that makes it incompatible with human rights, as the NHRC was conceiving them. Where samadhi meditation allows for the supernatural and posits nibbana as a transcendental reality, reformists like