Misbehaving Thai monks test patience of followers
Corrupt clergy are undermining the public standing of the Buddhist authorities
Chalita Chinwanno goes to temple with her parents at least twice a month to meditate and pray. The joss sticks, the chants, and other rituals bring her peace amid the bustle of city life, the 30-year-old says.
But her faith is being tested by stories of corruption within Thai Buddhism that appear with disheartening regularity.
“I try to look past the bad things and only at the good,” Chalita said, although she admits to feeling that the scandals have “damaged the prestige” of Buddhism in Thailand.
In the past six months, the Sangha, the body governing the country’s Buddhist monks, has been rocked by repeated revelations of monastic misbehaviour, leading the military government to make the problem one of its new priorities.
In January, the senior abbot at Wat Saket, one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious monasteries, was removed by the Sangha over allegations that he had been embezzling from a 2-million baht (Dh227,308) budget earmarked for his predecessor’s cremation.
Two months earlier, another abbot was removed from a temple in Pho Thale district for investing 1.2 million dollars (Dh4.4 million) of public donations on the stock market.
Caught with pills
Other recent examples include monks caught variously with 120,000 methamphetamine pills, or arrested for drunk driving, or fleeing charges of trafficking wildlife.
“I feel that the National Office of Buddhism should do more to combat this epidemic,” said Ployphan Sirinthip, a friend of Chalita’s and a fervent Buddhist, referring the government-run body responsible for Buddhist affairs.
“Otherwise the perception is that the Sangha is just completely corrupt and counter to everything Buddhism stands for.”
The National Office of Buddhism, which can intervene when illegal activities come to light, has defended the way that the monkhood is regulated.
“We have a very clear system in place,” spokesman Somchai Surchartri said. “Each of the 30,000 temples in Thailand is administrated by one abbot who in turn must report to the [Sangha] supreme council.”
The monkhood in Thailand includes a much larger proportion of the young male population than in many other countries, with almost all the country’s Buddhist men expected to spend some time — even as little as two weeks — as a monk.
“If a monk misbehaves, there are several measures depending on the severity of the crime; our most severe is to defrock the monk,” Somchai says.
But voices from both the public and inside the Sangha have called for stronger punishments for monks that are found breaking their vows.
Among them is Thanomsing Kosolnavin, a 36-year-old former monk in the northern city of Chiang Mai.
Thanomsing took his vows soon after receiving a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the United States, and spent the next 12 years in the monkhood.
“I had deep spiritual questions about the world that were answered when I was ordained,” he explained.
But Thanomsing said he recently grew disillusioned with the politics and corruption in the Sangha, and left the order.
“The way the Sangha is currently organised, only the smaller monks are punished,” he said.
The body tries to cover up any misdeeds at the higher level because there is so much money and power involved, unless the case gains public attention, he said.
“It has become like any other [entity] where money and power are involved unfortunately.”
Prime minister’s attention
The problem has come to the attention of the highest levels of Thai politics.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha recently told reporters that he would take personal charge in the allegations of corruption against one abbot.
The National Reform Council which is drafting the next constitution has been instructed to be extremely stringent when it came to matters of corruption within Buddhism.