7 May 1999

Religious devotion to double standards

The Bangkok Post

Phra Dhammachayo, the abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, and Phra Chamroon Panchan, the abbot of Wat Tham Krabok, do not readily come to mind in the same context. The two men are worlds apart in the way they chose to dedicate their lives to the monkhood. And so the sad news this week of the death of Phra Chamroon Panchan should make us reflect on how differently society has treated the two.

Phra Dhammachayo has pursued the creation of his own religious empire and the accumulation of wealth and property under his own name. In the process, he has distorted the tenets of Buddhism to suit his own material purposes. Yet the Sangha Council, the Religious Affairs Department and Deputy Education Minister Arkom Engchuan, the minister with responsibility for religious affairs, have been more than reluctant to take action against him.

Phra Chamroon, on the other hand, turned his temple in provincial Saraburi into a drug rehabilitation centre, extending a lifeline to addicts, the social outcasts who no one would care for. He also took in a large number of Hmong hilltribe people, a minority group who, again, no one wanted to concern themselves with, especially as many were addicted to the end-product of the poppy they grew. For his trouble, the authorities-the Interior Ministry, the Narcotics Control Board and the National Security Council-branded his temple a threat to national security because it allegedly harbours drug traffickers and anti-Vientiane right-wing political groups.

The way the two were treated by the authorities could not have been more different.

Though Phra Dhammachayo is clearly guilty of serious offences against Buddhism, the authorities to date have refused to lift a hand against him. This is in the face of five letters from the Supreme Patriarch dating back to early last month calling on the Sangha Council and the Religious Affairs Department to defrock Phra Dhammachayo and see to it that he turns over the ownership of 1,500 rai of land to the temple donated to him by followers.

Buddhist scholars have pointed out that the command of the Supreme Patriarch, according to provisions of the Sangha Act which governs all in the monkhood, constitutes a lawful order that must be obeyed by the council. But the authorities are arguing that only the council can decide to defrock a monk.

Something more than bureaucratic wrangling is at play here if the power of the supreme leader of Thai Buddhism is being challenged openly on behalf of a monk who has accumulated billions of baht in personal wealth and has used this money to further his interests.

But when it came to Phra Chamroon, the authorities brought all the pressure they could mount to bear on the abbot and his temple. This was despite the fact that he had won worldwide recognition for his efforts and been honoured with the Magsaysay Award for public service in 1975.

Though they have never provided any basis for the allegations that the Hmongs were using the temple as a cover for their drug trading activities or as a base for their anti-Laos operations, the temple was forced to close its doors to drug dependents seeking treatment.

How is it that there is such a difference in perception of the two temples and their abbots? In the one case, we have a temple selling salvation by bending the teachings of the Lord Buddha; in the other, there is a genuine compassion and a concern to offer real salvation not only to the drug addicted but to anyone who cares to help them.

If the Thai saying, hen kongchak pen dok bua-seeing a jagged-edge discus as a lotus-is true in the case of Phra Dhammachayo, then the opposite, hen dok bua pen kongchak, is appropriate to the case of Phra Chamroon.

-ooOoo-