Rev. Danny Fisher

I recently read two very interesting stories about the work of Buddhists in Thailand that I thought beared mentioning in these pages.

First, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly offers a follow-up this week to their story from 2002 about the Prabhat Namphu monastery in central Lopburi Province, which now functions as not only a Theravāda Buddhist monastery, but also as an AIDS hospice and education center. Correspondent Fred De Sam Lazara reports:

Thailand’s Prabhat Namphu Buddhist monastery is an unlikely combination of two things: AIDS hospice and tourist attraction. Amid a display of cadavers, visitors–including many school kids–observe what HIV does to the human body. Beyond hospice care, the temple’s goal is to educate the public.

Important changes that have occurred since the original story include the availability of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in Thailand. Prabhat Namphu’s abbot Phra Alongkot Dikkapanyo says of this important step:

It has changed the whole understanding of the place. I would say [that Prabhat Namphu is now] the “temple of life.”

The story also addresses the various stigmas for those in Thailand living with AIDS and/or combating the spread of the disease are faced with, as well as criticisms of the monastery’s approach. The effect of Prabhat Namphu on its patients and on the community, however, is undeniable. As Father Michael Bassano, an American Catholic priest volunteering at the monastery, tells De Sam Lazara:

People come here with HIV, and they sense that here they find family, acceptance, nourishment, and a willingness to keep living, and that changes the whole reality here–that it’s not just a place of people in their last days.

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In other news, the March 30th issue of Chronicle of Higher Education offered a wonderful profile of the International Buddhist College in Songkhla Province. Author Martha Ann Overland writes:

With its rare combination of secular academics and monastic life, the college is a place where monks and nuns, as well as lay people, can pursue Buddhist studies. Not one, but all three major traditions of Buddhism–Mahayana, Theravāda, and Tibetan–are taught. And with no single language spoken by the religion’s multitude of followers, English is the medium of instruction.

The location of the college is in what has become a particularly dicey part of Thailand. The article continues:

The provinces once belonged to an independent sultanate, which Thailand annexed in 1902 from what is today Malaysia. Since that time Muslims here have complained of being second-class citizens and victims of Bangkok’s assimilation policies. There has been violence before, but never on this scale.

[...]

Not long after the college welcomed its first students in October 2004, a bomb tore through a column of monks and soldiers guarding them in the neighboring province of Narathiwat. Buddhist schools were burned and teachers were gunned down on their way home. Severeal were shot and then beheaded.

This month attackers lobbed explosives into a school dormitory in a nearby district, killing three Muslim children. Several Buddhists were shot in the days following the children’s murders in what were widely believed to be revenge attacks. Since the onset of the insurgency here in the Muslim-majority south three years ago, more than 2,000 people have been killed.

[...]

Who exactly is behind these attacks is difficult to say. Criminal gangs and even the Thai military have been blamed for some of the killings, particularly revenge attacks on Muslims. But most of the violence stems from a separatist insurgency against the Buddhist-dominated Thai state, says Srisompob Jitpiromsri, a [Thai Buddhist] professor of political science at Prince of Songkla University, in Patani.

The result of all this violence on the International Buddhist College, which was founded by the Hsiang Buddhist order of Malaysia to the tune of $4.5-million dollars (so far), has been indirect, but nonetheless noteable. The article continues:

The district of Sadao in Songkhla province, where the college is located, has not been a target of separatists, yet it has felt the blasts’ reverberations. With stories circulating about monks in southern Thailand wearing bulletproof vests (not true) and Buddhist teachers being guarded by village patrols (true), the college’s administrators concede that it has been hard to attract students and professors. The campus has only some 40 students, although it could easily accommodate several times the number.

[...]

When pressed…administrators acknowledge that because the violence has hurt the college’s ability to recruit staff members, as well as students, standards are looser than they might like. Not every student who is admitted is academically qualified to do college-level work. Many have to do remedial English training before they can officially enroll in the bachelor’s program.

“At the moment, their enthusiasm is greater than their capabilities,” says Charles Willemen, vice rector in charge of academic affairs and professor of Chinese. “There are too many courses and not enough qualified teachers.”

Still, Overland’s prose and especially Steve Sandford’s photography suggest a school with a vibrant practice community of monastics from various traditions of Buddhism. Like Overland, I also think it’s important to acknowledge the valuable service provided by the International Buddhist College despite its problems:

From Sri Lanka to China, relatively few Buddhist monastics have had access to higher education. Most countries simply have no universities, or even programs, that are designed for monks and nuns or that offer Buddhist studies. Thailand has been the exception. The country has several Buddhist universities, yet courses are largely conducted in Thai, and focus on the Theravāda school of thought, making it difficult for non-Thais to attend.

And an increasing number of religious orders realize that poorly educated monks and nuns are neither equipped to manage large temples, nor particularly effective at spreading the teachings of Buddha to the faithful. Since it is impractical for most to attend college because they live according to strict monastic codes, [the International Buddhist College] was envisioned as a place where they could get a liberal education while staying true to their vows. Because it conducts most courses in English, the college is not limited to students from a single country.

Thanks to my dad for pointing me to this article.