The Undefined Direction of Thai Buddhism Part 2
To have a clearer picture of the situation, what has been described above can be put in other words. While the future of Buddhism depends in the first place on the good education of the monks and novices, most of the Thai monks and novices now, the great majority of whom are in rural areas, count among the less educated people of the country. Moreover, the traditional system of monastic education, the one under the charge of the Sangha, has been in a state of rapid decline. Many big Pali schools have closed, while those which continue suffer from sharply decreasing numbers of students. On the contrary, modern schools for monks and novices, both those unrecognized and those passively recognized by the Sangha, including those which teach exclusively secular subjects and those run by outsiders, lay parties and even businessmen, enjoy a rapidly increasing number of monks and novices as their students to the dissatisfaction and out of the control of the Sangha administration. This well represents the many unsolved problems, the passive and indifferent attitudes and the latent conflicts prevailing in the Thai monkhood of today.
Optimistically, however, in spite of all the drawbacks and short-comings, the Thai Sangha, in comparison with the ecclesiastical institutions in other countries, is well organized. Thousands of monasteries and over a quarter of a million monks and novices are unified under one and the same administration. With this national organization of the Sangha, the Thai monkhood enjoys the full recognition and the official support of the state and the uniformity of all ecclesiastical affairs and religious activities such as education, ritual and observances. Under the centralized pyramidal hierarchical system, all ecclesiastical activities can be kept under close supervision, relatively good monastic discipline can be maintained, and the quick dissemination of instructions and prompt dispatch of information can be carried out between the distant local monasteries and the top administration in Bangkok. With an ecclesiastical organization and hierarchy paralleling that of the secular government, full cooperation and concord between the Sangha and the state are secured. Under these circumstances, the monks have been able to play many roles that contribute to the unity of the people and national security.
With the huge national Sangha under such a centralized administration, however, Thai Buddhism may be either very strong and steady on the move towards prosperity and the realization of its benevolent objectives or exceedingly clumsy and sluggish to be left behind in confusion, backwardness and impotency, almost solely subject to the effective or ineffective central administration and leader-ship. With the current latent conflicts unrectified under the attitude of indifference and inaction, the direction of Thai Buddhism seems unpredictable.
Concealed behind all the conflicts is the conflict between traditionalism and modernization. Strict traditionalism becomes an extreme which not only hinders effective adjustment but also causes a reaction in the form of another extreme, usually the opposite one, that is, extreme modernization. By modernization is meant good and effective adjustment to the modern changing world. But extreme modernization will go too far so as to result in secularization or even politicization. In the age of social change and political instability of today, there is a fear of overstepping from one extreme to the other. A mistake of this type would mean a danger and perhaps even a discredit to Buddhism. To avoid this the Middle Way must be secured...
As all know well, the Middle Way begins with Right Understanding as its first factor. To be sure, this Right Understanding involves in the first place the intellectual responsibility on the part of the Thai monkhood to define its identity and to identify its specific function that will distinguish itself from other institutions of the society. This knowledge is a prerequisite for the monks' survival and for their meaningful existence. Without it, they will not know even where to start and where to stand. Thai Buddhism is now just on the way to finding its Middle Way.
