Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya... say what?!

Rather than sit in lecture with Ajaan Supawadee as she tells us what she knows about Buddhism, ISDSI thinks it’s best to learn directly from the source: monks. So we piled into the rotdangs again and went to Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, a school for monks. Different than becoming a monk, this school is for monks who want to continue their education. They can earn bachelors, masters, and even PhD’s in Buddhist studies, philosophy, or related fields. Our teacher for the day was Pra Joelee (Pra is the respectful title for a monk, like Pi is for someone older than you). His English was better than our normal teacher, and he liked to joke around, so we had no problem keeping our attention focused.

 

Some of what he had to say I already knew and some I didn’t but I’ll give it all to you anyways. I knew there was a fat and a skinny Buddha, but wasn’t sure of the difference. Turns out the fat (Thai: oo-ahn) Buddha comes from China where they practice Mahayana Buddhism. This is also the dominant practice in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. These monks train in Kung Fu for self-defense and to keep their bodies strong. Vajirayana Buddhism is practiced popularly in countries such as Tibet, Mongolia, India, and Putan. I didn’t write any other notes except “different meditation”… maybe if I had written this post a little sooner I’d remember what that was about. And finally there is Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced in Thailand, Sri Lanka, S. Vietnam, and Laos. This is known as the conservative group, is what we learned about from Pra Joelee.

First thing to understand about Buddhism is that is it NOT a religion. There isn’t any godly aspect, it is seen as a philosophy and a way of life. The “goal” of being Buddhist is to be happy in the here and now, to be free from suffering, and to manage the mind and body in harmony. The first to bring this philosophy to light was Siddharta Gautama, otherwise known as Buddha (which translates to waking one, or enlightenment). He was a prince in Thailand. Married at 16 with a son at 29, he left his life behind in search for the truth of life. He spent six years in the jungle meditating. He came back a changed man and others caught on to his way of thinking.

Some things he picked up were detachment – to learn from and understand the truth, but not to dwell on it. To free oneself from anger, desire, and passion in order to reach enlightenment.

 

Buddhists primarily want to live peacefully together. In order to do this they must be able to gain, get, give, forgive, and forget. In basic, there are three ‘goals’: 1. Avoid bad 2. Do good 3. Train your mind. Pretty vague, but that’s the point. The first point can be expanded to include the five principles laymen try to follow:

1.      Abstain from killing

2.      Abstain from stealing

3.      Abstain from sexual misconduct

4.      Abstain from lying

5.      Abstain from alcohol

Notice the wording I (and the monk) used: Avoid bad, try to follow, abstain from killing. But if you really just want to kill that mosquito that landed on you, that’d be bad. You’re trying, but that’s the 20^th damn one that’s landed on you in the last hour and you just can’t take another itchy bite. Unlike in religions such Christianity where you can be scolded in your family or even publicly for not following your religion (like cheating on a spouse, always go to church on Sunday, and not lying, all of which are stated as something which must be followed) the philosophy of Buddhism does not affect those around you. You don’t see Buddhist going door to door like is the common stereotype of Jehovah’s Witnesses (shout out to the Smith family) or flying internationally to build schools and wats (temples). What you do/don’t do to follow that way of life is your merit or problem, no one elses.

 

The second part is to do good. I’m not sure what happened to point three, I didn’t write down where the two split in my notes, so I’ll just talk about what I have written here, the middle path. This is the way to happiness. Negative thinking = a negative life, therefore positive thinking = a positive and happy life. You have to work towards the right understanding and the right thought in order to stay on the middle path. So you locked your car keys inside your car, why should you get angry and throw a fit? You’re not fully in control of your mind and therefore yourself if you allow this type of reaction. Instead, you can look at this as a nice opportunity to meet and talk with a police office that comes to open your car. It’s also a lesson you can learn from, to be more aware of where your possessions are (though if you’re a monk, you wouldn’t run into this problem as they have very, very few possessions). Or maybe you walk that day, and get to enjoy the beautiful outdoors.

 

That’s the right thought and understanding that a Buddhist might see the situation as. Of course, they are human so a little anger might flare up in there, where this makes them late to a job interview or a test at school. It’s not about eliminating emotion, far from it. This way of thinking is to recognize the emotions as natural and normal, but be able to control how you deal with the situation. In order to do this, one must have a strong mind. To demonstrate this, the monk has us meditate for 5 or 10 minutes, I’m not actually sure how long it was. He joked that he couldn’t imagine how dirty and unorganized our “monkey minds” must be, having never (or hardly ever) practiced meditating, training, cleaning, and controlling our minds. You say it would take a “strong willed” person to behave a certain way in their circumstances, but I think that person just has a better control of their mind. In meditation we were to focus on nothing, thinking about not thinking was still thinking, and that we were trying to stop.

It was a difficult task, but the monk walked us through it. It’s not really just thinking about nothing, it’s allowing yourself to recognize that you’re tired, to hear to birds outside, to feel the wood chair your sitting on, then to do nothing; to not react, to not look or touch or think about it. You recognize that it exists, the move past it. Such is the way a Buddhist tries to handle emotional situations. This is why you see Thai’s smiling all the time. Instead of being upset, they smile. They control their emotions, they control their voices (not many Thai’s are loud) they control themselves. And not all meditation is sitting, they also practice standing, walking and laying mediation (the latter I tried, but then I quickly fell asleep).

A few other point I didn’t work in there: in Thailand there are two types of monks, forest monks and city monks. Those in the forest meditate nearly all day, and this is really a time to work on themselves and train their minds. City monks have much more interation with people by performing funerals and ceremonies, blessings, accepting food in the mornings, sitting through monks day processions, and just conversing with people they meet. You’ll also see many monks just standing silently, waiting, as people kneel before them and make wishes and prayers. The monks are the living representation of Buddha, so they are very highly respected in Thai society. Another point is that there are 5 principles laymen try to follow, 10 little monks and novices try to follow, and 227 that ordained monks try to follow. So if you think the first 5 I have you would be hard, following the monk lifestyle is not for you. These men (and only men, in Thailand) are strong of mind. They do naught else but work to follow these principles, gaining merit along the way.

Also, for those wondering why monks can’t touch women… It is to keep the mind clean. The monk described it as such (using me as an example). Say he were to shake my hand when I left. The next time he meditates maybe he’s thinking “she had smooth hands. I’d like to touch them again” He tries to clear his mind, but he can’t stop thinking about that woman’s soft hands. And BAM! concentration broken. Therefore, to reduce temptation and thus help keep the mind clear, monks do not touch women. An accidental brush in a busy market is frowned upon, but can’t always be helped. Though when a woman sees a monk coming, in his bright orange robe (the monk showed us the different ways of wearing the robe too! It was so cool!) they make sure there is enough space for him to pass (plus doing so is doing good for the monk, and thus making merit for oneself).

Side note: we did ask Pra Joelee about what Buddhism had to say about the theory of any gods, to which he said they supported evolution. However he was really vague on this topic and didn’t fully answer our question. Though he did state that Buddhism by itself is not a religion, and thus does not recognize or believe in any god, but his support of evolution was shaky. We felt that with all that time to ponder, or think about nothing, he’d have a more sure-sounding answer for us. It seems like something someone would want to think about, but I guess they don’t. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to share with a bunch of 20 year old American students. I don’t know.

It was a really great day, listening to Pra Joelee talk about what he does, what he believes, and how he looks at life. It gave me a much better understanding of Buddhism, definitely more-so than any sort of high-school or college religions/philosophy class would have. It also gave a great insight into why Thai people act as they do. Knowing that, I think it will help me integrate better into Thai society. I’m having such a blast learning about Thailand! and I hope you are too as you read these posts.

Sawadeeka!

Sara