Follow Buddha's wisdom

re: "How our education sustains dictatorship" (BP, May 25)

Dear editor,

As always, it was a joy to start the morning with a healthy helping of Sanitsuda Ekachai's concisely written analyses of Thai society. In "How our education sustains dictatorship" (BP, May 25), Sanitsuda outlines clearly how the militarization of Thai education harms not only Thai education, infamously failing for decades, but how the pernicious effects of the centralized command over young minds oozes out to pervade all of Thai society, to the great harm of society, politics and morals. The society-wide malaise does indeed start in the official Thai education hierarchy.

I would like to suggest one part of a solution to this chronic illness: the wisdom of the Buddha as set forth in his Kalama Sutta. In this work, apparently little known by Thai Buddhists, certainly not encouraged reading by Thai Buddhist monks or in Thai schools, the Buddha himself advises the citizens of Kesputta on guidelines for seeking right understanding, for acquiring knowledge of substance, and for working towards opinion of real worth. As the Buddha sagely argues in this short sermon: "It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias toward a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher'" (Kalama Sutta, trans. Soma Thera, 1994).

The Buddha shares the same insight as Socrates, as Plato and of other great thinkers: namely,  that questioning in open discussion is a necessary condition for knowledge. When censorship and repressive authority criminalizes free speech and free association, the aim is always to enforce ignorance of truths that would embarrass the law makers who create such rule of law that is not only anti-democratic in its rejection of the good morals on which democratic principle is founded, but is also unBuddhist, rejecting the Buddha's wise teaching that progress depends on right understanding. Absent understanding that has been solidly tested by having to defend itself, by having to rebut dissenting ideas, by having to acknowledge and answer contradictory evidence, there can be no knowledge or opinion of worth, only myth, fantasy, deceit and bigotry masquerading as authoritative knowledge. These, the Buddha wisely teaches, are not paths to a good life.

But would Thai teachers, not to mention monks in positions of power and other political leaders used to blind, unquestioning conformity to their unsupported claims, allow such radical reform as advised in the Buddha's excellent teachings? Indeed, were the Buddha to arrive in Thailand in 2017, could his critical search for truth, his respect for honesty and his demands for solidly founded understanding not land him in accommodation next to the likes of Jatupat Boonpattaraksa (Pai Dao Din) and the internationally respected academics of Thai history, society and politics forced into exile for seeking to follow the wisdom of the Buddha?

 Felix Qui

_______________________________

The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on May 28, 2017, under the title "Follow Buddha's wisdom" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1257830/follow-buddhas-wisdom