What say Buddha?

re: "Buddhist wisdom " (BP, PostBag, November 10, 2023) & "Isoc's role in society", (BP, PostBag, Nov 6)

Dear editor,

Following the observations of Karl Reichstetter and J. C. Wilcox on authentic Buddhism's happy freedom from the traditional curse of religious dogma held as eternally infallible as it upholds witch trials, Hamas, sexism, holy war, homophobia and like evils, it must be wondered what the Buddha would say of those highly amusing photos going round, allegedly created by an AI, of Buddhist monks enjoying a few modern high jinks: motorcycle racing, rock singing, and such. 

Would he get his robes all in a twist and start legal action to promptly suppress the sort of creativity that threatens to lead to actual soft power success? Or would he appreciate and welcome an update to his wisdom otherwise in grave danger of terminal fossilization by arch conservatives who find their officially approved incarnation of Buddhism as a religion a most useful political tool? In their zeal to maintain the old ways so richly generous to themselves, they even elevate religion to the status of a pillar of the nation for ISOC to protect with their full force of the state lest the old ways succumb to the threat of creative innovation leading to flourishing for all. 

What would the Buddha say? 

 Felix Qui 

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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 November 11, 2023, under the title "What say Buddha?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2682944/peacetime-frigate-

Ethics over appetite

re: "Love all animals, big or small" (BP, October 2, 2023)

Dear editor,

If the Post's Kanokporn Chanasongkram were truly concerned about humans inflicting needless suffering on animals before casually slaughtering them, she could have given much more direct and effective advice: stop eating meat. 

Whilst medical and other scientific experiments do use animals, that use is relatively insignificant compared to the vast food industries that raise literally billions of animals in appalling conditions before casually slaughtering them for no more necessary reason than to make money by catering to the lust for tasty animal flesh of the humans whose purchases order the maintenance of that suffering and mass daily killing.

I suspect the Buddha would also prefer that his followers not order yet more suffering and killing on their behalf every time they buy meat in supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food joints, and on the street. 

 Felix Qui

 

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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 October 3, 2023, under the title "Ethics over appetite" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2656422/its-rougher-in-jail

Blessed are the kids

re: "Society must keep kids safe" (BP, Editorial, September 23, 2023)

Dear editor,

In attributing a fair share of blame for the horrendous crimes committed in the heart of a Thai family against innocent children, the Post rightly admits that "A community that remains silent and does nothing emboldens such perpetrators." This reminds us yet again that merely being a venerable tradition is no guarantee of moral worth. In this case, the hoary custom of not respecting the voice of the weak in deference to social status led to the vilest of abuse being continued for many years. Exactly the same toxic habit of blindly respecting saffron robes enabled child abuse to thrive in monasteries, as it did in Western Christian churches until respect was tempered by healthy critical questioning and respect for voices raised against traditional abuses blessed by social custom.

In Thailand, it is the law itself that too often sets the example of nurturing such ugly traditions with grievously harmful consequences for the innocent. What else is law that brutishly intimidates into silence by imprisoning children and other morally courageous citizens merely for the peaceful expression of honest opinion? Their voices, too, deserve to be heard, no matter that they offend against some tradition every bit as ancient and respected as that embodied in the silence blessed by custom that enabled the most recently unveiled evils to be committed for years on end against children in the bosom of their very own family, by their father and mother. 

Unless all voices are heard and respected, how can deeply entrenched moral corruption even be discovered, let alone healed? 

 Felix Qui 

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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 September 25, 2023, under the title "Blessed are the kids" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2652283/lack-of-interest

It's beyond reason

re: "Civic groups press for relocation of bizarre statue" (BP, August 17, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The Artists Council for the Promotion of Buddhism of Thailand demonstrates a flawed understanding of the Buddha's teachings if they think that merely because something "went against Buddhist teachings" could be grounds to abolish or suppress it. Bangkok and the rest of Thailand is full of churches, cathedrals, mosques, meat selling markets and restaurants, and no end of other things that are at least as "against Buddhist teaching" as is the rather ugly, bizarre in fact, statue of the deity Khru Kai Kaeo. The Artists Council for the Promotion of Buddhism of Thailand might find more constructive ways to promote Buddhism than an intolerance that seems itself to contradict the Buddha's ideals of reason and example rather than brute force, including brutish legal force. 

The statue and its prescribed worship are no more superstitious than any other bit of religious teaching or practice touching on supernatural matters. When it comes to the supernatural, every religious claim is, without exception, exactly as well-evidenced as every other such claim. The teachings attendant on Khru Kai Kaeo are as sacred as any and on that score as deserving of the same respect accorded any other equally well substantiated sacredness. Why wouldn't they be? The sacred is, after all, the sacred, however scary of visage and divine command. 

Those who find such things distasteful are free to ignore the crimson manicured Khru Kai Kaeo or point out that it's all a bit beyond reason, but that is as far as their horror may justly go. Those finding it a source of comfort for whatever reason should be allowed to exercise their faith provided they not cause or threaten actual harm to others, including innocent puppies, or pigs, neither of whom appreciate being sacrificed to human desires for blood-soaked self-indulgence. 

Meanwhile, those who are "gripped by fear" should get a grip and take a more rationally informed, more Buddhist, approach  to such nonsensical beliefs as ghosts, spirits, demons, gods and other such perfectly unsubstantiated fantasy. 

But before this latest god on the block is cast into the darkness whence all such derive, what sacrifice does  Khru Kai Kaeo require to deliver Thailand from the curse being cast by Pheu Thai, the senate, UTN and the rest of that most unholy alliance against the will of the Thai people as manifest on May 14 and since? Those gargoyles being gathered into the warm embrace of the Pheu Thai family are the truly scary ones stalking the land. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 August 19, 2023, under the title "It's beyond reason" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2632127/its-beyond-reason

No man is only an island

re: "Religion and politics" (BP, PostBag, August 4, 2023)

Dear editor,

Jeff Wilcox presents as being as well informed on Buddhism as he is on Thai political history. Both are solidly on a par with his understanding of human society. In describing Buddhism's founder, he writes that "Siddharta established the sovereignty of the individual human mind: that people are individuals, not one of a collective species." I am not sure that Siddhartha would have claimed to have established any such broad understanding of human reality, nor would he have dogmatically asserted he had infallibly gotten that or any other factual matter right for all time. He presents as a more modestly human individual.

We are indeed all individuals, although under Thai law, the sovereignty of each is restricted, even to criminalizing the peaceful expression of ideas that displease powerful political players. Whatever else they might be, such political players are thereby proved decidedly not apolitical; to support Mr Wilcox's claim of them being apolitical, considerable public debate would be required. For some reason, that required debate has not occurred.

If Mr Wilcox seriously thinks that we are "not one of a collective species," how does he explain his use of the Internet to interact with the Bangkok Post? Did that just appear out of blue for his "individual human" use? And the Post itself where his letter is published? And if Mr Wilcox buys food, how is that not making him a part of a collective species? Being unique individuals with rights that can be violated does not preclude our also being members of collectives, which are themselves collectivized. 

If might shock Mr Wilcox, but the evidence supports John Donne's pithy "No man is an island entire of itself" (1624). Our species has not become the dominant animal on this planet, now with literal power of life and death over all other living things, because we evolved not to be interdependent members of massively connected and interconnected organizations: collectives we call religions, NetFlix, states, tribes, clubs, corporations, families, projects, political parties, PostBag, and so on. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 August 6, 2023, under the title "No man is only an island" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2624287/revolving-door-politics

Religious meddling

re: "Monk treated too harshly" (BP, Editorial, August 1, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The Post is to be thanked for its timely editorial on the shameful treatment by the political managers of Thai Buddhism of a genuinely Buddhist Thai Buddhist monk, Phra Rajadhamnithet, better known as Phra Phayom, a well-known abbot of the Nonthaburi-based Suan Kaew temple.

If the Buddhist clergy cared for the Post's concluding ideal that "They must make parliamentarians realise their duty and restore morality to the prestigious Buddhist institution," they would be praising more of Move Forward's flagship policies as being those that best comport with the Buddha's wisdom. But morality, or decent personal and public morals, was never the reason the religion of Thai Buddhism was founded to serve a political agenda rooted in something very different to democracy, to justice, to benevolence, to compassion, to righteousness, to understanding, to tolerance and acceptance, to informed opinion of worth, or any other such moral principle.

As a political body itself, it is a bit rich for the National Office of Buddhism to be telling monks of the religion known as Thai Buddhism not to be political. The reality, as demonstrated in such things as a controlling government agency called the National Office of Buddhism (NoB), is that Thai Buddhism is and always has been a useful tool for political players, who did not want a religion of clerics speaking truth to power. Those power-driven actors wanted and want a religion and monks who tell them they can order as many animals killed as they like to sate their taste for yummy animal flesh, and every other desired indulgence of the body and ego. They want a religion that blesses every act by appointment, with never a word of complaint, unless perhaps to chastise upstarts and say it's OK to kill those deemed communists or the like whose radically moral notions threaten the established conservative order.  

Official Thai Buddhism is run by political players, from the day to day management by the NoB to the appointment of senior monks in the hierarchy legally managed by the state. It is set up that way for those purposes. The richly gilded temples, jade statues, and rich living quarters are not gifted to those who say what is displeasing merely because its true, moral, or in accord with the Buddha's wisdom. There is not now and likely never was anything apolitical about this pillar of Thainess, certainly not in its officially sanctioned forms.

What Thai Buddhism needs is more monks like Phra Phayom and less of the legalistic political interference from the National Office of Buddhism and other political bodies of the Thai state. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 August 3, 2023, under the title "Religious meddling" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2622649/on-your-bike

On sex and gender

re: "Breaking gender barriers in the clergy" (BP, Opinion, July 22, 2023) 

Dear editor,

It was a pure joy to read the erudite and humane Sanitsuda Ekachai on how those claiming to be Buddhists use the letter of the law to promote their inherited bigotry towards women and LGBTQ people. As she explains, they legalize their sacred texts to flatly contradict Buddhist principles. That same legalization of the Buddha's wisdom seems part and parcel of the Thai religion that presents itself under his name. If people in Thailand or any other country actually followed even the First Precept of Buddhism, their lives and their society would duly reflect that, both on a daily basis in the political realm. Thai customs and behaviour reflect no such commitment to the Buddha's teachings, which appear to be reduced to either strictly inhuman legalization or rampant superstition and trading in merit to bribe the karmic powers. 

For a start, were most Thais genuinely committed to the wisdom encapsulated in the First Precept, we would not see to many eagerly paying good money as they command others to commit a mass slaughter of animals every day for no better reason than to sate a lust for tasty animal flesh. No one needs to eat such unhealthy amounts of meat obtained cheap from the morally dubious infliction of suffering on and killing of sentient beings. The scale of that daily slaughter in Thailand does not seem particularly Buddhist. It isn't. But a legalized interpretation of the First Precept, one that focuses on the strict letter of the law as written, neatly manages to corrupt the plain intent of the humane and compassionate First Precept. The corrupting excuse by legalization is well known: I didn't kill any sentient being, I merely ate the meat after someone else killed it; they killed it on my orders; I paid them well to kill for me. And Don Corleone is not guilty of killing; he merely orders hits by his paid underlings on business associates who fail to freely see reason his way. He never pulls the trigger himself. And of course, there are those in politics who love to insist that all they do is in strict accord with the law, as they blatantly weaponize that law to actively and deliberately thwart justice for the Thai people. 

As to the sex and gender issue to which Ms Ekachai so eruditely and compassionately responded, if it were true that the sacred texts of Buddhism did indeed have a rule against transgender people, that would merely prove that those texts were not a reliable guide to good morals on that point. But religion never is such a guide. Just because the Christian Bible explicitly commands slaves to be obedient to their masters (Titus 2:9, 1 Peter 2:18, et al ) does not actually mean, despite slave holders traditionally citing that sacred text to support their trade in human flesh, that it's morally OK to own slaves. Slavery is wrong, and no number of biblical endorsements can change that, however legalistically interpreted or however hallowed a tradition passed down from generation to generation. 

I suspect that were he to reincarnate today, the Buddha would have the good sense and decency to sternly reprimand those who have built a rich and politically powerful institution using his name. He might, much like the Christian's Jesus is recorded doing in Matthew 21:12-13, wander into one of the impressively gilded temples awash with a true sufficiency of gold and other luxuries to inflate in the ego. And there he might politely reprimand the gathered chiefs and others in some such words as: "For god's sake learn to think. I did not found a hierarchy of tradition-bound law intent on preserving unchanging rules and regulations. Stop using my words to stifle both scientific and moral progress. I was obviously wrong way back then. Have you actually managed to learn nothing new, to make no improving reforms on my old notions in 2,500 years?" 

Bad rules should be corrected. No rule or belief is ever good merely because ancient or said by any particular human being. That it enables the correction of inherited errors of understanding in every field, without exception, is one of the lesser boons of respecting free speech and critical, open discussion on any and all topics. Surely that is the point of the Buddha's truly wise Kalama Sutta (กาลามสูตร). Unlike many who profess to follow him by enforcing strict, oppressive legalism, the Buddha appears a devout fan of critical thinking. His own life as I understand it seems one of constant reform driven by improving understanding: it was certainly not a life of forced stagnation in an idealized past of dubious merit. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 July 29, 2023, under the title "On sex and gender" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2619879/smart-but-no-friends

Pointless bans

re: "MFP slams holiday booze ban" (BP, June 5, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Move Forward is right that the current bans on the sale of the drug alcohol on Buddhist holy days should be ended. Buddhists who take their religion seriously already abstain from alcohol and other drugs on such holidays exactly as they do on every other day of the year for exactly the same reason: that such drug use is contrary to their deep religious beliefs. That a small percentage of Thai adults actually follow that Buddhist principle is no just reason to force their religious precept on everyone else in society. If such reasoning for a ban were actually sound, it would be equally reasonable to ban the eating of meat, which typically involves a meat eater paying others to kill for them for no better reason than to enjoy the delicious taste of purely recreational meat consumption, often to a medically harmful extent, a reality that plainly violates the First Precept of Buddhism as largely ignored by Thai Buddhism.

The pro-ban excuse from Phetchawat Wattanapongsirikul, a list-MP candidate for the Pheu Thai Party, is even weaker since he presents zero evidence that such a ban on the sale of the popular drug actually "helps prevent road accidents caused by drink-driving." As even Songkran Pakchokdee, director of the StopDrink Network Office concedes, "People can still stock up in advance for consumption at their homes, anyway," making any causal relationship between interfering with adults buying alcohol on Buddhist holy days unlikely. What does, or could were it enforced, prevent road deaths and carnage caused by alcohol use is the consistent enforcement of drink-driving laws.

Unlike a ban on the recreational use of alcohol by adults, which would violate their liberty to decide how best to pursue a happy, meaningful life for themselves (however foolish and self-harming the rest of us might think their choices), banning driving under the influence of drugs does not violate any right, but protects others in society from a very real threat to their own life and well-being. That is why such behaviour, but not the drug itself, may be justly banned by law, as is similarly the case for every drug in popular recreational use by adults. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 June 6, 2023, under the title "Pointless bans" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2585756/hazardous-waste

Repeated platitude

re: "Food for thought" (BP, Editorial, February 11, 2023) 

Dear editor, 

When the Bangkok Post's repeats the platitude that "the lese majeste laws ... are needed to protect the revered institution," reasonable people might again wonder why Thailand's revered institution needs such punitive protection from its own people when the same revered institutions of other nations thrive without any need of such draconian law, not even on the books, let alone in cruel practice. 

But let us leave that [perplexing alleged need for them] aside to consider another aspect of Thailand's internationally famous lese majeste laws that is equally food for thought. Namely, how do these laws comport with the venerated notion of karma that has been a vital element of Thai life and society for many generations?

Karma is indifferent to human made law. It cares only for actual justice, for genuine compassion, and for true merit. If, for example, a law authorized, or even commanded, the killing of animals by painful means, those strictly executing such a law would be piling up bad karma, with the resulting consequences for committing such acts of demerit. Either the bad law would either be no defence, or the bad karma would accrue to those responsible for such bad law or benefitting from it. Nor can the law miraculously convert the demerits of bad karma into immaculate good. 

Do Thailand's prevailing lese majeste laws and their application inflicting suffering to punish show compassion? Do they embody justice? Do they further or hobble the Buddhist goal of seeking right understanding through critical thinking? Are those who follow or are implicated in following those laws by arresting and imprisoning peaceful protestors merely for speaking honest opinion accruing good or bad karma? 

Karma has consequences. And unlike the Royal Thai Police or other law enforcement agencies that for a modest donation enable, for example, Chinese triads to thrive, the Red Bull police killer to evade justice, and vaping culprits to be extorted, karma cannot be bribed by rich shows of prayer and meditation, or tricked by gaudy mass ordinations on demand. Karma is not fooled by such public displays intended to buy off actual bad deeds, whether in strict accord with the law or not.

Karma dishes out only what is truly deserved. Does this perhaps explain why the Thai nation has failed to follow Taiwan and South Korea in flourishing so prosperously since all three nations began from similar economic and political starting points five decades ago? 

 Felix Qui 

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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 February 14, 2023, under the title "Repeated platitude" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2505789/chuvits-crusade

Telling it like it is

re: "Thailand's political charade exposed" (BP, Opinion, January 27, 2023) 

Dear editor,

It is encouraging to see the Bangkok Post publish Thitinan Pongsudhirak bluntly stating the open secrets of the collusion that culminated in Prime Minister army Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha's ascent to power by the latest overthrow of Thailand's popular form of democratic government back in May 2014. It is incredible that anyone even then could have swallowed the absurd fiction of Prayut, the leader of a traditionally authoritarian institution of dubious commitment to democratic principle, being "some high and mighty soldier taking power and sacrificing for the country." He sacrificed nothing but the Thai people's aspiration that their nation move forward not backwards. Perhaps the wave of "attitude adjustment" vacations following that meticulously hatched coup was enough to intimidate some into the required credulity.

Another aspect of Thai culture may usefully illuminate the plainly manifest consequences for the Thai nation of such acts as those of the Prayut contingent and their predecessors over the course of many decades. 

For those who believe in it, karma justly doles out only what is deserved. This suggests a natural explanation for the nation's traditionally high levels of corruption and general malaise reflected in Thailand's conspicuously poor performance politically, socially and economically when compared to countries such as Taiwan and South Korea since the 1980s. Karma is impartially doing its job. 

It further appears that no amount of gaudy merit making by ordered prayer and meditation, let alone soldiers commanded to voluntarily ordain en masse as monks, is sufficient to counter the demerit piled up by all those involved in actively enforcing unjust law that violates basic human rights and democratic principle. Karma is not so easily bribed. 

Nor, it would appear, is karma fooled by the dictates of bad law, no matter how religiously the same is falsely proclaimed just and followed to the letter. 

Like the Christian God who bluntly warns: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7), so too must karma hold even Thai political players and institutions to a higher standard than mere law made up to further a political agenda of dubious merit. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 January 28, 2023, under the title "Telling it like it is" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2493329/telling-it-like-it-is

90-day nonsense

re: "A lesson in migration policy" (BP, PostBag, January 22, 2023) 

Dear editor,

In his diatribe against immigrants, Ben Levin displays true zealousness. He writes of "millions of illegal aliens, phoney 'asylum seekers' and foreign criminal gangs ... destroying the Western world." He sounds very much a Trumpish acolyte preaching the need to cleanse the nation of social vermin from "sh*thole countries", as Donald Trump himself put it with his usual eloquence in his rousing speeches to the deplorables who love him. It is a base appeal to ignorant bigotry. 

The facts regarding rates of criminal behaviour: in "Comparing Crime Rates Between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Native-born US Citizens in Texas" published in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dec. 2020 (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014704117), the authors analyzed data from the Texas Computerized Criminal History (CCH) database provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The major finding was  "that undocumented immigrants had substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses", including violent crime, where native born Americans are twice as criminal, drug-related crime (2.5 times) and property crime, where native borns are recorded as being 4 times as criminal as illegal immigrants. 

In the US, it is the native born Americans who threaten to "destroy[] the Western world" as Mr Levin puts it. The the far less criminal illegal immigrants working hard and honestly for a better life for themselves and families are, by comparison, law-abiding and productive members of society, supporting what Mr. Levin's native borns are harming.

Mr Levin also overlooks a rather obvious fact: any nation that has a problem with illegal immigrants can quickly and easily solve it. All that is required is for a strong leader to do the right thing and legalize the honest immigrants eager to contribute to the nation that they have freely chosen to make their home, rather than having been born into it by accident and seeing it as something batten on. For a Christian or Buddhist nation, it is particularly hard to see how a nation that is richer and better than those wracked by political chaos and the poverty it causes can deny honest people fleeing those evils the opportunity to benefit the nation they would eagerly make their families' homes.

As to Mr Levin's even sillier, albeit less ignorantly bigotted, claims about 90-day reports, I am confident that your average foreign criminal operating in Thailand, for example those famous Chinese criminals so much in the news recently, has their 90-day reports properly crossed and dotted for inspection. There is no evidence and no reason to think that 90-reporting has any effect whatsoever on criminal activity by foreigners. How could it? Would Mr. Levin suddenly become criminal did he no longer have to report every 90 days?  

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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, severely truncated, on January 24, 2023, under the title "90-day nonsense" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2489922/road-death-lottery

False interpretation

re: "Myanmar monk militia: Buddhist clergy backing junta" (BP, December 8, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Overlooking the fact that Buddhist monks high in the state hierarchy preaching killing and lying as a means to a decidedly not right understanding in the service of a military dictator waging war against his own nation's people seems to seriously pervert the Buddha's wise insights and teachings, I was impressed by senior Buddhist monk Sitagu's insightful explanation that coup committer and nationalist killer, army chief Min Aung Hlaing, is in truth the model of a "benevolent king." This has greatly helped to clarify what the term "benevolent king" truly means, for which enlightenment the revered senior monk  is to be most gratefully thanked. 

 Felix Qui  

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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 December 11, 2022, under the title "False interpretation" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2457742/india-can-lead

End eating rule

re: "Novices get advice about fighting flab" (BP, September 2, 2022) 

Dear editor,

If a major driver of unhealthy obesity in Thai Buddhist novices is the fact that "monks are not allowed to eat after midday," that suggests that a sensible solution will embrace more healthy, natural eating habits by ending that old rule of dubious merit. 

Is there any good reason to stick with an unnatural and harmful rule merely because it happens to be traditional? Surely the good health of children is worth more than blind adherence to habits based on dubious beliefs that modern science has improved on. 

An honest, healthy meal in the evening is far preferable to the current situation of cheating the rules by drinking sugary milk and other sickly things that the hierarchical legalism does not define as meals. 

 Felix Qui

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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 September 3, 2022, under the title "End eating rule" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2383338/van-death-tragedy

Profiting on faith

re: "Keeping the faith" (BP, August 22, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Absent any supporting statistics, let us take it on faith as reported that "Large numbers of Thais are turning to superstition to help make sense of an increasingly fraught and unstable world." But is that really an excuse for business to cash in by pandering to wild claims of dubious merit? Do the marketing guru's of Krungthai's KTC and others in the lucrative Buddha amulet, magical talisman and like businesses see themselves as good Buddhists, or good people, as they peddle crude superstitions to the gullible for profit? What would the Buddha prefer: profiting from fake claims that give a cheap, momentary, false image of success, or promoting education that leads to right understanding,?

And what, exactly, is to be made of the bold claim by Kritchakhun Pornthananunt, general manager for the corporate marketing department of The Mall Group, that "we are creating faith campaigns aimed at building up luck for our shoppers''? I would love to see the statistics measuring the changes in customers' luck before and after those amazing campaigns, or has it already been infallibly proved by sacred incantation, or perhaps one of those cited "occult rites, known as mutelu", that luck for participating customers correlates so strongly with the company's profit margin that no further research is required for perfectly faith-based belief that it must indeed be as claimed?

Have any of these people lately read the Buddha's insightful Kalama Sutta (กาลามสูตร)? 

 Felix Qui

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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 August 27, 2022, under the title "Profiting on faith" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2378156/profiting-on-faith

Moral hazards

re: "All for pride, pride for all" (BP, Life, June 27, 2022) 

Dear editor,

That the sacred text of a religion commands that "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus, 22:18), was never a just reason for burning wise women at the stake. No more was traditional religious endorsement of that evil ever a sound justification for slavery throughout the US and elsewhere. 

Equally, just as the recent debacle of the religiously inspired forcing their bad morals on others in society as seen in the overthrow of legal abortion throughout the United States, the same is true of the cited objections of some to marriage equality for all Thais. Good morals require equality of rights before the law. It therefore follows that were it true as claimed by some opponents of Move Forward's Marriage Equality Bill now before parliament, that "such a bill , if passed, would violate religious beliefs", then those religious beliefs contradict good morals. The followers of a religion are of course entitled to hold whatever beliefs they wish and freely practice the associated rituals. There are, however, limitations on what religious freedom allows its devotees to do. Their rituals may not directly harm or threaten to harm others, for example by creating excessive noise that disrupts daily life in the area, nor should such beliefs be allowed to trump good morals. 

 Felix Qui

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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 July 2, 2022, under the title "Moral hazards" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2338338/moral-hazards

Down with death

re: "Dhamma helps inmates accept fate" (BP, May 29, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Rather than sending in a monk to teach death-row inmates to "accept their destiny" as imposed by the Thai state, perhaps Thai authorities should instead follow the Buddha's teaching and stop their habit of deliberately killing people. Killing by the state according to law made up to do so serves no good purpose. It does, however, teach the message that such extreme violence is an appropriate response to a perceived problem, a lesson that humans readily follow. Would it not be better for the law to set the the more challenging but socially healthy example taught by the Buddha? 

 Felix Qui

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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 30, 2022, under the title "Down with death" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2317906/army-fatigue

Be fair to all

re: "Police prepare charges in abbot's sex scandal case" (BP, May 6, 2022) 

Dear editor,

Whilst the cynical reaction would be to ask who would not have thought it of a Thai Buddhist monk, an abbot no less, to be indulging in perfectly natural human desires for money and consenting sex, the headline making case of the former Phra Kato and his devotees raises, yet again, the modern issue of audio and video recordings of naughtiness often far more grave than a bit of sex in the temple.

Audio and video recordings are plainly powerful pillars for justice. Perhaps there should, therefore, be a campaign to get a lot more such revealing videos out into the public domain, rather than seeking to suppress them as usual. Should the Joe Ferrari video have been suppressed because it upset Joe and his fans? Should this monk's audio have been suppressed because it upset him and his loyalist devotees? 

 Felix Qui

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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 9, 2022, under the title "Be fair to all" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2306758/elephant-in-the-room

Faith reform needed

re: "Men of cloth, not paper" (BP, Editorial, April 9, 2022) 

Dear editor,

When has the nationalistic religion known as Thai Buddhism, created by and for powerful political players, ever been primarily about the teachings of the Buddha rather than the pursuit of power, property and prestige in line with its political origins? Why else would the original example have been set of gifting literally gilded temples and images to monks except to serve very secular goals of using the religion so endowed as a means to keep the masses passive and peaceful underfoot as they contributed to the coffers? Why else would Thai Buddhism have political protection and control at the highest level? The very existence of such a thing as the government's National Office of Buddhism shows that Thai Buddhism's primary function is political.

If Thai Buddhism is to move from worldly concerns towards following the wise teachings of the Buddha, an essential reform is to free it from state management. Annul the National Office of Buddhism and other political control of the religion that it may independently pursue and preach the wisdom of the Buddha to the great benefit of those who will listen. 

 

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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 April 12, 2022, under the title "Faith reform needed" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2293930/faith-reform-needed

Unholy questions

re: "'Embezzler' had plans for supercar" (BP, April 7, 2022) 

Dear editor,

"Some 200 million baht" is no pittance, either for an embezzler to behold with lust or a monk, a revered abbot no less, to be holding. This latest engrossing story from the inspiring lives of Thai Buddhist monks attached to well-gilded temples, complete with properly gilded amulets, themselves "worth more than one million baht," raises questions in need of answers, perhaps even openness, transparency and, the heavens forfend, accountability.

Preeminent perhaps is the question of how, exactly, one gets to have become "a close aide of", for example, the late abbot Somdej Phra Wannarat of Wat Bowon Niwet Vihara? What are the requirements for such closeness to a Thai Buddhist abbot with hundreds of millions (billions?) in largesse to control and bestow with the assistance of a "close aide"? Are there hidden depths in line with the traditions of Thai Buddhist monks that have not yet come to light in this story of elevated Buddhist (Thai style) attachment and practice?

There appears to be some serious backstory here that a bit of proper investigative reporting might usefully fill in, lest rumour and suspicion run riot to the detriment of the good names and reputations of those most concerned. 

 Felix Qui 

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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 April 9, 2022, under the title "Unholy questions" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2292666/unholy-questions

Booze bans are bananas

re: "Regulate in moderation" (BP, March 14, 2022) 

Dear editor,

A personal devotion to the teachings of a religion is an excellent reason for those so devoted to follow when making personal decisions as to how they live their own lives. Devout Thai Buddhists might, for example, choose to abstain from drinking alcohol on the holy days of Buddhism, just as they similarly abstain from paying others to kill sentient beings on their orders merely to enjoy some tasty animal flesh. However, neither the personal religious beliefs of some, not even of a majority, nor the teachings of any religion, are legitimately relevant to forming public policy and law.  For the state to be persuaded by some group to force their personal religious doctrines on all is to expose that religion as an authoritarian despotism, something I do not think that the Buddha set out to create. The ban on alcohol sales on Buddhist holy days is every bit as rationally defensible as a universal ban on the sale and consumption of meat on those days. 

Prima facie, the capriciously timed ban on alcohol sales at certain times every day appears more reasonable in order to "minimise the impact of (that popular drug of addiction) on society, claiming it causes health and family problems, accidents and crimes." No one disputes that alcohol is harmful, not only to its users, but to others in society. Indeed, although heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine are all more harmful to their users, alcohol is by far the most harmful drug to others in society. A more careful analysis shows, however, that the excuse of protecting society cannot justify the draconian laws currently controlling the sale and consumption of alcohol any more than such considerations can justify the policy that has for many decades uselessly, and worse, criminalized the sale and use of a range of other drugs.

The state may only use law to punish behaviour that directly harms or threatens to harm others in society. That is why laws against obnoxious public drunkenness are just, and this is the most that good Buddhist can reasonably expect the state to impose on others. The restriction of direct harm or threat is also why laws against driving under the influence of drugs such as alcohol are right and reasonable. It is true that society suffers when instead of going to work productively, alcohol users are hungover or worse. But those who so harm themselves are not the property of the state, which may not punish their rash recklessness in getting drunk. Employers might very reasonably decide to dispense with the services of employees whose drug use makes absence or incompetence a recurring event; they may not, however, have the state act as policeman controlling the private lives of employees and citizens in general, who are not in fact slaves either of the state or of corporations.

The retailers and restaurant owners peacefully petitioning for reform of the laws regarding the sale, and also advertising, of alcohol are doubtless acting from the capitalist profit motive, but that does not reduce the cogency of their of their call for reform of bad law. 

 Felix Qui

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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 March 20, 2022, under the title "Booze bans are bananas" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2282063/inspired-thai-diplomacy-