タイ国タンマガーイ寺院

Rest in Peace: Second Death Caused by Article 44

There was an alert that a woman experiencing an asthma attack asked for an inhaler at 11.29 AM. She was residing behind the temple in the 58 rai area. Typically, traveling from the medical clinic, taking a route along Khlong L, would take approximately 10 minutes. But, the medical clinic volunteer who went was obstructed by the blockade setup by the soldiers and police officers behind the temple. These officers have no decision-making power. Permission to pass must be obtained from DSI officials only. Read more

About monastic property

Of property in this country, people barely know that the property that belongs to Buddhism is in great amount and nobody knows the exact value of it because the list and value of monastic property have never been revealed. However, by estimation, it should not be less than 20 trillions Baht which is greater than the combined value of 57 state enterprises. Nevertheless, this immense amount of value does not provide benefits to Buddhism, monasteries or monastic communities as much as it should due to murky administration that has been corrupt, by which Buddhist property has been abused and made personal property for so long.

There are a lot of problems relating to property of monasteries or monks. In some cases, when a monk passes away and leaves a lot of property behind, his relatives claim that it is their inheritance. In some cases, a famous monk whose property includes tremendous amount of money, luxurious items, European vehicles, houses, lands and administration as if it is a kingdom of his own benefits. In cases of different temples, e.g. Wat Sothonwararam, Wat Sraket Rajavaravihara that have problems with administration of monastic property, benefits of the temples are embezzled and placed in the trust of some monks and some of their people. Read more

On February 28, 2017, around 10AM at the Khlong Luang central market, Wat Phra Dhammakaya’s followers organized a ceremony to plead the monks on starvation protest to change their mind and come back to protect Buddhism. In the ceremony, a teaching monk of Wat Phra Dhammakaya made an announcement about the activity’s purposes.

Also, a representative of Wat Phra Dhammakaya’s followers, who does not want to make a personal appearance, talked about her starvation protest behind the spot where the monks are starving themselves. This auntie said that she was on a starvation protest for 7 days to pressure her son who was a monk of Wat Phra Dhammakaya at that time to leave the monkhood. However, she finally realized that her action was useless, so she changed her mind and helped support her son and Buddhism instead. She is asking the 5 monks on starvation protest to stop their starvation because it does not help in revocation of article 44. Read more

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