*[Enwl-eng] The Forest Monks
enwl
enwl at enw.net.ru
Sat Dec 16 16:51:58 MSK 2023
In Thailand, some Buddhist monks are taking on the mantle of land defenders.
News of the world environment
NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER 15, 2023
The Forest Monks
IT’s 5:50 A.M AND I’M in Chaiyaphum
province, Thailand, following a single-file column of russet-robed monks as
they tread barefoot down the red-dirt road that runs between their monastery
and the nearby village. The first greetings of the day are all of the canine
variety. Farm dogs look up from nipping fleas to bark at the monks as they
wind their way through the dawn. The monks are accompanied by their own
companions, four scruffy dogs that hang around the monastery and seem to
have appointed themselves the monks’ guardians. When one of the farm dogs
gets a little too excited, baring its fangs and developing a raw edge to its
bark, the monastery mutts swiftly pin it onto its back.
In Theravada Buddhism, the school of
Buddhism practiced here, the monks’ discipline requires them to neither
cultivate their own food nor buy it, so their sustenance depends on whatever
alms the villagers might donate this morning. This is my first time joining
an alms walk. Every day, though, three processions of monks set out, each
covering different corners of the village. I can’t quite wrap my head around
how this kind of collection is supposed to work as a long-term prospect.
Villagers living near a monastery face the burden of feeding themselves
while also keeping dozens of monks and nuns alive. Although monks eat
little, limiting themselves to a scant meal or two a day as part of the
effort to overcome the desires of the body, there are many of them.
When I drove in the day before with the
group of conservation biology students I’m here with, the village had not
looked especially large or prosperous, just a few cross streets of
smallholder farmers’ houses. There were no traffic lights, no commercial
buildings other than a couple of dusty pantry markets and an informal repair
garage, with spare parts and tires piled against the walls. Would families
keep giving, I wondered? Could they?
In all honesty, I hadn’t expected to worry
much about the village, which had seemed like just another cluster of houses
to pass on the way to Wat Pa Sukato, the forest monastery where the monks
dwell. The other students and I are here for five days to study the monks’
conservation efforts, led by the head of the monastery, Phra Paisal Visalo.
A spare, soft-spoken man in his mid-60s, Phra Paisal conveys unmistakable
authority despite wearing the same style of hand-dyed robe and sporting the
same shaved head as the other monks. For several days, he and Vichai Naphua,
a good-humored, bearded layman who has long worked with the monastery and is
as robustly framed as Phra Paisal is lean, have been orienting us to decades’
worth of activism, both here and at the many forest monasteries across
Thailand that have nudged Buddhism toward greater engagement in ecological
issues.
How could those practicing a religion
founded on compassion turn their backs on severe environmental crisis?
Writer Greg Harris visits a forest monastery
in Thailand and learns how, in the face of severe environmental crisis,
Buddhist monks there are setting aside their religious imperative to keep a
distance from worldly affairs and taking up activism.
READ MORE
Photo by Sasin Tipchai
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From: Editors, Earth Island Journal
Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2023 4:45 AM
Subject: The Forest Monks
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