Showing 1 - 10 of 33
Arrests not enough to reform Thai Sangha
News, Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, Published on 31/05/2018
» The early morning of May 24 was the morning of the long knives for the Thai Sangha. Commandos stormed Wat Or Noi in Nakhon Pathom to arrest the abbot, then Phra Buddha Isara, a staunch supporter of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). In an unrelated case, five of seven other senior monks accused of embezzlement and money laundering were arrested from three famous temples in Bangkok. The other two remain on the run.
No police apology for monk's violent arrest
News, Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 28/05/2018
» Nobody doubts why the Crime Suppression Division police had to make the arrest of Phra Buddha Isara, the abbot of Wat Or Noi in Nakhon Pathom, before dawn of May 24 at his living quarters on the temple grounds.
When faith enables fraud
Life, Patcharawalai Sanyanusin, Published on 05/09/2016
» Faith is an important factor in our decision to hold someone or something to our hearts, or turn our back on them and walk away. As far as a religion is concerned, however, faith must go hand in hand with wisdom, or else it might easily become blind faith.
Earthly matters and the role of religion
Life, Patcharawalai Sanyanusin, Published on 21/03/2016
» Most Thai Buddhists are relieved after the government decided to shelve the Sangha Supreme Council's (SSC) nomination of Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn, or Somdet Chuang, as the new supreme patriarch. The move was triggered by his alleged involvement with a luxury car tax evasion scam.
Clergy must drop its dependence on state
News, Sanitsuda Ekachai, Published on 24/02/2016
» The Sangha Council and its supporters should realise one thing in their campaign to pressure the government to endorse the supreme patriarch of their choice: They can't have the cake and eat it too.
Monastic community must get its act together
Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 16/02/2016
» Hands off, and mind your own business! That, in essence, is one of the demands put to the government by a group of monks calling themselves the Sangha and Buddhist Alliance of Thailand and led by Phra Methee Dhammacharn, secretary-general of the Buddhism Protection Centre of Thailand.
Struggle for power in the temple
News, Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 15/02/2016
» The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) -- the red-shirt movement -- has until recently been keeping a safe distance from the controversies surrounding Phra Dhammachayo, the abbot of Wat Dhammakaya, who is under intense pressure by groups known to oppose former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to be defrocked.
Top Buddhism institutions need to wise up
Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 12/02/2016
» There seems to be no stopping Thai Buddhists' loss of faith in the country’s two top Buddhist institutions – the Sangha Supreme Council (SSC) and the National Office of Buddhism (NOB).
Prosecution fails to clear up 2006 election scandal
News, Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 08/02/2016
» After almost 10 years of living with the stigma of being electoral cheats, which resulted in the dissolution of the Thai Rak Thai Party by the Constitutional Court, several former members of the defunct party are celebrating the Supreme Court's verdict last Wednesday which, they claim, has found the party not guilty.
Of monks, money and (the need for proper) monitoring
News, Nopporn Wong-Anan, Published on 28/01/2016
» Like water and oil, as the old Thai adage goes, monks and money are not supposed to mix.