Phra Maha Boon Choey, Monknet, Wat Suan Doc, Chiangmai

January, 2003

In January 2002, at the suggestion of Dr. Donald Swearer, I met with Phra Maha Boon Choey, a monk who organizes a development organization for monks in the north of Thailand: Monknet. Phra Maha Boon Choey is a monk at Wat SUan Doc, home to the Lanna campus of the major Buddhist University, Maha Chulalongkorn. During that meeting, I learned of the efforts of Monknet to help local villagers to use the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism to explore the nature of various forms of suffering, e.g. debt relief, environmental degradation, etc. in order to find the way to alleviate that particular form of suffering. The meeting in 2003 with the Phra Maha was to be the first for the students to meet a monk who is intentionally engaged in efforts to incorporate Buddhist practice and issues of development and social concern. It was New Year's afternoon when we traveled to the Wat to meet him. Several people in our group expressed a desire to take the afternoon to themselves to rest and go shopping/exploring on their own, as our pace had been quite busy from the moment of our landing. Our time with Phra Maha proved quite informative:

For many people there is the belief that Theravada Buddhism, in particular, is a more selfish practice, aimed only at the individual attainment of enlightenment. Earlier Thai kings had also taken out of the hands of the monks many of the services that directly address social concern. Thus, the question of Buddhism and social engagement is often not the first thing one thinks of when considering Thai Buddhism.

Phra Maha Boon Choey leads a network of monks in the north of Thailand from the nine provinces around Chiangmai, to deal with a variety of social issues: HIV/AIDS, environmental preservation; drug prevention; promotion of local crops and pesticide free farming, preservation of local culture, and promotion of eco-tourism, especially in the Hill Tribe areas. They engage in community based research that helps the local people to obtain government development funds. The government has provided for more decentralization of the efforts to engage in development, so the project has now grown to include seven major projects, where monks act as project managers. Monks go to the local leaders and begin to explore with the villagers the various ways that they can bring back local wisdom and integrate it with Buddhism and western wisdom. Because the monks are not paid, the people trust the monks. The government is, more and more, turning to the monks for help in addressing social concerns, with the exception of drug prevention. The government continues to give the majority of their funding to the police who receive nearly $4000 million bath/year in comparison with the $200 million that is distributed to programs such as Monknet.

Phra Maha Boon Choey is a member of the Mahanikai order of monks, the oldest order in Thailand that predates the Thammayut order that was created by King Rama V to purify Buddhism and remove it increasingly from direct involvement with social problems and religious superstition.

Phra Maha Boon Choey spoke to us about how the mind of all living beings is going down by nature. Like a stream with a fish that is trying to come up, it is difficult to bring the mind up because that is not its nature.

He concluded with a request for us to write to the Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra and ask him not to pursue plans to build a Night Time Safari in Chiangmai. It is his belief that such a tourist site will further the efforts to make Chiangmai a central hub of tourism and commerce in Thailand, next to Bangkok and that such a project may also attract people away from other forms of entertainment, like prostitution and drugs. The monk and many of us expressed our skepticism that such a safari park would provide adequate competition and, according to Phra Maha the park will have problematic environmental effects for the region.

He concluded by asking us to write to the Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra to ask him not to bring the Night Safari into Chiangmai, if, as foreign tourists we did not believe this would attract us to Chiangmai. The Prime Minister can be reached at: prommin@thaigov.go.th