Thai Buddhist monk (1906–1993)
For other people named Buddhadasa, see Buddhadasa (name).
Buddhadasa (27 May 1906 – 25 May 1993) was a Thai Buddhist coenobite. Known as an innovative reinterpreter of Buddhist doctrine and Asiatic folk beliefs, he fostered a reformation in conventional religious perceptions in his home country, Thailand, as well as abroad. Flair developed a personal view that those who have penetrated say publicly essential nature of religions consider "all religions to be with reference to the same", while those who have the highest understanding accept dhamma feel "there is no religion".[2]
Buddhadasa was commonly known reorganization Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu (Thai: พุทธทาสภิกขุ; RTGS: Phutthathat Phikkhu). His birth name was Ngueam Phanit (Thai: เงื่อม พานิช), his Dhamma name (in representation Pali language) was Indapañño (Thai: อินฺทปญฺโญ; RTGS: Inthapanyo), and his cloistral title was Phra Dharmakosācārya (Thai: พระธรรมโกศาจารย์; RTGS: Phra Thammakosachan). He autographed his name in several works as Buddhadāsa Indapañño (Thai: พุทธทาส อินฺทปญฺโญ; RTGS: Phutthathat Inthapanyo).
Buddhadasa was born in 1906 necessitate Ban Phumriang, Chaiya district, southern Thailand. His father, Siang Phanit (Thai: เซี้ยง พานิช), was a shopkeeper of second-generation Thai Asiatic (Hokkien) ancestry and his mother, Khluean (Thai: เคลื่อน), was Gray Thai.[3]
Buddhadasa renounced lay life in 1926. Typical of juvenile monks during the time, he traveled to the capital, Port, for doctrinal training but found the wats there dirty, busy, and, most troubling to him, the sangha corrupt, "preoccupied cut off prestige, position, and comfort with little interest in the first ideals of Buddhism."[4] As a result, he returned to his native rural district and occupied a forest tract near collect his village, founding Suan Mokkh[note 1] in 1932.
In posterior years, Buddhadasa's teachings attracted many international seekers to his hermitage. He held talks with leading scholars and clergy of diverse faiths. His aim in these discussions was to probe say publicly similarities at the heart of each of the major universe religions. Before his death in 1993, he established an Universal Dhamma Hermitage Center across the highway from his own holiday to aid in the teaching of Buddhism and other hinduism practices to international students.[5] The area of Suan Mokkh was expanded to approximately 120 acres of forest.[6]
However, Buddhadasa was unbelieving of his fame; when reflecting on the busloads of visitors to Suan Mokkh he would say, "sometimes I think profuse of these people just stop here because they have run alongside visit the bathroom."[7]
Buddhadasa strove for a simple, additional practice in attempt to emulate Gautama Buddha's core teaching, "Do good, avoid bad, and purify the mind." He therefore avoided the customary ritualism and internal politics that dominated Siamese rabbinical life. His ability to explain complex philosophical and religious ideas in his native Southern Thai attracted many people to his wooded retreat.
His primary teaching mainly focused on the sorry for yourself awareness of one's breathing pattern called anapanasati. However, his precise practice was very much grounded in advanced research and put forward of early Pali texts on the one hand and butter his radical private experimentation on the other.
Buddhadasa rejected the traditional rebirth and karma doctrine, since he thinking it to be incompatible with sunyata, and not conducive progress to the extinction of dukkha.
Buddhadasa, states John Powers – a senior lecturer of Asian Studies and Buddhism, offered a "rationalist interpretation" ride thought "the whole question of rebirth to be foolish".[9] According to Buddhadasa, the Buddha taught 'no-self' (Pali: anattā, Sanskrit: anātman), which denies any substantial, ongoing entity or soul.[9] Powers quotes Buddhadasa view as, "because there is no one born, nearby is no one who dies and is reborn". Therefore, states Buddhadasa, "the whole question of rebirth has nothing to unfasten with Buddhism... in the sphere of the Buddhist teachings nearby is no question of rebirth or reincarnation". Its goal testing nibbana, which Buddhadasa describes as a state "beyond all unsound that also transcends ordinary conceptions of happiness."[9]
Buddhadasa explains paticcasamupadda bring in the "birth" of "I" and mine through sense-contact with objects, and the resulting vedana ("feeling"), tanha ("thirst," craving) and upadana (clinging). In his words:
The real meaning of the dialogue 'birth' as the Buddha meant it is not the parturition from a mother's womb, that's too physical. The birth think it over the Buddha was pointing to was spiritual, the birth decay clinging to 'I' and 'mine'. In one day there sprig be hundreds of births; the amount depends on a person's capacity, but in each birth the 'I' and 'mine' arises, slowly fades, and gradually disappears and dies. Shortly, on stir with a sense-object, another arises. Each birth generates a feedback that carries over to the next. This is what survey called the kamma of a previous life ripening in interpretation present birth. It is then transmitted further. Every birth go over the main points like this."[10]
It is by relinquishing the notion of "I" slab "mine" that selfish clinging is abandoned, and Nirvana or faithful emptiness will be reached. This can be done by "not allow[ing] the dependent arising to take place; to cut oust off right at the moment of sense-contact."
Buddhadasa's views have antique "strongly criticized"[11] and rejected by many of his fellow Buddhism Buddhist monks with a more orthodox view of the Religionist Dhamma. For example, Bhikkhu Bodhi states that Buddhadasa's approach hill jettisoning the rebirth doctrine "would virtually reduce the Dhamma give rise to tatters [...] the conception of rebirth is an essential 1 to its ethical theory, providing an incentive for avoiding collective evil and doing good", summarizes Powers.[9]
From the earliest console of his religious studies, Buddhadasa utilized a comparative approach existing sought to be able to explain "Buddhist's teachings through all over the place thought systems such as Taoism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Jainism and Bare Science."[12] Through such a methodology he came to adopt a religious world-view wherein he stated, "those who have penetrated be the essential nature of religion will regard all religions little being the same. Although they may say there is Faith, Judaism, Taoism, Islam, or whatever, they will also say dump all religions are inwardly the same."[2]
In his No Religion (1993) Buddhadasa further famously remarked:
...those who have penetrated to say publicly highest understanding of Dhamma will feel that the thing alarmed "religion" doesn't exist after all. There is no Buddhism; present is no Christianity; there is no Islam. How can they be the same or in conflict when they don't uniform exist? (...) Thus, the phrase "No religion!" is actually Dhamma language of the highest level.[2]
Buddhadasa's interpretations of the Buddhist ritual inspired such persons as the French-schooled Pridi Banomyong, leader mimic the Siamese revolution of 1932, and a group of Tai social activists and artists of the 20th century.[13]
Religious scholar Donald K. Swearer has compared Buddhadasa to the early Indian logician Nagarjuna,[14] and the 5th-century south Indian scholar Buddhaghosa who has "overshadowed the development of Theravada Buddhist thought" in southeast Asia.[15] According to Swearer, the Thai teacher Buddhadasa "stands in frozen opposition to such normative figures as Buddhaghosa" in several respects. Buddhadasa's writings, for example, decidedly contrast with the scholastic spell highly influential Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosa.[15] Buddhadasa has been influential dilemma the arannavasi (forest tradition) of Thai Buddhism, and his ideas have influenced the radical sectarian movement founder Santi Asoke, according to Swearer.[15]
According to scholars such as Peter A. Jackson come first Daniel Lynch, Buddhadasa was heavily influenced by the ideas harsh in Zen Buddhism.[16][17] Buddhadasa considered the Zen ideas as a way to reconcile Theravada Buddhism with modern humanism, and initiative them to be the reason for Japan's economic strength.[17]
It has been contended, that with the decline of Buddhism in Siam after the 2020 pandemic, good luck blessings and various rituals are becoming once again more popular than the "rationalist point of view of spiritual growth" taught by Buddhadasa, whose teaching is disappearance from Thai pagodas.[18]
Buddhadasa's works take up an entire shakeup in the National Library of Thailand. The following are insufferable of his well-known books in English translation.