Lost at Sea: Thai Buddhism and humanitarianism

The most common metaphor for samsaric suffering in Buddhism is that of the multitudes drifting at sea. Thus, it’s ironic that the horrifying images of thousands of Rohingya boat people have stirred little sympathy among Thai Buddhists, despite the oft-recited chant that all beings are “in the same boat” of suffering. 

This ongoing humanitarian crisis raises many worrying questions about the state of Thai Buddhism. The debate raging in social media over whether Thailand should help these people pits humanitarianism against concerns about the country’s resources and security. 

It is surprising that, in a country where 94 per cent of the population claims to be religious – more than any other country, according to a recent survey – Buddhist principles such as metta (kindness) and karuna (compassion) have not come up as top reasons for saving the lives of fellow human beings. On the contrary, another Buddhist principle, upekkha (equanimity), was used as a reason to cast them back to sea even after they were trafficked by fellow Thais.

Metta, karuna and upekkha actually belong to the same group of Buddhist teachings called Brahmavihara. According to the traditional commentary, the four principles – kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), empathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) – are exemplified by a mother’s bond with her children at four stages in their lives – as a baby, a sick child, an adolescent enjoying life and a grown-up busy with his own affairs. 

Even by this interpretation 

of choosing a facet of the Brahmavihara to suit each 

circumstance, it’s obvious that the Rohingya need our compassion, not apathy.

If anything, the real test for kindness and compassion is when misfortune befalls those we disagree with or disapprove of; empathetic joy when they meet with good fortune; and equanimity when hardship falls on us or our loved ones. Not the opposite.

Choosing to be kind only when it suits one’s narrow interest is the definition of being selfish, not of non-self (anatta) as taught by the Buddha. 

Limiting compassion only to compatriots befits nationalists, but not those who claim that their faith is a world religion. In fact, the Buddha taught – for example, in Subhasutta – that each and every facet of Brahamavihara is to be applied in all four quarters, that is, towards all without discrimination.

In Theravada Buddhism, nirvana and the path towards it are often couched in negative terms as the total elimination of passion (or greed), hatred and delusion. This leaves enlightenment seeming rather cold and bloodless, but it is not the only way to describe nirvana. 

In “Kindness and Compassion as Means to Nirvana in Early Buddhism”, eminent Pali scholar Richard Gombrich showed that Bharmavihara is a positive description of the path to nirvana in morality, concentration and understanding. What more can be imagined of an enlightened person than perfected kindness, compassion, emphatic joy and equanimity towards all beings? What more can be expected of those who claim to follow the path of the Buddha than the efforts to practice these very same principles?

Professor Gombrich wrote, “The conventional view of the Buddha’s message and his place in the history of world religion is wrong: that far from preaching that the only solution to life’s problems lay in eliminating emotion, he was the person who found a way to salvation through emotion, albeit emotion purified of selfishness; … that it was the Buddha who introduced love and compassion into Indian religion.”

Humanitarianism is based on the principle that every single human life has an equal intrinsic value. Therefore, the Rohingya, as fellow human beings, are to be helped and not left to a geopolitical game of “human ping-pong”, regardless of their origins and reasons for leaving their countries.

While Thailand would like to think of itself as the global centre of Buddhism and is busy celebrating Visakha Bucha Day, if I am not mistaken, no Thai Buddhist organisations or temples have raised a voice in favour of helping these fellow human beings, despite the billions of dollars in donations that they sit on. This stands in painful contrast to the outpouring of donations from all sectors for Nepal’s earthquake victims.

When the Rohingya are eventually rescued by other countries, we in this country must consider whether it is time to send out a rescue mission in search of a Thai humanity and Buddhism lost at sea. 

 

PAISARN LIKHITPREECHAKUL is a Buddhist scholar with an MA in International Law and Human Rights from the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica. He has written for the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies.