Squabbling Monks Shock Faithful

Buddhists living around Wat Bang Khun Thian Nok in Chom Thong district have reacted angrily to a row involving monks and their morning alms round.

A dispute has broken out between one monk who regularly followed a particular route to collect alms and two others who he alleged scared him off, reportedly because adherents offer money.

Residents of the area say the unseemly row was threatening to jeopardise the integrity of Buddhism.

The row came to light on Wednesday when Phra Jirawat Pasanno, 44, filed a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) against two other monks from the same temple.

Phra Jirawat accused Phra Auan, 70, and Phra Phit Papassaro, or Phra Jo, 26, of assaulting him and threatening him with a gun after an argument over their overlapping alms routes.

Phra Jirawat has now moved to another temple in Samut Sakhon province.

The two other monks yesterday denied the accusations and met with police to check their report into the incident.

No charges have yet been laid against the two as an investigation has to be carried out.

Suthep Thongsai, a 54-year-old motorcycle taxi driver, said the row was "unacceptable and improper".

"It hurts the feelings of Buddhists," Mr Suthep said.

A 67-year-old resident who asked not to be named said she heard about the quarrel from a television report.

"I don't think this should happen as people do not select monks to give alms to.

"I often give alms to monks regardless of where they come from," she said. "These monks are tarnishing the image of Buddhism."

She said it was possible the conflict erupted because many people make merit by giving money to monks.

"Every morning I see many people stopping their cars to give money to monks before going to work," she said.

A 51-year-old merchant who did not want to be named said Phra Jirawat had questioned why she gave so little money to the temple.

"I was unsure whether the monk was joking with me or not, but in my opinion I think it is inappropriate to say something like that," she said. As a result, she no longer made merit at the temple.

She said she was unaware of the overlapping morning alms routes at the temple.

Phra Jo told the Bangkok Post that there was no concession on morning alms routes as claimed by Phra Jirawat.

"The accusation made by Phra Jirawat is not true. No monks here have been beaten up and threatened with a gun," he said.

Phra Jirawat claimed he collected morning alms on the same route from Wajjana Road leading to Rama II Road and received 300-600 baht every day and up to 1,000 baht on Buddhist holy days. He said Phra Jo and Phra Auan collected morning alms on the same route, resulting in the argument.

Phra Jo said he usually collected alms at Chom Thong Soi 3/3 where his family house was located, and Phra Auan had not left the temple to collect alms for five years because of old age.

He said in fact Phra Jirawat was the only one from the temple to go a long distance to collect alms.

Many residents had lodged complaints with the abbot of Wat Bang Khun Thian Nok accusing Phra Jirawat of using the temple name to seek public donations.

The abbot had sent him a warning but nothing changed.

"Phra Jirawat normally goes out to collect alms earlier than other monks at the temple. He comes back with lot of alms in 4-5 sacks," he said.

Phra Jo said Phra Jirawat had once persuaded him to collect alms together with him.

He said as far as he knew Phra Jirawat earned up to 30,000 baht a month.

Phra Jo said he would talk to the media today about his decision whether to file a counter-charge against the complainant.

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Manliness Lesson For Katoey Monks

The 15-year-old aspiring “ladyboy” delicately applied a puff of talcum powder to his nose – an act of rebellion at the Thai Buddhist temple where he is learning to “be a man”.

“They have rules here that novice monks cannot use powder, make-up, or perfume, cannot run around and be girlish,” said Pipop Thanajindawong, who was sent to Wat Kreung Tai Wittaya, in Chiang Khong on the Thai-Laos border, to tame his more feminine traits.




But the monks running the temple's programme to teach masculinity to boys who are “katoeys”, the Thai term for transsexuals or ladyboys, have their controversial work cut out.

“Sometimes we give them money to buy snacks but he saved it up to buy mascara,” headteacher Phra Pitsanu Witcharato said of Pipop.

Novice monks' days pass as in any other temple – waking before dawn, collecting alms and studying Buddhism – but every Friday attention turns to the katoeys at the attached school.

“Were you born as a man or a woman or can you not specify your gender -not man or woman?” asked Phra Pitsanu at a recent assembly. “You cannot be anything else but your true gender, which is a man. As a novice you can only be a man.”

The temple has a stricter interpretation than others of rules governing behaviour during Buddhist training that is a key childhood experience for many Thai boys.

Pupils are banned from using perfume and make-up and prohibited from singing, playing music and running.

“We cannot change all of them but what we can do is to control their behaviour to make them understand that they were born as a man... and cannot act like a woman,” said Phra Pitsanu.

The Kreung Tai temple has run the course for boys aged between 11 and 18 since 2008, after former principle Phra Maha Vuthichai Vachiramethi devised the programme because he thought reports of katoeys in the monkhood had “affected the stability of Thai Buddhism”.

He said that he hopes the teaching methods will be rolled out to other temple schools to “solve the deviant behaviour in novices”.

It is an attitude that enrages gay rights and diversity campaigner Natee Teerarojanapong, who said trying to alter the boys' sense of gender and sexuality was “extremely dangerous”.

“These kids will become self-hating because they have been taught by respected monks that being gay is bad. That is terrible for them. They will never live happily,” he said.

Gay and katoey culture is visible and widely tolerated in Thailand, which has one of the largest transsexual populations in the world, and Natee said the temple's programme is “very out of date”.

But Phra Atcha Apiwanno, 28, disputed the idea that society accepted ladyboys and said he joined the monkhood because of social stigma about his sexual identity.

“The reason I became a monk is to train my habits, to control my expression... I didn't want to be like this,” he said.

Monks have had limited success in their project – three of the six ladyboys to have graduated from the school are said to have embraced their masculinity, but the remaining three went on to have sex changes.

Pipop said he has struggled with his sexuality at the temple.

At home in Bangkok he dressed like a girl, putting on make-up and taking hormones until he developed breasts, but he has since stopped the treatment and wears only a surreptitious dab of powder at the temple.

He does not believe he will live up to his family's hopes that he will become more manly.

“I can make them proud even (if) I'm not a man,” the teenager said, adding he had given up his ambition to be an airhostess and now aspires to work in a bank.

He thinks he will have a sex change after graduation.

“Once I leave the monkhood the first thing I want to do is to shout, to scream out loud saying: 'I can go back to being the same again!'“

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Less Alms Giving, Less Chanting in Thailand

The Office of National Buddhism is alert to the recent survey by Mahachulalongkornrajavidyaiaya University (MCU) that some Buddhist have prayed or given alms to Buddhist monks

National Buddhist Office Deputy Director, Amnaj Bulasiri admitted that Buddhist at present give alms to Buddhist monks less because their faith towards monks is degraded by the news of some Buddhist monks with foul behaviors.

The deputy director explained that people therefore tend to make merit by other approaches such as donating cash or necessities to charities or disaster casualties since they are unsure if they are giving alms to real monks or not.

As for the problem that Buddhist chant less prayers, Mr Amnaj indicated that people now do not realise the importance of prayers as they deem that Pali words in the prayers too difficult and useless while students nowadays are not cultivated to love chanting Buddhist prayers unlike in the past.

The deputy director said his office and Ministry Of Education will seek cooperation from schools nationwide in reviving the practice of chanting Buddhist prayers before morning classes and publicizing translated versions of Pali prayers among school children. He believed that the solution will be able to solve the problem to a certain level.

According to the recent survey by MCU, 15.09% Buddhists have never recited Pali prayers while 25.79% have never given alms to Buddhist monks

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