Rally for Buddhism as official Thailand 's religion in the new constitution

Rally for Buddhism as official Thailand 's religion in the new constitution

This blog is about the current news of over 100,000 Thais 's signing a petition to ask for specification of Buddhism as national religion in the new constitution. This would be well in line with those of several countries that had specified their own preferences.

Why should Buddhism be officially recognized by a new constitution ? In my opinion, it is to guarantee that future politicians, especially the immoral ones and non-Buddhists, can not conveniently use their administrative power to undermine Buddhism further. This thus prompted me to sign up among them.

Buddhism has played key roles in Thai culture and history for over a thousand years. Buddhism has practically been the religion of over 95 % of Thais. At present, there are over 62 million Thai Buddhists residing in the country. As seen from Thai history, Buddhism and monarchy are institutions that have served as pillars of the country for centuries. By tradition and past constitutions, the King must be a Buddhist although he would be obliged to support all major religions. That already showed weak recognition of Buddhism by the former constitutions. However, numerous attempts in the past few decades by non-Buddhists to undermine Buddhism and culture in the Kingdom have been regularly observed by Buddhist scholars and monks, although the cases were not publicized. That led some Buddhist thinkers to realize that, for the future generation of Thais and mankind alike, as well as the survival of the kingdom, Buddhism needs more legal protection.


Now that there is a civil war in Sri Lanka and political unrest in Myanmar, and while people of Laos and Cambodia are still developing their countries, Thailand is the only country of large Buddhist population with advanced practice of Buddhist metaphysics studies and mental meditation (concentration). For over a thousand years, Thai Kingdom in the golden peninsular has been the recuperating home of Buddhism after it was eradicated from India for almost 2 millennia until new Buddhism restarted only in the recent few decades.

The demand of hundreds of thousands of Thai Buddhists to have official recognition in the new constitution may not be successful. I think it 's predictable. As I said earlier, Buddhism has been undermined for decades. Current generations of academicians, government officials, politicians have been more or less brain-washed by non-Buddhist doctrines and they have little appreciation on the beauty of the Buddhist metaphysics (abhidhamma). They do not understand what even Einstein recognized of Buddhism that it is the most scientific religion for the future world.

As Buddhist principle said
"Everything has a start, a temporary existence, and an end.
A situation has its cause, as well as its effect. Because of that cause, this thing thus exists."
It is useless for me to worry too much about the actual outcome of this rally. It 's only a temporary matter anyway. I did what I believed was correct decision and that 's done. This is my forum so I dare to express and explain my "yes". Other people also expressed their opinions in various news elsewhere, agreeable or not, didn't they ?