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| Doraemon Funeral: New Spiritual Low |
| UPDATE : 4 February 2010 |
A report about an official funeral held for a soft toy 'Doraemon' at Maha Loke Temple in Ayutthaya province by a very distraught woman who regarded the doll as her own child has caused a public outcry.
It’s easy to see how people are puzzled by it. Not only the funeral can be viewed as sheer inappropriateness but what is so disconcerting is how extremely misguided the woman in question to hold dear an inanimate object as her own flesh and blood.
On first hearing of this report, you might be inclined to laugh it off but beneath the absurdity lies a rather worrisome implication and a deep concern for the state of spirituality of the Thai society.
In her defense, the troubled woman didn’t come to regard this doll as her own child by herself but with a nod and a blessing from a Buddhist monk, who is the abbot of Samakkee Tham Temple in Saraburi province. She claimed the abbot performed a ritual on the doll in order to ‘give life’ to it and instructed her to raise it as her own child and her life will become better. The abbot’s action surely brings the merit of the Sangha in Thailand into question.
Vachirametee, a prominent young monk known for his charismatic sermon skills, as the director of Vimutayalai Institute, said the incident implies how spiritually ill the Thai society is and how inadequate some monks are in providing spiritual guidance. He said the abbot was wrong to give the doll to the woman and she was too spiritually broken to tell apart reality from fantasy. She was so ill that she held tightly to the illusion of what that doll represented and eventually came to regard the doll as her own child.
“If us monks really want to give people spiritual guidance and raise their moral standards, we must teach them what Buddha taught. For us to offer a short-lived illusion to troubled laymen, it's the equivalent of giving them narcotics. What the abbot should have given her was not the doll, but teachings that are the essence of Buddhism which can be used as an integral principle she can abide by to gain real spiritual strength.”
“I would like to urge all parties concerned to learn from this incident and realize how ineffective Thai monks are as preachers. Why couldn't monks accurately spread Buddha’s words and not understand the essence of Buddhism? Concerned people in our society must step in to protect Buddhism. If more people resort to this kind of misguided belief and practice, the Thai society will spiral downwards.”
Amnart Buasiri, director of the Secretariat Office of Sangha Supreme Council, said performing a religious ceremony for a doll doesn't necessarily constitute a disciplinary offense in according to the Sangha council's regulations. Religious ceremony can be performed to raise morales of the living and by holding a funeral for the doll helped put the woman at ease. He said the funeral can be viewed as a tool to directly teach her Buddha’s teachings. However, he revealed an investigation must be done to determine as to whether the monks had allowed the funeral out of good intention or not. He said the council will task provincial religious agencies to oversee the conducts of monks in Ayutthaya.
“As for the monk who performed the ritual on the doll and claimed that its owner would have a better life, he has committed what could be described as an utterly contemptuous act. It is strongly prohibited by the Sangha Supreme Council. He'll be reprimanded. ”
Taken from page 3 of X-Cite Thai Post, February 4th to 5th, 2010
Rewritten by Pornchai Sereemongkonpol
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