The Ordination of a Tree: The Thai Buddhist Environmental Movement

5. The Grassroots

5 The Grassroots The forest is the watershed of Buddhism. Without the forest, the religion would run dry. —Phra Paisal Visalo, September 29, 1992 Monks and the forest are like fish and water. —Phra Prajak Khuttajitto, July 12, 1991 Phrakhru Manas Nathiphitak (Plate 20) watched ants cross what was once a river.1 Drought plagued his home in Phayao Province in northern Thailand. Villagers struggled to plant their crops and find sufficient water for their daily needs. Six years earlier, in 1973, the provincial government granted ten logging concessions in Mae Chai District, Manas’s home and the site of watersheds for many of the region’s streams. Although the logging was scheduled over a thirty-year period, the company immediately began cutting the forest’s larger trees. With trees gone from watersheds, the primary cause of the drought seemed obvious. Few trees remained to hold the rain in the soil, causing rapid runoff in the rainy season and drought in the dry season.2 The people of the district came together to discuss the problem and seek solutions. Together with Phrakhru Manas, they decided to set up a conservation committee and to perform a common Northern Thai ritual, suep chata, a long-life ceremony. Usually conducted for people who are sick, old, or face misfortune, in this case the villagers asked Manas to perform the rite for the dried stream in hopes of reviving the flow of water. The process, by Manas’s account, was organic, emerging from discussions among the people affected by the drought in Mae Chai. No one approached 133 134 The Ordination of a Tree the problem explicitly seeking a Buddhist solution, or even a spiritual one. As the respected abbot of Wat Photharam, an important temple in the district, Manas assumed a leadership role, and listened to the concerns and wants of his neighbors and relatives. Relieving their suffering remained his primary motive, as he witnessed the challenges they faced due to the drought—and the logging behind it. Lay villagers generally do not grasp the complexities of the philosophical notion of suffering. They recognize the immediate pain or problem, and seek a concrete response. The challenge for activist monks such as Phrakhru Manas is to uphold what most see as their primary responsibility of relieving the suffering of their followers while teaching the deeper meanings of the concept. Phrakhru Manas sought ways of helping the villagers who turned to him. His interpretations of the causes of their suffering, the links between forms of development and environmental problems, and his creative approach typified the work of environmental monks, although the term had not been coined at that time. He used people’s beliefs and familiar rituals to raise awareness about the causes of suffering. He targeted not only the link between deforestation and drought, but the deeper greed that drove the desire for logs and the potential wealth they symbolized. He promoted the idea that people’s actions could change the situation they faced. Although he did not articulate a direct parallel, he based his work in the concept of karma—that people reap the consequences of their actions and the intentions behind them. He used ritual to build community and unity among the people affected by the drought. Like development monks, Phrakhru Manas sought ways to help villagers cope with changes in Thai society, particularly the impact of the changing economy. In this way, the category of environmental monks emerged from development monks, both critically examining and seeking to minimize the effects of rapid economic development on rural life. The first environmental monks articulated the value of the forest and water for people’s lives, and human responsibility for the natural environment, even as they later became concerned with other environmental issues. Phrakhru Manas was one of the first monks to engage explicitly in environmental work. His initial projects—performing long-life rituals for waterways , organizing villagers into conservation groups, and challenging the logging companies—focused on local concerns. He drew from local people’s concepts and beliefs to structure his approach, particularly the use of the long-life ceremony. The Grassroots 135 The emergence and growth of development monks paralleled and accompanied the rise of NGOs engaged in alternative development. Since the 1970s NGOs have become a major social opposition movement within Thai society. Both secular NGOs and development monks emerged because of concern over the negative impacts of government...