Living Buddhism: Mind, Self, and Emotion in a Thai Community by Julia Cassaniti (review)

Over a period of about ten years, the American anthropologist Julia Cassaniti visited and revisited two families in the northernmost part of Thailand. Her interactions began with Goy and Gaew, two shop-owning women, and, over time, extended to their relatives.

In the first chapters of the resultant book, the author recalls a number of remarks that her informants made after they had experienced a traumatic event, such as the demise of a member of the family. She noted a remarkable equanimity. "Letting go" and "impermanence" thus became the key concepts that helped her understand why her informants behaved and spoke as they did. Not surprisingly, she links their fatalistic statements with the fact that they are Buddhists, who learn that all things are anicca, impermanent.

Cassaniti brings two novel factors into the analysis. In the first place she points out an expression that several of her informants used when they had to overcome a stressful situation. This she calls "making the heart". This is clearly a word-for-word translation of the Thai expression ทำ ใจ (in Cassaniti's transliteration: tham jai). Word-for-word translations are dangerous and can lead to confusion, and indeed Cassaniti made an unfortunate choice by opting for "making the heart". The Thai words form a simple idiomatic expression. It is indeed used after something unfortunate has happened. It indicates that the situation has to be accepted, albeit reluctantly. A sentence like "kho wela tham jai" () means: "give me time to adjust to this". Cassaniti would perhaps translate it as "I ask for time to make the heart". "Making the heart" is a translation that does not do justice to the Thai language.

The second novel idea is that Cassaniti made contact with a Christian Karen family in a village in the neighbourhood of her research site. There she led the conversations in the direction of how the family would cope with death and disease. On the basis of these conversations, she makes a comparison between Buddhist principles and the teachings of a Christian church. The outcome of this experiment is predictable: the Christian informants choose quite different strategies to handle misfortune.

A major part of this book is devoted to the case of Sen, a thirty-two-year-old member of one of "her" families, a male who apparently suffers from deep depression and who has become an alcoholic. All of Cassaniti's attempts to persuade his relatives to do something about this sad case, to intervene and to cure the sick man meet with resistance from the family. They refuse to take drastic steps to cure him; nobody is willing to call in a psychiatrist, and nobody even contemplates discussing the patient's condition with him. Cassaniti is clearly frustrated that the depressed man is left to his own devices.

Those familiar with Thai culture will not be altogether surprised at her informants' unwillingness to act. It is an axiom in Thai Buddhism that every individual, even at an early age, is ultimately responsible for what happens to him- or herself. The fact that Sen drinks every day until he is in a stupor proves to his surroundings that he acquired much demerit in previous existences.

A minor irritant is that when Cassaniti adds Thai expressions to her text in brackets, no doubt in order to add a touch of authenticity, she does not present the words according to one of the established systems of transliteration. Thus we read watanatam (p. 16), bhatibat tham (p. 57), and nuum (p. 89). In one instance, the Thai words are misplaced: "I agreed that it was gone (yom rap)" (p. 90). The words yom rap should have come directly after "agreed".

The statement that the Buddhist concept puñña (merit) could be related to the Sanskrit puja (to worship) is also surprising (p. 14). It is intriguing to read near the end of the book that some of her informants adhere...