Meth addicted MONKS: Meth Awareness Day

Gavin Butler (vice.com, Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 29, 2022, 7:07 pm); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

The monk, including the abbot, were sent to rehab after failing drug test (Hugh Sitton/Getty).
What's more misguided than becoming addicted (craving/clinging) to delusion-inducing drugs?

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Buddhist temple has no monks after they all test positive for METH

The Buddha would blush.

It follows a string of criminal scandals involving Theravada Buddhist monks in Thailand, where authorities are reporting record-breaking quantities of synthetic drugs.

A small Buddhist abbey’s entire coterie of monks was defrocked, dismissed, and sent to rehab this week after every single one of them tested positive for methamphetamine.

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All four monks at a temple in Phetchabun province's Bung Sam Phan district, in central Thailand, were forced by police to take urine tests on Monday.

Who's high here? Is it you, or that one, falling asleep during meditation? Or this hyper one?

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True Tales of...Fentanyl and Meth (Sam Q.)

All four of them, including the abbot, failed. The monks were subsequently sent to a health clinic to undergo drug rehabilitation, local official Boonlert Thintapthai told the AFP, leaving the temple without "holy" men and raising concerns among local worshippers that they wouldn’t be able to conduct “merit-making” — that is, donating food (dana) to monks as a good deed.

• [There are other forms of good deeds (dana, sila, bhavana) besides practicing generosity (dana) and giving to the Sangha, but Thais are addicted to this form of good karma and are more prosperous than neighboring Theravada countries as a result.]

Mr. Boonlert said more monks would be assigned to the temple to allow people to carry out their religious duties.

• World News: Buddhist monks keep getting arrested for corruption, murder, and drug trafficking

It’s not clear why police targeted this particular temple, nor these particular monks, to test for drug use — but the action comes amid a broader national campaign to tackle the trafficking of illicit substances.

Thailand (which is part of the Golden Triangle, a place notorious for drug trafficking), like many other nations across Southeast Asia, has in the past two years seen a major uptick in the volume of meth passing through the country.

The Least of Us back cover (Sam Quinones)

Much of that can be traced back to the Golden Triangle — a notorious fountainhead for the synthetic drug trade, where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Burma (renamed Myanmar by the dictators) meet — and, more specifically, the conflict-riven hills of Burma’s Shan state.

In the wake of the Burmese military coup, which in February 2021 saw the Burmese military overthrow the civilian government and plunge the nation into chaos yet again, record-breaking quantities of both crystal methamphetamine and meth pills, otherwise known as “yaba,” have continued to pour out of the Triangle and flood the region.

Production and trafficking of illegal synthetic substances hit record levels in 2021, with authorities collectively seizing nearly 172 tons of methamphetamine and more than 1 billion yaba tablets.

• World News: Burma’s coup has opened the floodgates of the Southeast Asian drug trade

This is not an isolated case of Thai monks behaving badly either. In recent years, the sacred institution of Thai Theravada Buddhism has been tarnished by a series of high-profile arrests and scandals relating to corruption, murder, and drug trafficking among its monastics.

Good Western monk Ajahn Chah in Australia

• [EDITORIAL NOTE: A distinction needs to be made between the larger, lazier institutional school called the Maha Nikaya, which accounts for 90% of Thai monks, and the Dhammayut or Thai Forest Tradition of wandering ascetics (practicing the dhutangas or 13 Sane Ascetic Practices), who practice more in accordance with the historical Buddha's instructions, resulting in famous monks of great attainment -- even though some criticize this school as make believe, invented by a royal who wanted to temporarily ordain but found most temples too corrupt and lazy to be worth his time. He therefore set up a purer school that continues down to this day, made famous by many meditation masters emerging as a result of the back-to-basics approach to the Dharma. Thai Forest Tradition monks left the corrupt cities and temples for the solitude and silence of forests, which are in very short supply due to deforestation, but it resulted in the famous Ajahn Mun and other Isan (northeast Thailand) monks plus the great arhat Ajahn Jumnien and Ajahn Buddhadasa from the south of the country. Ajahn Chah, who was Maha Nikaya along with his famous awakened Western students, tried to erase the distinction between the two schools to be more inclusive, uniting the Sangha.]

Monk DUI, carrying meth (thethaiger.com)

In March, Luang Pu Tuanchai, a monk who rose to fame in 2020 after claiming to have omniscient powers [visions and miraculous powers, a claim which if false would instantly make him not a monk, as it is a defeat-violation of monastic rules to knowingly make false claims of attainments if the rules were enforced as they used to be in times past], was charged with drunk driving and drug possession — and subsequently disrobed (defrocked, thrown out of the monastic Sangha) — after police found him carrying dozens of methamphetamine pills.

Earlier in January, another monk was similarly disrobed after being caught consuming methamphetamine pills and selling them to local youths. Such controversies have eroded public faith in Thailand’s Buddhist monks, with experts telling VICE World News in March that the nation’s Buddhist monastic order was in need of reform to weed out bad actors and restore the religion’s image of purity and righteousness.

• World News: Photos show half a billion dollars’ worth of drugs going up in smoke

Trigger warning: crystalline methamphetamine

“The ultimate goal of [Theravada] Buddhism is for the people to get enlightened [awakened],” said Somboon Chungprampree, a social activist and executive secretary of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists.

“[But] most of the society is learning that not all those who are wearing saffron [robes] can be a holy or respectable person.” Buddhism is the official religion of Thailand, followed by about 93 percent of the population. The country is home to more than 300,000 monks [and possibly many more temporarily ordained samaneras or "novices"]. Source (vice.com)

• Follow Gavin Butler on Twitter
• Thai temple vacant after monks fail drug tests (livemint.com)
• Thai monks in rehab after testing positive for meth (nypost.com)
• Thai monks defrocked after testing positive for meth (CBS News)