Буддхадаса: Жизнь и учение тайского буддийского монаха.

Thai Buddhist monk (1906–1993)

Buddhadasa (27 May 190625 May 1993) was a Thai Buddhist monk. Known as an innovative reinterpreter of Buddhist doctrine and Thai folk beliefs, he fostered a reformation in conventional religious perceptions in his home country, Thailand, as well as abroad. He developed a personal view that those who have penetrated the essential nature of religions consider "all religions to be inwardly the same", while those who have the highest understanding of dhamma feel "there is no religion".

Buddhadasa renounced civilian life in 1926. Typical of young monks during the time, he traveled to the capital, Bangkok, for doctrinal training but found the wats there dirty, crowded, and, most troubling to him, the sangha corrupt, "preoccupied with prestige, position, and comfort with little interest in the highest ideals of Buddhism." As a result, he returned to his native rural district and occupied a forest tract near to his village, founding Suan Mokkh in 1932. In later years, Buddhadasa's teachings attracted many international seekers to his hermitage. He held talks with leading scholars and clergy of various faiths. His aim in these discussions was to probe the similarities at the heart of each of the major world religions. Before his death in 1993, he established an International Dhamma Hermitage Center across the highway from his own retreat to aid in the teaching of Buddhism and other yogic practices to international students. The area of Suan Mokkh was expanded to
approximately 120 acres of forest. However, Buddhadasa was skeptical of his fame; when reflecting on the busloads of visitors to Suan Mokkh he would say, "sometimes I think many of these people just stop here because they have to visit the bathroom."

Buddhadasa strove for a simple, pristine practice in attempt to emulate Gautama Buddha's core teaching, "Do good, avoid bad, and purify the mind." He therefore avoided the customary ritualism and internal politics that dominated Siamese clerical life. His ability to explain complex philosophical and religious ideas in his native Southern Thai attracted many people to his wooded retreat. His primary teaching mainly focused on the quiet awareness of one's breathing pattern called anapanasati. However, his personal practice was very much grounded in advanced research and interpretation of early Pali texts on the one hand and on his radical private experimentation on the other.

Buddhadasa rejected the traditional rebirth and karma doctrine, since he thought it to be incompatible with sunyata, and not conducive to the extinction of dukkha. Buddhadasa, states John Powers – a professor of Asian Studies and Buddhism, offered a "rationalist interpretation" and thought "the whole question of rebirth to be foolish". According to Buddhadasa, the Buddha taught 'no self' (, ), which denies any substantial, ongoing entity or soul. It is by relinquishing the notion of "I" and "mine" that selfish clinging is abandoned, and Nirvana or true emptiness will be reached. This can be done by "not allow[ing] the dependent arising to take place; to cut it off right at the moment of sense contact." Buddhadasa's views have been "strongly criticized" and rejected by many of his fellow Theravada Buddhist monks with a more orthodox view of the Buddhist Dhamma. For example, Bhikkhu Bodhi states that Buddhadasa's approach of jettisoning the rebirth doctrine "would virtually reduce the Dhamma to tatters [ ] the conception of rebirth is an essential plank to its ethical theory, providing an incentive for avoiding all evil and doing good", summarizes Powers. Through such a methodology he came to adopt a religious world view wherein he stated, "those who have penetrated to the essential nature of religion will regard all religions as being the same. Although they may say there is Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, Islam, or whatever, they will also say that all religions are inwardly the same."

Buddhadasa's interpretations of the Buddhist tradition inspired such persons as the French schooled Pridi Banomyong, leader of the Siamese revolution of 1932, and a group of Thai social activists and artists of the 20th century. Religious scholar Donald K. Swearer has compared Buddhadasa to the early Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, and the 5th century south Indian scholar Buddhaghosa who has "overshadowed the development of Theravada Buddhist thought" in southeast Asia. According to scholars such as Peter A. Jackson and Daniel Lynch, Buddhadasa was heavily influenced by the ideas found in Zen Buddhism. It has been contended, that with the decline of Buddhism in Thailand after the 2020 pandemic, good luck blessings and various rituals are becoming once again more popular than the "rationalist perspective of spiritual growth" taught by Buddhadasa, whose teaching is disappearing from Thai pagodas.