The Living of Thai Buddhist Monks in the Digital Age

Abstract

“The Living of Thai Buddhist Monks in The Digital Age” is an article that aims to reflect the recent public incidence regarding the monks who distributed donation articles to people who have been suffered from the flooding. The society seemed to be puzzled with this doubtfulness whether this was an appropriate activity to be conducted by monks. Some seriously critiqued that the monks should leave the monkhood if they preferred to live a normal life and conducted activities as ordinary people would do. Nevertheless, this is a digital age with advanced technology which can cause rapid publicity of such news and many different feedbacks either positive or negative are commented overnight. Therefore, many collections of perspectives are discussed in this article with an intention to remind our Buddhist monks to stay composed and be fully alert to act with calm, and never allow any pictures that will portray doubt or cause an ambiguous respect to our Buddhism. This article has a purpose to educate and align the understanding among the Thai society in a fair and open way through a reflective viewpoint from the monk society in Thailand. It is also hoped that the herein information will be beneficial to the public in general.