DUTIES OF THE SAṄGHA – FOREWARD – INTRODUCTION
MAIN CONTENT
Duties of the Saṅgha
FOREWARD
This year a large number of monks and novices came to be ordained and to live together here at Wat Asokaram for the Rains – some of them planning eventually to leave the monkhood, some of them to stay. This being the case, I wrote down a piece explaining and analyzing our duties for their information, so that they would have something of religious value to keep and take with them for the progress of the community of monks and novices in the days to come.
After the piece was written and read aloud to the group, it seemed appropriate for use in the area of administering the Saṅgha at large, and so it has been printed for free distribution as a gift of Dhamma, in order that Buddhism may prosper and thrive for the well-being of us all.
Phra Suddhidhammaraṅsī Gambhīramedhācariya
(Ajaan Lee)
WAT ASOKARAM
SAMUT PRAKAAN
OCTOBER 6, 1960
INTRODUCTION
I would like to explain to the community spending the Rains at Wat Asokaram this year what our duties are, so that our sense of our responsibilities in our practice will be in line with the aims and directives of those who have been placed in charge.
The administration of the Saṅgha, as set out by the ecclesiastical authorities of Thailand, is divided into four departments:
I. The Department of Internal Governance.
II. The Department of Education.
III. The Department of Building and Development.
IV. The Department of Spreading the Dhamma.
Each of these departments, if its activities were in line with its aims, would cause the religion to prosper. But I have come to see that each of them is so deficient as to be destructive – bringing about, to a great extent, the corruption of monks and novices. This is why I would like to give the monks and novices here some sense of their duties and of the true aims of each of these departments. Otherwise, governance will turn into ‘covernance’ – covering up what we don’t want to be seen.
Each of these departments is divided into two sections: the central office and the offices in the out-lying regions. In the central office, the responsibility of the ecclesiastical authorities of both sects, Dhammayutika and Mahanikāya, is to co-operate in firmly carrying out the duties of each department in the area of central administration. As for the out-lying regions, the responsibility of the ecclesiastical authorities on the regional, provincial, district, and township levels, and of the abbots of all temples, is to train the officers of each department in their respective jurisdictions to be firm in carrying out their stated duties. Any individual who proves incompetent in a particular area should not be placed in charge of the corresponding department.
Thus I would now like to explain the duties of each department in a way that will bring about order, in line not only with the laws and regulations of the Saṅgha, but also with the Vinaya and the Dhamma – because all of these laws and regulations need to be both Dhamma and Vinaya if they are to lead to the well-being of the religion.
