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.
