著者

野津 幸治

出版者

天理大学地域文化研究センター

雑誌

アゴラ : 天理大学地域文化研究センター紀要 (ISSN:13489631)

巻号頁・発行日

no.11, pp.55-70, 2014

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Various activities of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1906-1993), a representative reformist monk in Thailand, were carried out on the basis of the "three resolutions": to help all people realize the heart of their own religions, to help bring about mutual good understandin among religions,and to work together to drag the world out from under the power of materialism. Actual practices to implement these"three resolutions" were his mission activities focused on sermon and publication,exchange with religious leaders other than those of Theravada Buddhism and the study of their traditions, and return to the age of the Buddha. By examining Buddhadasa's discourse concerned with the spirit called phi, this article explores on what ground he criticized people's animistic faith. It will further attempt to analyze the same issue in connection with the"three resolutions." I will use for this analysis three sermons in which Buddhadasa referred to phi, all of which were given to monks to be dispatched for foreign mission. Buddhadasa's critique of animistic faith contended that people's avijja,or ignorance,causes them to be afraid of phi and do such wrong deed as enshrining guardian spirits of the land, and that such animistic faith deviates from the Buddha-Dhamma,or the doctrine of the Buddha. It then asserted that this deviation can only be corrected by vijja,or wisdom,which leads to the way of the extinction of suffering. This study will show that Buddhadasa's sermons conveyed his desire to bring correct understandings of the Buddhist teaching to the faithful whose insufficient acceptance of the teaching had them look for salvation in the animistic faith. His sermons furthermore expressed his anxiety about selfish and materialistic society. He maintained that people do away with materialism by discarding their materialistic adhesion caused by their ignorance. Thus he strongly called for the implementing of two of the "three resolutions," while criticizing the animistic faith