A Buddhist Bouncer: Monastic Adaptation to the Ethos of Desire in Today's Cambodia

Abstract

Buddhist teachings have much to say about the disciplining of desire. In lived Buddhism, however, there may be considerable contestation over how canonical tenets should be understood and flexibility in the way precept is related to practice. This article uses ethnographic data recently gathered from a rural setting in Cambodia to discuss how religious legitimacy is shaped by the complex fabric of village culture and history and the contemporary ethos of the laity. Today's entrepreneurial Cambodian monks are a telling model of the times. The monk who is the key figure of this article maintains a finely balanced position at the interstices of the local and non-local; he must remain responsive to the interests of both those ‘above’ him, including the politicized ecclesiastical hierarchy, and those ‘below’ him in the village, with their desires for security and order.

Acknowledgements

Warm thanks are due to the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation for the generous support provided for this research. The fieldwork for this study was carried out with the assistance of Mr Tou Seakhai, whose tireless spirit and talent in gathering and recounting stories have made this study far richer than I could have hoped for in the early stages. I am also deeply grateful to all the anonymous participants from the village and temple of Wat Thmei for helping me in my efforts to understand their situation.

Notes

NOTES

1. Vinaya Pitika means, in Pali and Sanskrit, ‘basket of discipline’. It is the smallest of Buddhist Tipitaka (‘triple basket’) and regulates monastic life according to the rules attributed to the Buddha.

2. The name is fictitious. Its literal meaning is 'The New Temple’. Since Wat Thmei does not have an ordination hall yet, it does not strictly qualify as a wat or pagoda, but should be referred to as an ashram, a community of monks. However, both the local people and the monks expect the completion of their ordination hall in the near future and already refer to their temple as a wat. For the sake of simplicity, I am following their use of the term.

3. A derogatory expression that literally means ‘uneducated people’.