Meditation for Tourists in Thailand: Commodifying a Universal and National Symbol

Abstract

Meditation in Thailand’s international meditation centers is presented in advertisements as both a universal practice and a cultural icon that links Thailand to its ancient past. National religions and religious symbols serve to re-inscribe particular images, places, and practices as part of the national heritage. The practice of meditation is contextualized within Thailand and Thai culture, while it is also de-contextualized as a universal practice in which international meditators can participate. At the national level, meditation is a marker of Thailand’s difference and exoticism. At the same time as Thailand’s otherness is highlighted, meditation is also connected with universal systems of science and rationality. I argue that these selective elements serve to reinforce consumer values and constitute a commodification of meditation for tourists. I demonstrate that this does not detract from the practice for foreign communities, but that it is an example of the creative adaptations for reaching a wide variety of audiences. By looking at meditation guidebooks and promotional materials about meditation, this article contributes to scholarly dialogues of the commodification of religious practices.

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was made possible by a grant from the Fulbright Institute of International Education. I would like to thank Juliane Schober for comments on a previous draft and the referees of the Journal of Contemporary Religion for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Postcolonial discourses affect the ways international meditators engage with Thai Buddhist meditative practices. Although never a colony, Thailand meets many of the criteria of a postcolonial nation. Scholars have commonly depicted Siam’s colonial period as exceptional, as a result of the monarchy having managed to avoid direct colonization. Although Thailand was never a colony in the literal sense, there are many arguments that cast it as a semi-colonial state. Peter Jackson writes (39) in his chapter in The Ambiguous Allure of the West that his aim is “to draw on postcolonial understandings of power, culture and knowledge in ways that recognize that while Siam/Thailand occupied a subordinate position in the Western-dominated world order it was never a direct colony”. He argues that, given Thailand’s ambiguous status, a dialogue with postcolonial studies is appropriate. In the same volume, Rachel Harrison (4) writes that Thailand has been called semi-colonial and crypto-colonial and can be considered in part a postcolonial nation. Harrison (10) finds that the West had the most significant impact “on forms of knowledge and modes of representation in Thailand, both locally in Thai language discourses and internationally in European language accounts”. Therefore, postcolonial analysis is applicable and important in discussing Thailand and the international community. In addition to Thailand’s specific experience of postcolonialism, I use postcolonial analysis to illustrate representations of Thai Buddhism within tourism publications. I demonstrate that these materials portray the imaginative construct of Buddhism and the meditation retreat.

2. This article focuses on promotional materials; however, my larger project on international meditation centers in Thailand included a large amount of ethnographic fieldwork. This consisted of interviewing over 30 international meditation center teachers and visiting over 20 sites for varying lengths of time, between August 2009 and September 2010. My fieldwork experiences include attending ten-day retreats at long-running and well-attended English-speaking centers as well as shorter visits to sites throughout Thailand which have shorter histories and house English-speaking meditation teachers and small groups of international visitors. I was able to participate in both international and Thai group activities, joining the chanting and dhamma talks with Thai meditators and the English meditation instruction with the international meditators. Although I focused on discussions with international meditators, I was also able to interact with Thai meditators. Interviews with Thai meditators and Thai international meditation center teachers were conducted in Thai, but I used English with international meditators and foreign international meditation center teachers. This article focuses on meditation publications; therefore, my use of fieldwork data is limited to related topics.

3. This generalized exchange is not always ideal, as Kim Gutschow (84) describes the unequal support of Buddhist monks and nuns in the Himalayas. Because of the different functions each group performs, they are valued differently. In Thailand, some monks are known to have a greater field of merit and donations to them personally garner much support and are thought to generate more merit.

4. For an analysis of Buddhist commodification practices in Kathmandu, see Peter Moran, and in Bodhgaya, see David Geary.

5. International meditation centers are mostly concentrated in central, southern, and northern Thailand. Although tourist temples, such as Wat Doi Suthep, have an international meditation center, international meditators are not a main source of tourist income. The international meditators form a small percentage of the tourism market, which primarily consists of tourists visiting for the day. In the south of Thailand, the number of tourists on beach vacations fueled the creation of two large group retreats: the International Dhamma Hermitage in Chaiya and the International Meditation Center at Wat Kow Tahm on Koh Phangnan. However, it is not the international meditation centers themselves that create an economy surrounding tourism; they are a consequence of tourism and account for a small portion of the tourists who travel in the south.

6. The language used in Thai is ‘renting’, not ‘buying’ an amulet. The desire to displace the language of commerce from amulets demonstrates Tambiah’s point that amulets are part of a practice of donation. In fact, some temples explicitly suggest a donation, rather than a fee for their amulets.

7. Dhamma, in the context of this article, is the Pali word for the Buddha’s teachings. Buddhists believe that his teachings on the nature of suffering and how to attain liberation from suffering are recorded in the Buddhist scriptures called the Pali Canon.

8. Regional centers carry out “various activities based on propagation and practice of the Dhamma for securing peace and happiness of humankind” (World Fellowship of Buddhists web site).

9. Kornfield found his way to Thailand through the Peace Corps. In 1972, after five years of meditating with teachers throughout India and Southeast Asia, he returned to America. He became a graduate student in clinical psychology and now teaches, his teachings merging psychology and Buddhist meditation. Kornfield is known as one of the key figures who brought vipassanā meditation to America and the West. He is one of the founders of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and he founded and currently teaches at Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.

10. Practising vipassanā meditation in Thailand for foreigners was only possible at that time because the practice had already undergone laicization among Thai middle-class urbanites. See Ingrid Jordt and Cook for the history of this process in Burma and Thailand, respectively.

11. The Office of the National Identity Board (NIB) is a sub-set of the Office of the Prime Minister. It aims to promote knowledge of and interest in Thailand’s history, culture, and current affairs. The NIB has published a series of books outlining Thailand’s development. It has sponsored projects such as A Brief Guide to Buddhist Meditation Centers in Thailand and other promotional works.

12. This quote recognizes a particular kind of Western engagement with Buddhism: the Romantic perspective. Tweed (69) characterizes this type of interest in Buddhism as an attraction and attachment to Buddhist culture. Some international meditators are attracted to all things ‘Asian’ and meditation, through its mainstream popularity, is certainly a part of this.

13. This development is not unique to Thailand. There is a precedent for the association of modern disenchantment and vipassanā meditation in Burma (see Houtman; Braun). The institutions discussed here therefore take advantage of a pre-existing trend.

14. If the abbot or Thai monk meditation teacher does not speak English, the meditation center will rely on an English interpreter. Interpreters, either lay or ordained, are often young and do not permanently reside in a given center. Because of the flux of interpreters, many meditation centers are only able to host international visitors on an irregular basis.

15. Weir began his writing career for Moon Handbooks after embarking on a series of long-distance cycles. He has written several titles for Moon, including guides to Arizona, Utah, and the Grand Canyon. Weir contributed text to National Geographic Traveler, Arizona and updated the third edition of A Guide to Buddhist Monasteries and Meditation Centers in Thailand in 1991.

16. For the online edition, see: www.hdamm.de/buddha/mdtctr01.htm, access date: 5 January 2011.

17. Phra Wannamethee was formerly President and Rector of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. He oversaw the publication of the fourth edition of A Guide to Buddhist Monasteries and Meditation Centers in Thailand, published by the WFB. He is currently the Secretary General of the Thai Red Cross Society and lives in Bangkok.

18. For a sample list of categories and information provided for each listing, see http://www.hdamm.de/buddha/mdtctr01.htm, access date: 5 January 2011.

19. Cummings was one of the first writers for Lonely Planet Thailand, which is regarded as one of the best guidebooks about the country. Having traveled the country for over 20 years, Cummings has written several other Lonely Planet guidebooks, Moon Handbooks, and a number of photography books. He is also a correspondent for CPA Media and for Hong Kong and Travel Intelligence.

20. Unlike the WFB guides and Cummings’s popular series of Thailand travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet, there is only one edition of this book.

21. See http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Asian_Retreat_Centers.pdf, access date: 7 January 2011.

22. See e.g. dhammathai.org, sawasdee.com, www.buddhanet.info, and dharmaweb.org.

23. For more information on TAT, see http://www.tourismthailand.org/about-tat/, access date: 7 January 2011. Both the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the National Identity Board are responsible for the dissemination of cultural information about Thailand, but these organizations have no formal connection or relationship.

24. “Meditation in Thailand, Learn and Practice Buddhist Meditation in the Traditional Thai Surroundings”, “Meditation in Thailand: The Path to Inner Peace and Well-Being”, “Experience Buddhist Meditation”; TAT’s E-Magazine is titled “Thailand, Center of Buddhist Learning and Traditions”.

25. This information is taken from e-mail correspondence with the Assistant to Mrs. Kulpramote Wannalert, Director Attractions Promotion Division, Tourism Authority Thailand, of 15 June 2010.

26. This quote refers to the Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65).

27. There is a long-standing dialogue between Buddhism and science (see Cho; Lopez, Buddhism; Wallace). This is another aspect of the conversation which connects Buddhism with modernity. Buddhist leaders have argued for their tradition’s coherence with science, thus claiming that Buddhism is more modern than theistic religions. Meditation has become a significant aspect of this dialogue as the practice has emerged as an object of scientific inquiry.

28. Can-Sen Ooi has noted that, in Singapore, tourist institutions attempt to self-Orientalize in order to attract tourists by drawing on the Western imagination of ‘Asia’ (83). Thai tourist and Buddhist institutions attempt to Orientalize their portrayals of meditation by reinforcing the perceptions of Buddhism in the West.

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Brooke Schedneck

Brooke Schedneck is Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Southeast Asian Affairs at Chiangmai University, Thailand. She holds a PhD in Asian Religions from Arizona State University. Her main scholarly interests include the intersection of Buddhism and modernity as well as the emerging global Buddhist landscape. Her most recent project explores the history of modern vipassanā meditation, specifically investigating Thailand’s international meditation centers. Her publications include Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices (Routledge, forthcoming) and articles in The Buddhist Studies Review, The Pacific World Journal, and Contemporary Buddhism. CORRESPONDENCE: P.O. Box 241, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Chiangmai University, Chiangmai, 50202, Thailand.