Aspects of modernization, such as the secularization of education and healthcare in the past two centuries, have led to the widespread upending of classical Thai monastic roles in society. The monastic community has responded in various ways to these changes, including an increased focus on ritual; ecclesiastical advancement; and engagement with social, political, and environmental matters. Monastic engagement with environmental issues is the focus of Susan Darlington's recent book, The Ordination of a Tree: The Thai Buddhist Environmental Movement. This book is a much-needed ethnographic contribution to the field of engaged Buddhist studies that will interest those involved in Buddhist and religious studies, anthropology, as well as modernity and environmental issues in Southeast Asia.
Darlington's historical, ethnographic account is a clearly written story of engaged Buddhist ethics in action. Inspired by the ideas of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Sulak Sivaraksa, Darlington completed research on monks engaged in development work in northern Thailand. Utilizing a comprehensive range of sources and methodologies, including interviews and first-hand accounts, her manuscript focuses on the agency of monks and the formation of innovative ways in which they negotiate and address some of the most pressing environmental concerns facing Thailand.
Grounded in Buddhist teachings, environmental monks have worked—individually and collectively—to preserve and protect forests and watersheds in northern Thailand. Darlington remarks that “the monks' ultimate goal entails helping people make spiritual progress and end suffering. Alternative forms of development and conservation projects are means to that end, not an end in and of themselves” (p. 169). Prior to the 1990s, Thailand had one of Southeast Asia's leading rates of unchecked deforestation (p. 142).The process of mass logging, monks believe, is rooted in the Buddhist notion of the Three Poisons that comprise the causes of human suffering: greed, ignorance, and anger. In order to relieve human suffering produced by the environmental damage of logging, monks have, along with other strategies, used tree-ordination ceremonies as a means of educating others about environmental issues and directly protecting trees.
Following an introduction that provides background to Darlington's work, including discussion of related works, the second chapter centers on the environmental monk Phrakhru Pitak Nanthakhun and his village Dok Dang, located in the northern Thai province of Nan. Darlington draws incisively on her ethnographic work to describe, through the lens of Dok Dan, the situation many rural Thais face, and in the process employs a methodology that is too frequently lacking in works on socially engaged Buddhism.
In previous decades, villagers derived their subsistence livelihoods from the dense and plentiful nearby forests. From the 1960s onward, successive Thai governments pushed modern development and, in part because no villager held legal titles to forestland, the government granted numerous logging concessions to timber companies that resulted in substantial deforestation. The villagers in turn were compelled to take up cash-crop farming that landed them in chronic debt. The innovative Phrakhru Pitak and other monks responded to the situation in a number of ways, including tree ordination ceremonies and the introduction of alternative, sustainable agricultural techniques (pp. 44–51).
The book proceeds with an effective religio-cultural analysis of the function and meaning of the rituals environmental monks perform. The focal points of these rituals are tree ordination ceremonies that started in the late 1980s. Darlington writes: “No formula for performing tree ordinations exists. Each monk approaches the ritual in his own way, adapting it for the immediate circumstances” (p. 69). She details how these ceremonies developed as a means of bringing awareness to the interconnectedness of the environment and people and the problems facing both. The consecration ceremonies include the tying of a robe around the tree that is “a reminder that to harm or cut the tree—or any of the forest—was an act of demerit” (p. 74). Although other studies exist on the form and function of these rituals, Darlington's first-hand account stands out as a particularly important and original contribution.
Using a wide range of both Thai and English source material, Darlington provides a concise yet thorough account of the history of Thailand's modernization that produced the conditions for monastic environmental engagement. Individual environmental monks would eventually coalesce to form a movement that was originally motivated by the socially and environmentally focused Buddhist teachings of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and P. A. Payutto (p. 170). Darlington highlights some of the two monks' key theoretical contributions to the environmental movement, including a focus on relieving suffering caused by societal conditions and a focus on loving kindness (karuna). Despite many successes, the movement has faced a number of challenges, including intimidation and the appropriation of ceremonies by popular, mainstream forces that threaten to dilute the educational power of the tree rituals.
In short, this insightfully innovative study deserves wide readership. Darlington skillfully describes and analyzes a fascinating element of socially engaged Buddhism while succinctly synthesizing important historical particulars that contextualize her narrative. The effectiveness of Darlington's historical and ethnographic approach in this book charts an important methodological path for future scholars of engaged Buddhist studies to follow while exploring more of the field's uncharted territory.
