Book Review: King in Dharma Path (ในหลวงในรอยธรรม)

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Book Review: King in Dharma Path

Chol Bunnag (MADE)

 
   King Rama IX of the Kingdon of Thailand stays in the crown for the longest time in the world history. He is the Thai’s beloved king and has been examples in many ways for Thai people including the religion issue. This book I read, “King in Dharma path” is the book that illustrates this point very clearly. In this book review assignment, content will be divided into 3 parts. Firstly is that why I  read this book. Secondly is to describe briefly about its content. The last part is about my opinion to this book.

Why do I read this book?

    In Thailand, about 98% of its population are in the Buddhism, and the other 2% is mixed among many religion such as Christianity, Islam, Sikh, Hindu etc. From this point, we might be able to imply that Buddhism is our national religion. However, we have never had problem among us who have different religion, and one reason for that is because of our king. It has been doing for very long time in royal tradition, our King must be Buddhist and maintain and support Buddhism, however, he must also patronise and support those from other religion as well.

    King Rama IX, the present one, has been well known of his first speech when he has succeeded to the thrown,

    “...I will rule this kingdom by dharma for the well-being of all Siamese...” (Chanchaochai, 2006)

    From then, he has followed all the dharma as his way of life and worked so hard for his people just like what he has promised without religious or racial discrimination. He also ordained when he was 29 years old and lived like a monk, even though he was the king. However, I have never seen any book give any detail of what he was doing when he was a monk or what he was interested in the Buddhist teaching or collect his speeches about religions before.

    As a result, the reason I was interested in this book and decided to buy it before I came to UK is that it gives details of what he has done as a Buddhist and as a King of all Thai people without religious discrimination.  


What Is in this book?
 
   This book, named “the King in Dharma path”, was written in Thai language by Danai ChanChaoChai in 2006. It was published by DMG books publishing. This book I bought is the second edition.

    The content of this book is divided into 3 chapters. The first chapter is named “Dharma force of the Kingdom”. The second part is named “His majesty’s questions”. The last part is the collection of his lectures and his speeches.

    “Dharma force of the Kingdom” chapter is about his brief biography in the Buddhist dimension. His name, ‘Bhumipol Adulyadej’ means the force of the kingdom is irresistible, which the author paraphrase it as the name of this chapter. This chapter mentions the 10 Dharma of the Ruler (Tosฺsapitฺ Rajฺchadharma) which has been the principles for the King to rule his people since the first era of Thai history, and still be continued in his time. The detailed story of his ordaining, his way of living as a monk,and the appreciation of his mentors and his people are also described. Author also give some examples of his lecture to various groups of people and organisations, including U.S. Congress.

    The second chapter, “His majesty’s questions”, is about his dialogues with many well-known and respectful monks. His conversation is from the basic dharma, such as the basic meditation, and its application to society, such as a topic about the good society, to the advance dharma such as the practice, applications and result of the practices of transcendental meditation (wipussana gummuttan). It shows a lot about his interest in Buddhist teaching and his in-depth knowledge about the dharma. It also implicitly shows his kind and humble to these senior monks even though he was the king. 

    The last chapter is the collection of his lectures and his speeches in which related to Buddhism. These lectures and speeches have been given in many occasions, such as the New Year, his birthday anniversary, special occasions of other religions, commencement day of universities.  They have been given to many groups of people and organisations as well, such as the parliament, representatives of various organisations that came to offer a blessing to him in the celebrations of his birthday anniversary,domestic buddhist associations, the World Fellow of Buddhists, the Pope John Paul the second, the Islamic organisations, the Sikh organisations. The content of his lectures and speeches are in the scope of encouraging people to live the life of their religious teaching, suggesting the way to promote and support each religions, appreciating the kindness of other religions that initiate projects or schemes for the benefit of Thai society, and, gaining the consciousness of the society as a whole. 

My opinion to this book

    In my opinion, this book has done a great work of illustrating his majesty the king in the Buddhism dimension beautifully. It is full of details that can be quote or used in the future. The style of writing is tended to be appreciated his manner and way of life as an example to all Thai people who is Buddhists, to maintain his quotes and to avoid analysing and criticising, which is expected for Thai author.
   
    However, his presentation style is not quite good because some sessions are too long and in the same format that makes people lose their concentration, and some parts are too advanced to understand by ordinary people who don’t have in-depth knowledge in Buddhist teaching. But if the purpose of author is to keep information in its original format, he has already accomplished his work.

    I guess that another purpose of the author, in which I think is the main purpose, is to promote or to gain faith in Buddhism from Thai people by take his majesty the king as their model. For me, I think it is impressive and I felt the way he wants when I read this book.

    All in all, this book is good enough to be bought into your bookshelf. It would be greater if you read it thoroughly and follow his majesty the king. At first you might not understand what he talked to the senior monks, but as you practice and live your life in Buddhist way, you will be able to understand those dialogue.