Mural paintings of Mae Sitang Buathong, Prawit Wongsuwan and Prayut Chan-o-cha have become a controversy after the National Office of Buddhism and Tewan Liptapallop, Minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, declared that the paintings are inappropriate and should be erased. Tewan also ordered the National Office of Buddhism to uncover any paintings with hidden political messages in temples across the country.

The easiest Buddhist critical-thinking skill-set to recollect is found in the Visuddhimagga, a fifth-century treatise which borrows from the Abhidhamma. This expresses a coherent framework and structurally examines sila (moral regulations), samadhi (calming meditation) and panna (wisdom), through a fourfold-scheme to determine the characteristics, function, manifestation and proximate cause of the threefold-training.

The appointment of a new supreme patriarch is an opportunity to better politics and Buddhism in Thailand. In what could be described as one of his earliest exercises of power, King Rama X has appointed Phra Somdej Maha Muneewong as Thailand’s newest Sangha Raja. After three years of vacancy, Thai Buddhists and the nation’s order of monks have got their long awaited Supreme Patriarch. But despite much celebration and fanfare, will the new Sangha Raja rescue Thai Buddhism? And what does the whole appointment process say about contemporary Thailand and its broken politics?

After being barred from paying their respects to the late King at the Grand Palace, Bhikkhunis — female Buddhist monks in Thailand — have urged the junta leader to amend laws discriminating against female monks.