What to make of the teachings of Luang Por Tira, an elder monk and ajaan (teacher) whom Piper Ratliff, one of the characters in season three of The White Lotus, wishes to move to Thailand to study with? The monk’s initial words to Tim, Piper’s father, would sound more at home in the works of a European romantic than coming from a Theravadin Buddhist teacher. He diagnoses Western spiritual malaise as being rooted in disconnection from nature, family, and spirit, an assertion which manages to contain no traditional Theravada Buddhist teachings at all. Things get better when the monk shifts to a discussion of how the pursuit of pleasure leads only to pain, and the fact that the pain of life is not solved by running away from pain—all of which could actually come from the mouth of a Thai ajaan.
When Tim, a tormented father being investigated by the FBI for financial crimes, asks what happens after death, the monk offers what sounds like a garbled New Age take on Vedanta—though it is not Vedanta either. What he says is so at odds with Theravadin Buddhist teachings it staggers the mind a bit: “When you were born,” the ajaan says, “you were like a single drop of water separated from the one giant consciousness. You are born, then you die to descend back into the water and become one with the ocean again. No more separated, no more suffering. One consciousness…. Death is a happy return, like coming home.”
It is always possible that a monk in Thailand might present an unorthodox teaching as Buddhism, or even mix in New Age ideas, but it’s harder to believe an esteemed traditional ajaan would do this, and also confusing why the show’s writers, when they have a chance to present realistic mainstream Thai Buddhist teachings, wouldn’t do so. According to Theravadin teachings, when one dies one is reborn according to one’s karma. Tim doesn’t have an automatic happy return to the sea of universal consciousness to look forward to, but something much less pleasant, given his lying, his stealing, and the suicide he is then contemplating, in a Lorazepam- and whisky-fueled haze. Worse, by having the ajaan present this teaching at that time, the show seems to be implying that Buddhist teachings might encourage his contemplated suicide (and indeed, if the Buddha taught that all deaths led to a happy return to the blissful home of oceanic consciousness, maybe they would).
Theravada (“the speech of the elders”) is the oldest surviving Buddhist school, and it is generally accepted as maintaining the most accurate memory of the teachings of the historical Buddha. It has flourished in Thailand for almost two thousand years, and is also the dominant form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. The first confused presentation of Theravada teachings in The White Lotus comes from Frank, a retired criminal in Bangkok, who goes along as back-up when one of the main characters seeks to confront a man he thinks killed his father. Frank moved to Thailand to live a life of extreme indulgence, became world-weary, discovered Buddhism, embraced sobriety, and gave up prostitutes. “Then I got into Buddhism,” he says, “which is all about spirit versus form, detaching from self, getting off the never-ending carousel of loss and suffering. Sobriety is hard, but not as hard as celibacy. I still really miss the pussy, man.”
When watching this episode, I initially thought this was an intentional parody of superficial Western understandings of Buddhism. What Frank says is a mix of Buddhist ideas (getting off the carousel of loss and suffering) and Western, Christianesque ones (spirit versus form, detaching from self), as well as an accurate need for sobriety (religious Thai Buddhists don’t drink) and an inaccurate need for celibacy (which is only for monastics). Given the speech of the ajaan to Tim, though, I’m not so sure.
When watching this episode, I initially thought this was as intentional parody of superficial Western understandings of Buddhism.
Yet even if the canned wisdom of the ajaan and the superficial, garbled teachings presented by others in the series are at odds with Buddhist teaching, the show offers viewers profound—and yes, Buddhist—insights into the human condition in the form of its plot.
This season, which just wrapped up this past Sunday, features tales of the hapless rich and the hotel chain that serves them. The show deals for the most part with the Thai hospitality/spa culture created for foreign visitors, but it also has prominent Thai characters, two of whom, Gaitok and Mook, have important storylines, and contains some superficial but well-done visual and cultural presentations of Thai religion and night life, and the urban setting of Bangkok. There are also explicit discussions of Buddhism and some hilarious parodies of ignorant western views of it, as when wealthy, pharmaceutical-addicted layabout Victoria Ratliff, apprised of the fact that her daughter wants to move to a Thai monastery for a year, exclaims, “But you’re not a Buddhist! You’re not even Chinese!”
As a former monastic in the Thai Buddhist tradition, I was curious to see how the show handled the tradition. When it comes to the show’s explicit presentation of Buddhist teachings, the writing is weak. When meditation teachings are presented, they are fairly superficial mash-ups of mindfulness of breathing, Western-style mindfulness teachings, and repeated references to the cliché of taming “the monkey mind.” Actual Thai Buddhist meditation instructions are subtle and variegated and go considerably beyond the Pop Mindfulness fare presented in the show. Frequent shots of monkeys in the jungle outside the hotel are put to good use, however, suggesting not so subtly who is the boss inside the minds of those at the hotel. The depiction of Thai Buddhist philosophy—which comes from a particular lineage of Theravada Buddhist thought—occasionally hits the mark but often ranges from the confused to the totally off.
Thai Theravada asserts that the Buddha taught that how we fare in life goes according to our karma, our intentional acts of mind, speech, and body. Those routed in greed, hatred, and confusion promote gross suffering, and those rooted in the opposite—generosity, love, clarity—produce happy states in this life and the next. Non-monastics follow the five training precepts (more on this in a bit), generosity, and cultivation of good states of mind. For those who understand that all states of mind and body are impermanent and don’t offer lasting happiness, however, the path of the monastic lies open. Monastics still their minds in meditation, so they observe their bodies and minds until they can let go of all desire and delusion and experience the transcendent bliss and freedom of nirvana. They are liberated from suffering in this life, and after death they are not reborn. The map of the universe and human conduct scaffolding these teachings is the called dhamma (dharma in Sanskrit) and is believed to have been discovered and taught by the Buddha.
Luang Por Tira’s “ocean of consciousness” sermon seems to come from an entirely different religion. He also gives a trite and superficial sermon in the final episode, which not only sounds like a vapid soundbite from an online influencer, it also again directly contradicts the Buddha’s teaching. “Sometimes we wake with anxiety and edgy energy,” the esteemed Thai ajaan says, in unrealistically youthful and colloquial English. “‘What will happen today?’ ‘What is in store for me?’ So many questions. We want resolution, solid earth under our feet. Take life into our own hands. We take action, yeah? Our solutions are temporary. They are a quick fix. They create more anxiety, more suffering. There is no resolution to life’s questions. It is easier to be patient once we finally accept there is no resolution.”
The idea that there is no resolution to our desire for truth, security, and solid ground is a kind of relativist nihilism which, though popular in the modern West, corresponds to a view explicitly rejected by the historical Buddha. The Buddha’s actual teachings, while agreeing that anxiety and confusion torment us, argue that the solid ground we seek is the dharma, and that the sure guidance it offers—and ultimately, the freedom of Nirvana—is the resolution to all of life’s questions. The White Lotus presents the Buddha’s solution as mere resigned acceptance of life as it is, a view sometimes heard in western pop Buddhism that is very far from the dharma I’ve heard from Thai ajaans over the years.
There is one very Buddhist part of the show, however: its plot. The Buddha taught that our suffering is self-created, and the characters are caught in a web of truly self created suffering. Their incredible wealth and privilege and comfortable surroundings—replete with every kind of mental and physical therapy—only help to illustrate the fact that the suffering that they’re living through is entirely of their own design.
The characters are enmeshed in greed, hatred, and delusion, which are known to Buddhists as the three poisons. And the characters manage to violate the five traditional Buddhist training precepts in their behaviour. The five precepts, whose disregard is said to bring harm and regret, are not killing, not stealing, not lying, not committing sexual misconduct, and not taking intoxicants. The characters murder, steal, lie, engage in sexual misconduct, and abuse alcohol and drugs, often all within the space of a few minutes.
Tim Ratliff, for example, committed fraud (greed) and is now losing his mind from fear of the consequences (hatred), which he is escaping in sedatives and whisky (delusion). It was stealing that landed him in this situation (second precept) and his lying (third) and substance abuse (fifth) are prolonging the crisis. His son, Saxon, driven by sexual greed and shallow egotism (delusion), leads himself and his brother into trouble with his obsession with unethical sexual conquest (fourth precept), fueled by alcohol and drugs (fifth), which ultimately culminates in incest (fourth). And so on.
One of the driving tensions of the plot is also authentically Buddhist: will the characters succumb to the urge to be violent or not? Will Tim kill himself, or even his whole family? Will Greg, a wife-killer in hiding, kill Saxon, who he thinks slept with his wife, or Belinda, who knows of his crime? Will Rick kill the man he believes murdered his father? Will Gaitok succumb to Mook’s pressure to be ambitious and violent for the sake of career advancement?
The idea that there is no resolution to our desire for truth, security, and solid ground is a kind of relativist nihilism which, though popular in the modern West, corresponds to a view explicitly rejected by the historical Buddha.
This last tension animates a tragic Buddhist tale embedded in one of the flashier plot lines of this season: that of Gaitok and Mook. Gaitok is a mild-mannered security guard who avoids confrontation and violence. He is infatuated with Mook, a beautiful Thai girl who herself has more of a thing for the burly tattooed bodyguards who shadow the hotel’s owner. Gaitok attempts to be more aggressive, to get a promotion to please Mook, although he confesses to her that he thinks violence was condemned by the Buddha and is wrong. Ultimately, Gaitok shoots a fleeing murderer dead, thus winning a promotion and Mook’s love. Their mutual disregard for his true, more honorable character promises a life of future misery for them both.
In another scene, the brutality of muay-Thai boxing is juxtaposed with a voice-over of the ajaan saying, “Remember this: every one of us has the capacity to kill. Buddhist scripture condemns violence in every form. Violence, aggression, anger, stem from the same source: fear. The only good faith response is to sit with your feelings. Violence does spiritual harm to the victim and the perpetrator. Buddhists believe: always non-violence.”
If I knew nothing about Buddhism watching The White Lotus, I would come away with the idea that it is a peaceful religion that promotes stilling the mind, non-violence, and acceptance of life as it is, and whose meditation teachings are commensurate with the pop-mindfulness stuff one can hear in any yoga class or meditation app. I would also believe that it promotes spirit above form, and detachment from self, and that it promises that all beings come from one universal consciousness to which they will return at death in a peaceful homecoming. Not the worst presentation of Theravada Buddhism, to be sure, but far from a wholly accurate one.
When it comes to the plot, however, the show delivers Buddhist insights in spades, serving up hefty doses of teaching about the perils of violence, along with the poisonous nature of greed, hatred, and delusion and the chaotic consequences of killing, stealing, lying, unethical sex, and intoxicants. The show might not be true to Thai Buddhism, but it’s true to life.