The aims of this research paper were: 1) to study the problematic conditions of the participatory community development of the Wang Saphung District Municipality, Loei province; 2) to study the model of the participatory community development of the Wang Saphung District Municipality in accordance with the Buddhist principles; 3) to present the Buddhism-based participatory community development of Wang Saphung District Municipality, Loei province. This study was the qualitative research carried out in two stages in its data colleting: (1) in-depth interview of 25 key informants including 5 monks and 20 community leaders; (2) focus-group discussion with 5 participants on the topic developed from the information from the in-depth interview. The obtained data were presented by the descriptive analysis based on the analytic induction method.

The research results were as follows:

1) There are five problems in the community development of Wang Saphung Municipality, namely: social problems such as narcotics, theft, crime; environmental problems such as toxic waste, smell; cultural problems such as imitation clothing, drinking alcohol in unreasonable places, such as in temples, etc.; economic problems including lack of savings, spending extravagantly; administrative problems, including lack of freedom of thought and local political expression, being dominated by local leaders, etc.

2) The participatory community development model of Wang Saphung Municipality, Loei Province, according to Buddhist principles was conducted as follows: in terms of the social problems, the Wang Saphung Municipality administrators employed the principles of precept observation and mental development to develop the society by organizing the moral training to train people to have disciplines, not to exploit the others, to be generous; in terms of environmental problems, the principles of shame (hiri) and fear (ottappa) to do bad deeds were applied in the training; in terms of economic problems, the virtues conductive to benefits in the present (ditthadhammikattha-saṁvattanika-dhamma) including suitable incomes, expense, four requisites in living, savings and being aware of expenditure was taught to the people; in cultural problems, the gratitude principles was applied to raise pride of Wang Saphung people in their original cultures and also to see the values and to preserve their cultures; in terms of administrative problems, the principles of royal virtues (rãjadhamma) are applied to teach the community leaders or the municipality administrators to be generous, to have good behaviors and to be sacrificed for the public happiness.

3) The Buddhism-based participatory community development of Wang Saphung District Municipality is composed of 5 models: 1) the precept model which focuses on motivating people to observe the precepts to develop their physical and vocal behaviors with disciplines, no exploitation, generosity; 2) the model of shame which makes the Wang Saphung people feel shame or fear to do bad deeds such damping the garbage in the impropriate place; 3) the model of the virtues conductive to benefits in the present, which focuses on viewing the common benefits of the local ways of life in having four requisites in living, savings, more awareness in expense; 4) the model of gratitude, which leads Wang Saphung people to feel proud of their traditional cultures, to preserve them with pertinacity; 5) the model of royal duties which leads the leaders or administrators in Wang Saphung Municipality to be kind, friendly, well behavioral, generous and sacrificed for the public benefits with equity for the villagers or service users.

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