This dissertation entitled “Strategies for Buddhism Propagation of Overseas Dhammaduta Bhikkhus” has three objectives: 1) to study the principles used for Buddhism propagation in Theravada Buddhism, 2) to study the Overseas Dhammaduta Bhikkhus’ propagation of Buddhism, and 3) to propose the Overseas Dhammaduta Bhikkhus’ strategies in the propagation of Buddhism. This is a qualitative research.
The research findings were found that the principles the Buddha used in the beginning while propagating Buddhism was mainly focused on the chief target where people from the class of rulers and social leaders, rich Brahmas and wealthy person were prioritized with a view to motivating a great deal of people in Buddhism. Once those people were accepted then they rapidly lead the role as the propagators of Buddhism. At this time, sixty of the worthy monks were allowed by the Buddha to propagate Buddhism in order to provide a hefty of benefit and happiness to people through the significant instructions by which they have been being observed till the present.
In the Overseas Dhammaduta Bhikkhus’ propagation of Buddhism, Buddhist monks who passed the Overseas Dhammaduta Bhikkhus Training Program are highly regarded as the Thai Sangha’s delegates to communicate the Buddhadhamma to the people around the world under the Thai Sangha and the other cooperation within three main advantages: 1) virtues conducive to benefits in the present, 2) virtues conducive to benefits in the future, and 3) virtues conducive to benefits in the final eternal goal (Nibbãna) leading to the awareness of the proper practices in accordance with the Buddhist teachings.
In this research, the Buddhism propagation strategies of the Overseas Dhammaduta Bhikkhus was of the organizational and individual strategies, the former consists of: 1) setting the main goals and guidelines in propagating Buddhism clearly and thoroughly, 2) creating a database of Thai temples and Dhammaduta Bhikkhus in the foreign countries, 3) providing a central database to gather information about the foreign countries’ history, and 4) making a bilingual database of Buddhist Dhammas, like Thai and English or Pali and English database, and 5) providing the budget in a row for managing the propagation works in the foreign countries, and the latter consist of: 1) getting to know oneself and others through self-analysis, and developing oneself to acquire more Buddhism knowledge through learning, practice and comprehension, especially in meditation, manners, as well as other knowledge needed for the Dhammaduta works, and 2) getting to know the target country of Buddhism propagation, and future trends in Buddhism propagation and also the up-to-date situations.
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