Educational Buddhism for Human Capital Development of Thailand 4.0

Abstract

One of the main keys of the Thailand 4.0 development strategy is to develop the country’s human capital to be of high caliber with goodness, ethics and morals, discipline, and a positive attitude toward society. In developing the country, one of the most essential issues is education for human capital. As a result, educated people will become the force that drives a sustainable developed country. The Buddhist education is called ‘Sikkhā’. In this article ‘Buddha Sikkhā’ refers to the educational approach by applying Buddhist concepts for teaching and learning. The purposes of this academic article are to stress the educational approach by applying Buddhist concepts. In addition, the western philosophy of human development including the fifth discipline of Peter Senge, the competencies for the 21^st century, and the research from Thais scholars on Buddhism in education. It appears that the western educational concepts have both similarities and differences with the Buddhist approach. For instance, the holistic view of the world in which everything is interrelated, the discipline, and the interpersonal relations. In contrast, the western concept emphasizes the development of knowledge, skills, and behavior whereas the Buddhist approach polishes inside, or develops people’s minds and souls.  It is worth noticing the Thai proverb which says “you can compete with others, except the merit and halo” because merit and halo were innate qualities from within the person. Nevertheless, in this study, the author found that it is not true since merit comes from our actions and the halo comes from the education and training, such as personality traits that we can practice and change ourselves. For example, the way we talk or walk. This means that we can build our own halo from practicing, learning, or training with the three components of Sila Samāthi and Panyā.