Dhammayatra 3:

Shorter, More Focussed Walk

This year the Dhammayatra for Songkhla Lake will be shorter and more focused than in the past two years. We will walk along Klong Utapao, the river that flows about 140 kilometers from the hills and rubber plantations of Sadao District on the Malaysian border down through Klong Huay Kong District into Had Yai (the largest town of Southern Thailand), then through the flat swampy areas north of Had Yai to the Southern end of the lake.

This change in route reflects a change in our thinking. First of all we want to walk in a way that helps demonstrate the link between the lake on one hand, and the hills and forests that surround the lake on the other. This is because one of the sources of the lake’s problems is the destruction of the forests in the watershed area of the lake.

Thus, we intend to walk in a way that will help us to connect the people who live in these different ecological zones with each other and with the different environments in which they live. We will be discussing with the farmers up in the hills about what happens to the waters from those hills as they flow down to Had Yai town — picking up all sorts of pollution from factories and municipal wastes. And then as they flow further into the lake also accumulating the run-off from agriculture with its pesticides and fertilizer residues, and then later the effluent from shrimp farms. And we’ll be talking with the people from Had Yai — not farmers but city-dwellers: merchants, government officials, students and so on — how their lives and livelihoods influence both the river and the lake, as well as the other people who live upstream in the hills and downstream near the lake and whose water they are able to steal due to their greater political and economic power. Finally, we’ll be talking with the farmers and small fisherman further downstream and around the lake whose lives are being severely perturbed by the way people are using the riverl above them in addition to the other uses of the lake that we have considered in previous walks.

In short, the major purpose of this walk is to connect the hearts and bodies and environments of the people and places — weaving a thread of understanding from the hills, woods, and plantations, through the farms, the city-folk, the shrimp farms, and down to the lake, by following this rriver and some of its streams.

Not So Long ... But More Often

Last year’s walk lasted a full month and was over 400 kilometers. At the end the walkers were tired, hot and ready for a long rest. At that time nobody thought much of doing another long walk. Although the majority of walkers attested to the value and learning that came from the walk, the organizers in particular were loathe to go about the very difficult process of organizing such a long walk again. This, too, led to the change in how we will be walking this time. The shorter walk this year makes the organizing much easier.

So, our plan for now and in the near future is to see if we can do more numerous and shorter walks like this one. Another aspect of this change is that we hope to focus these shorter walks in particular areas, such as Klong Utapao that feed the southern end of the lake, or Klong Lambam which comes into the middle part of the lake from the west and passes through Phattalung town.

Other walks may focus on some of the important issues of the communities and ecologies of the watershed such as the migration of labor from the villages into the factories at the Southern end of the lake — electronics, rubber processing and fish processing factories for example. Or, we may focus on the planned development of the narrow strip of land between the Southern part of the lake and the Gulf of Thailand where the government plans to build more oil refineries and various industrial zones. Those plans have been on the books for twenty or thirty years, but have not been discussed with the people who would be most affected, the local people. So, this shift in strategy is behind the shift in length and location of this year’s walk. Coincidentally, our friends who organized the Dhammayietra in Cambodia are thinking along similar lines. Please visit their web site for details.

Klong Utapao: over-used, over-burdened

Klong Utapao is one of the primary tributaries of Songkhla Lake, especially the lower section of the lake, and it is the most important water source for Sadao District, Klong Hoey Kong District, Had Yai District and Songkhla Town District — all of Songkhla province. The klong (river) and its waters are put to many uses by the people of these districts. The water is used for drinking, household and municipal purposes, agricultural and fishery purposes, industrial purposes, and transportation. So the people along its banks depend upon it in these various ways.

In addition to the use of its waters, it is also the main drainage channel for the rains that fall in the rainy season from July through December. Through it, the waters drain from the hills south of Had Yai into the swampy areas north of Had Yai and from there into the lake. However, because of the spread of Had Yai City, especially the proliferation of middle class and upper class housing subdivisions in the formerly swampy lands (now landfilled areas) north of Had Yai, this natural drainage of water is being disturbed. Also, the building of roads obstructs the natural flow of water. This puts even more of a burden on the channel of Klong Utapao.

Further, the klong is the main receptacle for agricultural waste water — whether from rubber plantations, other agricultural activities or shrimp farms — including the run-off from fertilizers and pesticides. It’s also the main receptacle for the household waste of the communities along its route, most notably the one hundred thousand people in the municipal area of Had Yai. Further, there are at least 72 factories located on the banks of the canal and its smaller tributaries. Many of these dump their wastes into the canal with little or no treatment whatsoever. Of all the tributaries of the lake, Klong Utapao receives the most pollution and wastes: approximately 5,020 cubic meters per day of mostly untreated, unregulated waste water.

For these reasons the quality of the klong’s waters is in a severely degraded state. This, in turn affects the health of the people using its waters, especially the poor farmers and fisher-folk who cannot afford highly-treated bottled water. Further, the living creatures in the water (most notably fish, shrimp and birds) are severely affected by all this pollution and waste, and by the fact that there is less water available due to increased use by growing urban populations. Consequently, fewer and fewer animals are able to survive in this degraded environment. In short, the pollution and abuse of Klong Utapao by a humanity focused on its short-term pleasures and survival and which lacks the ability to think in terms of our descendants — both human, animal and plant — is one of the major problems in this vast web of the Songkhla Lake watershed.

for details on the some of the issues along the route ...

Our Hopes

As in past years, we hope that in applying the traditional Buddhist form of the pilgrimage — although it is not so commonly used in Thailand as it is in India and Tibet — that by walking and visiting local peoples of all kinds, we can raise and discuss the various issues in an open and friendly manner. Too often, debates on social issues break down into an ‘us versus them’ mentality. People, even good-natured Thais, often follow the adversarial approach so common in Western-style democracies. But this adversarial approach is not so appropriate for grass-roots work, especially in rural Thailand.

As Buddhists, we feel that metta, loving-kindness, is a more powerful way to go about solving these problems. By recognizing that we are comrades in birth, aging, illness and death — not only with the people directly involved with these specific problems, but with all beings and forms of life who help constitute this rich and wonderful environment — we are able to see that we are all both victims and perpetrators of the destruction. It’s the nature of samsara that we all must eat to survive. Buddhism, like all religions, has recognized this, but at the same time, sought to find balance: to eat what we truly need, to consume what is of genuine value to us. So, in our Dhammayatra we try to remind each other of our shared humanity, of the shared suffering of living in samsara, so that we can discover the shared joy of working together to solve our problems and foster social peace and justice.

And Our Methods

To bring about these objectives, we will be meeting with the local people in each of the temples where we will sleep. In different places there are different problems and concerns that will be discussed. After hearing these problems and worries of the residents of one place, we will share with them what we have heard from other villages along Klong Utapao. Not only that, we will pass on what we learned in past walks from the many other villages that share problems both similar and unique.

There will also be Dhamma Talks that connect the Buddha’s profound teachings to the current social, environmental, cultural, and psychological realities of both the walkers and the people we meet. We have devised some creative forms of meditation to help us think like mountains, rivers and lakes. And we will carry out a few ceremonies to rejuvenate the river. This is the application of the custom of making merit to increase one’s health and lifespan. We won’t be doing so for ourselves, but for the river and all its inhabitants.

Lastly, we will be planting trees brought from different parts of the country as reminders of the Dhammayatra. We will plant them in each temple or village where our hosts both wished for and agreed to take care of these trees. That way they will be a living symbol of the capacity of human beings to meet, become friends and remain friends even when we are far apart. We will do this to show that our hearts are joined in the common purpose of living the Buddha’s teaching — both for liberation of our own hearts and the liberation of society from all forms of structural suffering and violence.

Some Pictures from the Walk

Some Issues of Concern Along the Way

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