Guidelines for the Participation of Buddhist Monks in Enhancing the Quality of Life of the People

Abstract

In present, the monks played an important role on the folkways or people in community because the priest was considered as a spirit leader who able to lead people or villagers to follow in the footsteps of progress and happiness. In order that, according to the priest were practitioner, instructor and developer at the same time which was arising from the experiences in dharma case and lawsuits, we could say that the priests were the symbolic community leaders who were the respectable venerable person. This can be concluded from the role of a priest in 5 priests' roles which involved with villagers and local people from the past to the present, namely; 1) priests' roles in education 2) priests' roles in propagation of Dharma 3) priests' roles in social welfare 4) priests' roles in spiritual development and 5) priests' roles in promoting cultural preservation and the environment. These were the duty of the priest to get involvement with people, such as ethics training, village development, village development, local development, helping to provide capital relief, helping the public domain, public assistance in the occasion that should help, managing various activities, etc. These mentioned activities made even more revered to the priests who were the local persons in each village to be the spiritual leaders and good venerable persons of people, communities and society.