Nirvana for Sale | Unreported World

i'm at the heart of thailand's most controversial buddhist sect as tens of thousands of its most fervent followers celebrate its 50th birthday the damakaya sect has 3 million devotees and centers in 30 countries including the uk and america i felt like i was on the set of a missing star trek episode and i couldn't help feeling that this may be buddhism but not as we know it they say it's modern buddhism for modern times their critics say they're a sinister money-obsessed cult led by a rogue monk who thinks he's god [Music] i've been invited to attend the sect's birthday party by one of its most zealous devotees the temple's had a lot of bad press and can be quite suspicious of outsiders so i'm hoping to blend in with the faithful which is why i've come here because there's a dress code [Music] joom has her own clothes business she's just the sort of wealthy follower the dhammakaya sect is famous for attracting thank you very much it's dawn on the day of the big celebrations i'm with june for my first glimpse of the movement's extraordinary heart the temple of one million buddhas [Music] and we're not in the cheap seats june's paid for us to be close to the action many of these people are urban professionals like june [Music] after the chanting the monks descend to receive offerings of food joom wants me to share her offerings she thinks it'll help in my future lives buddhists believe in reincarnation and that good acts like this will improve their next lives until they escape the endless cycle of rebirth and achieve nirvana but this sect has another focus money i hop into one of the temples buggies for the next event it seems incredible that this was just paddy fields 50 years ago now look at it calling it a temple doesn't do it justice the compound is 10 times the size of the vatican built with cash donated by its followers the actions move to the grand assembly hall where the faithful are meditating the dhammakaya movement claims to have revived a meditation technique lost since the time of the buddha a big part of its appeal to stressed professionals [Music] there's one person missing from this celebration and it's a significant absence the abbot the man who founded damaki a temple and there's a mystery about him no one's seen him for the past three years because he's on the run team councilwoman in 2017 thai soldiers stormed the compound with a warrant to arrest abbot dimaggio he was suspected of laundering 25 million pounds of stolen cash his representatives denied the allegations and say they don't know where he is there are rumors that dimaggio has left the country or even died but he still has a place in the hearts and minds of his followers and a portrait in the temple museum will we see him again one day his answer surprises me some people take care of him nearby oh okay but actually he give some dharma to us every day when night time dharma means teaching incredibly he seems to be telling me that the abbot is alive and well and living nearby but he won't elaborate i go to talk to someone who can tell me more dr mano lahanovic was once a leading member of the sect i know they happened very well secondly to my parents after 20 years he claims he left because he thought the abbot was turning the sect into a money-making cut was there a key moment when you thought that's it i can't do this anymore when he tried to reveal to me that he is god with capital g i cannot work with god i can work with human being fallible human being can work with but never god you paint this dark picture of the temple the temple followers i meet are all to a person kind and open and willing to show us around that's true that's the nature of all cults in the world i never said the disciple of this community is bad no they are good people moral minded but the fact remain they never knew what the temp what the albert has spent the money unlike the majority of thai temples the dhammakaya movement chooses not to publish its accounts does anyone know how much the temple receives and where the money goes never declare they keep secret all the time from beginning until now dr mano takes me back to his flat he shows me a commemorative hammer that the sect gave to followers who donated two hundred thousand baht five thousand pounds and this is two hundred thousand that's two hundred thousand that's a lot of money for a hammer two hundred thousand they give you this donors were told the money went to new buildings dr mano claims the abbot has dreams of global domination and yeah but was very fond of adolf hitler you see this is icon he let's start with zero he starts with zero and he hitler created three steps to become the leader the dictator of germany talked about this i have to stop you i mean that comparing the habit to hitler is a pretty big allegation what evidence do you have that he is influenced by hitler well he told me that hillary's a good guy the abbot dimaggio and the sect deny all of dr mano's allegations i tell him one of the monks implied the abbot was still living nearby he says he can show me exactly where [Music] this is the gate 50 meters from here is the location where the airport is hiding what's he doing down there hiding thailand's justice minister recently called on the police to renew their efforts to arrest the abbot so far with no results how do you know he's there how can you be so sure he's there don't believe me i have a mole so drive on at the damakire sect the anniversary event is in full swing [Music] in signs and over the tannoy were exhorted to give cash it's unimaginably vast and i think the big surprise is the emphasis on making donations to the temple there are offering boxes everywhere behind me there's a big office that accepts gifts from temple members and beside it is a massive queue for two cash points where the faithful can get their money out other buddhist groups ask for donations but none with the sophistication of the dhammakaya sect so every temple that has one of these we peer into the special office that deals with mega donors like june okay [Music] they love donations they're not so keen on publicity but they do give her a medal and a receipt another stamp in her passport to nirvana [Music] i'm on my way to meet a group of people who unwittingly gave millions to the sect they're the victims of the scandal that triggered the raid on the temple money was stolen from bank accounts and given to the abbot they want the abbot put on trial to establish whether he knew the money was stolen they lost sums ranging from 50 to 250 000 pounds they tell me how they deposited their savings in a bank run by a sect devotee but it turned out he'd embezzled its funds and given them to the abbot [Music] the temple says the abbot didn't know the source of the donation and it raised money to help victims but these people say they haven't received anything the government denies it but supporters of dhammakaya say the charges against the abbot are politically motivated and the government is threatened by its popularity june's giving me a tour of the buildings her money's helped pay for she refuses to believe that anything the abbott has done is in any way criminal and love love wow seven million bart is almost 150 000 pounds and that's not all she's given husband is now one of the 4 000 resident monks she says it was a conscious uncoupling and that it will bring them both spiritual benefits i'm starting to think that june must be loaded so i'm keen to see where she lives and excited when she invites me around for dinner but joom's house isn't grand it doubles as a workshop this is where you do make the clothes okay she tells me her parents were poor and she came to bangkok aged just 14 with nothing [Music] she says her fortunes changed when she joined the damakaya sect 25 years ago and began giving cash this is at the heart of the missing abbott's appeal unlike other buddhist groups he teaches that donations buy you wealth in this life as well as your future lives and company [Music] [Music] and there he is abbott dimaggio delighted to receive her donation for 25 000 pounds and even more delighted when she turned up with a hundred and twenty-five thousand i calculate that her total donations must be over a million pounds jume's story is amazing she came from this background of extreme poverty and worked her way up to the point where she's able to give away a small fortune to the temple and she seems completely happy about it there are a lot of people like june who believe the temple when it promises them that by giving money away they can be assured of riches in this life and the next [Music] in bangkok you see buddhist temples everywhere all of them take donations but critics say that the abbot has taken this tradition to a new level in a suburb of the capital i meet chachai someone who says the sect has destroyed his life couldn't cha cha it's not a rude question how old are you oh 65 65 oh you look very good for 16. yeah he used to be a successful chemical engineer with his own company his work was even recognized by the prime minister this is me uh receiving the prime minister award from president tuxen ginobat now he's a broken man he says his wife gradually cleaned out his savings and donated almost three hundred thousand pounds to the damakaya sect it may be a really suffer life because i fought out too late he says the sect manipulated his wife into giving away their money she addicted to the way of blessing in tamakaya temple addicted to blessing and also addicted to donation you feel your wife's been brainwashed and it's destroyed your marriage brainwashed by evil cult you think it's an evil cult if you cut and how are things between you now we don't miss each other we don't speak to each other [Music] he wants me to understand the damage it's done to his family these are photos during our wedding ceremony and my mom got very angry and she cut all the pictures of my wife out from the photo album [Music] i feel upset because actually i still love my wife but she is just only the prayer of the temple chatchar's wife told us his claims about her being brainwashed aren't true and that she only donated her own money to the temple i've heard extraordinary claims about the dhammakaya sect both good and bad to make sense of it i'm meeting one of thailand's most eminent buddhist scholars professor sulak sivaraksa has been nominated twice for the nobel peace prize and won praise from the dalai lama he tells me that he thinks the damakaya sect's focus on wealth is a threat to buddhism tamakaya promoting capitalism consummation people love to be rich he says the sect's emphasis on donations is ruining lives the followers many of them are good people but they have been full and blindly they gave everything away which the family suffered and a lot of family broken you know do you think the abbot will ever emerge to face the music he has plenty of money and in this country money can buy anything i'm back at the sects headquarters i want to ask them about the embezzled money about chachai's allegation that his wife was manipulated dr manos claims about the abbot and why if he's innocent the abbot doesn't come out of hiding and say so the temple has agreed to let us talk to a senior official we arrive early and wait and wait and wait [Music] we came here on the promise of an interview and they keep changing the person they say is going to speak to us and now i'm starting to think that maybe we're not going to get an interview at all because we've been here for two and a half hours in the absence of the abbot no one wants to put themselves in the line of fire so it's been a kind of absurd and farcical afternoon after three hours of touring and throwing which included a free meditation lesson it became clear that no one was going to give us an interview and eventually a kindly junior monk took us to one side and said that the situation was too sensitive and no one would speak to us the sects anniversary celebrations are reaching a climax its rituals give no hint of the passion and controversy that it arouses in thailand the abbot built this temple to last for a thousand years but i wonder how long it can fight on without its enigmatic leader at the helm [Music] foreign [Music] thanks for watching click the logo to subscribe for more award-winning documentaries from the unreported world team we upload videos every sunday keeping you up to date with content from all over the world you

Channel: Unreported World

Views: 134,127

Rating: 4.8999262 out of 5

Keywords: Unreported world, unreported world documentary, dhammakaya, Dhammachayo, Thailand, Bangkok, Buddhistsect, AbbotDhammachayo, documentary

Id: MYm1EbNs4sU

Length: 23min 39sec (1419 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020