These days, Charan Pakdithanakul, 57, the permanent secretary for justice and concurrently the chairman of the Constitution Drafting Subcommittee, works virtually seven days a week, often going to his office at the Justice Ministry on Saturdays and Sundays to catch up with what he has missed during the week.

“I’m fed up with political quarrelling, especially over the contents of the new charter. There are complaints that I’ve talked too much about politics publicly. The latest onslaught came from a veteran politician and a former PM who completely disagreed with the proposal to redraw the constituencies for the next polls so that voters would vote for more than one MP in each of the constituencies,” says the former Supreme Court judge and secretary-general of the high court’s president. “So, please don’t ask me those questions. However, I’d like to discuss Buddhism as a scientific discipline.”

Charan, who earned his law degree from Cambridge University and became a barrister at law in 1978, says the Lord Buddha’s teachings should be treated as a comprehensive set of scientific principles for they are always valid when applied properly. …  Solace in Buddhism