Preah Maha Ghosananda

Maha Ghosananda, (full title Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda), is a highly revered Cambodian Buddhist monk in the Theravada tradition, who served as the Patriarch (Sangharaja) of Cambodian Buddhism during the Khmer Rough period and post-communist transition period of Cambodian history.

His Pali monastic name, Maha Ghosananda, means "great joyful proclaimer".

He was born in Takeo Province, Cambodia in 1929, to a farming family in the Mekong Delta plains. From an early age he showed great interest in relgion, and began to serve as a temple boy at age eight. He greatly impressed the monks with whom he served, and at age fourteen received novice ordination. He studied Pali scriptures in the local temple high school, then went on to complete his higher education at the monastic universities in Phnom Penh and Battambang, before going to India to pursue a doctorate in Pali at Nalanda Univerisity in Bihar.
Education
Maha Ghosananda trained under some of the most highly influential Buddhist masters of his time, including the Japanese monk Nichidatsu Fujii, and the Cambodian Patriarch Samdech Preah Sangharaja Chuon Nath.

In 1965, Maha Ghosananda left Cambodia to study meditation under the Thai master Ajahn Dhammadaro, a disciple of Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta, famous meditation masters of the Thai Forest Tradition. Four years later, while he was still studying at Dhammadaro's forest monastery, the United States began bombing Cambodia as part of their attempt to shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and end the Vietnam War. Cambodian became engulfed in civil war and social disintergration.
Khmer Rouge Era
As the Khmer Rouge seized control of the country, the prospects of Buddhism became increasingly doubtful. Pol Pot, who had once served in a Buddhist monastery, denounced Buddhist monks as useless pariah, and part of the feudalistic power structures of the past. Monks were viewed with suspicion and disdain as part of the intellectual class, and targeted for especially brutal treatment and "reeducation".

As part of the Khmer Rouge horrific Year Zero campaign, monks were systematically turned out of monasteries and forced to disrobe and become farming peasants, or were tortured and murdered outright. Some monks were forced to violate their vows at gunpoint. By the time the Khmer Rouge reign of terror ended, there were no monks alive in Cambodia, and most temples were in rubble.

Meanwhile, refugees began to filter out of Cambodia and congregate in refugee camps along the Thai border, bringing with them tales of unbelievable, apocalyptic horrors.

In 1978, Maha Ghosananda left his forest hermitage in Thailand, and went down to the refugee camps near the Thai-Cambodia border to begin ministering to the first refugees who filtered across the border.

Maha Ghosananda was one of the few Cambodian monks to survive the brutal purge instigated by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Maha Ghosananda's appearance in the refugee camps raised a stir among the refugees who had not seen a monk for years. The Cambodian refugees openly wept as Maha Ghosananda chanted the ancient and familiar sutras that had been the bedrock of traditional Cambodian culture before Year Zero. He distributed photcopied Buddhist scriptures among the refugees, as protection and inspiration for the battered people.

His entire family, and countless friends and disciples, were massacred by the Khmer Rouge.
Restoration
Maha Ghosananda served as a key figure in post-Communist Cambodia, helping to restore the nation state and to revive Cambodian Buddhism. In 1980, he served as a representative of the Cambodian nation-in-exile to the United Nations

When the Pol Pot regime collapsed in 1979, Maha Ghosananda was one of only 3,000 Cambodian Buddhist monks alive, out of more than 60,000 at the start of the reign of terror in 1976.

In 1988, Maha Ghosananda was elected by these surviving 3,000 Buddhist monks as Supreme Buddhist Patriarch of Cambodia, and the Khmer diaspora throughout the world. He agreed to accept the position provisionally, until a duly elected Supreme Patriarch could be chosen to fill the position in Phnom Penh.
Dhamma Yatra
In 1992, during the first year of the United Nations sponsored peace agreement, Maha Ghosananda lead the fiest nation-wide Dhamma Yatra, a peace march or pilgrimage, across Cambodia in an effort to begin resoring the hope and spirit of the Cambodian people.

The 16-day, 125-mile peace walk passed through territory still controlled by the Khmer Rouge.

He has since led numerous other peace walks across Cambodia, accompanied with as many as 200 people each year.

He has been called "the Gandhi of Cambodia." Maha Ghosananda was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Claiborne Pell. He was again nominated in 1995, 1996, and 1997 for his work in bring peace to Cambodia. He as also acted as an advisor to Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

Maha Ghosananda resides part time in Palalai Temple in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

Maha Ghosananda, Cambodia's spiritual leader

Maha Ghosananda is a Supreme Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism and a well-known Buddhist leader worldwide. In particular, he has played a major role in various nonviolent activities to promote reconciliation among the Cambodian people following the nation's civil strife, offering support to refugees and encouraging the rebuilding of the nation. His warm personality and great compassion have won him accolades as "Cambodia's Gandhi," "a Living Treasure," and "the Living Truth."
Cambodia achieved independence from French colonial rule in 1953. In 1970, a coup took place after which the monarchy was replaced by a pro-American democratic government, but there was no end to the internal strife, and in 1976, Pol Pot established Democratic Kampuchea. That government pursued extreme communist policies, moving people from urban centers to the countryside for forced labor. Those other than farmers were severely persecuted, and it is said that more than two million Cambodians, including the country's leading intellectuals, died of illness or starvation or were executed during the three years and eight months of the Pol Pot regime. Cambodian Buddhism was especially hard hit, with the country's 3,600 temples totally shut down, and many members of what had once been a 60,000-strong Buddhist clergy persecuted and slain. Only 3,000 names were listed again as members of the priesthood after the Pol Pot regime collapsed in 1979.

Maha Ghosananda is one of those few remaining Buddhist clergy. When civil war broke out in Cambodia he was in southern Thailand engaged in the discipline of meditation and escaped the worst of the turmoil. Regrettably, however, most of his family in Cambodia was slain by the Pol Pot forces. Confronted by the tragedy that was engulfing his country, Maha Ghosananda threw himself with vigor into the nonviolent peace movement, doing all he could for his fellow Cambodians. He established temples in all of the Cambodian refugee camps on the Cambodia-Thailand border, including Sakeo and Khao-ee-dang, and traveled from camp to camp to preach. The sight of Ghosananda in his saffron robes stirred the Cambodian refugees to tears. Their weeping is said to have echoed throughout the refugee camps.

After the signing of the 1991 peace accord, Maha Ghosananda led the first of the Dhammayietra Walks for Peace and Reconciliation in emulation of Shakyamuni, who led his disciples to places of strife and warfare while practicing meditation and preaching detachment from suffering and the way to peace. When a procession led by Maha Ghosananda passed through villages, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people are said to have followed it. Through these Walks, Maha Ghosananda became a bridge of peace, bringing together people who had been separated by war, and wiped away their fears with his call for peace. He has continued to promote nonviolent means, not only for peace, but also for solutions to a wide range of peace-threatening issues such as deforestation and the use of land mines.

Maha Ghosananda has had a profound influence upon movements for peace around the globe through his advisory role in such NGOs as the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), and the Ponleu Khmer, the citizens' advisory council to the Cambodian Constitutional Assembly. He has been a leader in inter-religious communication, as evidenced by his attendance at the sixth World Conference on Religion and Peace held in Italy in 1994.

Maha Ghosananda offers his unlimited compassion to all people, whether friend or foe. In both spirit and deed, he has shown the way to a fundamental resolution of regional and ethnic strife around the world.

Source: 1998 Niwano Prize homepage

Maha Ghosananda, a respected Cambodian monk went into the refugee camps where thousands of Cambodians had fled the terrible holocaust conducted by Pol Pot. Every family had lost children, spouses, and parents to the ravages of genocide, and their homes and temples had been destroyed. Maha Ghosanada announced to the refugees that there would be a Buddhist ceremony the next day, and all who wished to come would be welcome.

Since Buddhism had been desecrated by Pol Pot, people were curious if anyone would go. The next day, over ten thousand refugees converged at the meeting place to share in the ceremony. It was an enormous gathering. Maha Gosananda sat for some time in silence on a platform in front of the crowd. Then he began chanting the invocations that begin the Buddhist ceremony, and people started weeping. They had been through so much sorrow, so much difficulty, that just to hear the sound of those familiar words again was precious.

Some wondered what Maha Ghosanada would say. What could one possibly say to this group of people? What he did next, in the company of thousands of refugees, was begin to repeat the verse from the Dhammapada, a sacred Buddist scripture.

Hatred never ceases by hatred;
But love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.

Over and over again Maha Ghosananda chanted this verse. These were people who has as much cause to hate as anyone on earth. Yet as he sat there, repeating this verse over and over, one by one, thousands of voices joined together in unison: "Hatred never ceases by hatred: but by love alone is healed. This is an ancient and eternal law."Out of the mouths of people who had been wounded, oppressed, made homeless, aggrieved, and crushed by the pain of war, came a prayer proclaiming the ancient truth about love, a truth that was greater than all the sorrows they had seen and felt.

Legacy of the Heart,Wayne Muller