Supreme Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch Maha Ghosananda is shown in this 1998 picture leading a peace march in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Maha Ghosananda, a monk who played a key role in rebuilding Buddhism in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has died. Ghosananda, who lived in Leverett, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, was believed to be in his late 70s. He died Monday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Mass., said Christina Trinchero, a hospital spokeswoman. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Supreme Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch Maha Ghosananda is shown in this 1998 picture leading a peace march in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. Maha Ghosananda, a monk who played a key role in rebuilding Buddhism in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has died. Ghosananda, who lived in Leverett, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, was believed to be in his late 70s. He died Monday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Mass., said Christina Trinchero, a hospital spokeswoman. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)March 14. 2007
The Associated Press
Maha Ghosananda, a monk who played a key role in rebuilding Buddhism in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has died.
Ghosananda, who lived in Leverett and Providence, R.I., died Monday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, hospital spokeswoman Christina Trinchero said. Trinchero did not know the cause of death or his age.
Non Nget, a senior Buddhist patriarch in Cambodia who has known Ghosananda since childhood, said he was 81.
In Cambodia, the country marked the passing of a "resilient advocate for peace" who had "made a lot sacrifices for the sake of happiness and peace," said Chhorn Iem, Cambodia's deputy minister for religious affairs.
The Cambodian monk lived in exile between 1975 and 1979, when the Khmer Rouge denounced Buddhism and caused the deaths of nearly 2 million people through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
Ghosananda was one of the first monks to return to Cambodia and train new Buddhist leaders after Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the Vietnamese in 1979.
"He did everything he could to restore Buddhism to Cambodia," Jim Perkins, pastor of the Leverett Congregational Church and a friend of the religious leader, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Ghosananda was elected a Supreme Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch by fellow Buddhist monks in 1988 for restoring Buddhism in the war-torn country.
During the 1990s, he lead the Dhamma Yatra movement to rebuild religious life in Cambodia.
In 1994, he led a peace march to the northwestern town of Pailin, still a Khmer Rouge stronghold at the time. Three Cambodians taking part in the march, including a Buddhist monk and a nun, were killed in the crossfire between government soldiers and Khmer Rouge rebels but Ghosananda escaped unharmed.
In 1997, after the Khmer Rouge fighters in Pailin laid down their arms and rejoined the government, he successfully led another pilgrimage for peace to Pailin. This time, the marchers were warmly welcome by residents and former rebels of the Khmer Rouge, which had executed monks and destroyed Buddhist temples during the regime's reign of terror.
He moved to western Massachusetts in the late 1980s at the invitation of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order in Leverett, which seeks a complete elimination of weapons. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times in the mid-1990s.
He split his time between the Buddhist temples in Leverett and Providence, Perkins said.
Ghosananda, who lived in Leverett and Providence, R.I., died Monday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, hospital spokeswoman Christina Trinchero said. Trinchero did not know the cause of death or his age.
Non Nget, a senior Buddhist patriarch in Cambodia who has known Ghosananda since childhood, said he was 81.
In Cambodia, the country marked the passing of a "resilient advocate for peace" who had "made a lot sacrifices for the sake of happiness and peace," said Chhorn Iem, Cambodia's deputy minister for religious affairs.
The Cambodian monk lived in exile between 1975 and 1979, when the Khmer Rouge denounced Buddhism and caused the deaths of nearly 2 million people through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
Ghosananda was one of the first monks to return to Cambodia and train new Buddhist leaders after Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the Vietnamese in 1979.
"He did everything he could to restore Buddhism to Cambodia," Jim Perkins, pastor of the Leverett Congregational Church and a friend of the religious leader, told the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Ghosananda was elected a Supreme Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch by fellow Buddhist monks in 1988 for restoring Buddhism in the war-torn country.
During the 1990s, he lead the Dhamma Yatra movement to rebuild religious life in Cambodia.
In 1994, he led a peace march to the northwestern town of Pailin, still a Khmer Rouge stronghold at the time. Three Cambodians taking part in the march, including a Buddhist monk and a nun, were killed in the crossfire between government soldiers and Khmer Rouge rebels but Ghosananda escaped unharmed.
In 1997, after the Khmer Rouge fighters in Pailin laid down their arms and rejoined the government, he successfully led another pilgrimage for peace to Pailin. This time, the marchers were warmly welcome by residents and former rebels of the Khmer Rouge, which had executed monks and destroyed Buddhist temples during the regime's reign of terror.
He moved to western Massachusetts in the late 1980s at the invitation of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order in Leverett, which seeks a complete elimination of weapons. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times in the mid-1990s.
He split his time between the Buddhist temples in Leverett and Providence, Perkins said.
1 comment:
I am really regrete that our Vira Boros Monk passed away. But old aged is the reality like our Lord Buddha said. Birth, Old, Sick and Death are common for human beings. So life would live with heedfulness; and try to do good deed as the supply for our young generation and our own next life.
Maha Ghosananda has tremendously earned goodness for himself especially for the sake of Cambodia.
But unfortunately his Dhamma Yeatra March always bothered and distorted by government and the envy of Somdech Tep Vong because of his popular among Cambodian Buddhists.
We hope his body would be kept for the respect of Cambodian people in Cambodia or cremate and hold an honorary ceremony throughout the world by Cambodian communities.
May all of us, the Cambodian followers, pay gratitude, respect and follow his parth of step by step for the peace of Cambodia as well as the world.
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