Lowell monks steadfast on controversial temple plans

Temple-steering-committee members met with Sun staff yesterday in Lowell. From left are Samkhann Kheoun, Sam Meas, Maya Men and Sambath Soum. SUN/David H. Brow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgasDeNxbJA

12/29/2011
By Jennifer Myers, jmyers@lowellsun.com
Lowell Sun (Lowell, Massachusetts, USA)

LOWELL -- The goal is to build a 20,000-square-foot Buddhist temple and Cambodian cultural and educational center on a 12-acre parcel in the city's Pawtucketville neighborhood -- the largest such complex on the East Coast.

It will take money. It will take time. It will take communication and compromise with a contingent of neighbors who, thus far, have stood in opposition to the Community of Khmer Buddhist Monks' project.

Yesterday morning, four members of the steering committee -- Samkhann Khoeun, Sam Meas, Maya Men and Sambath Soum -- met with Sun Editor James Campanini and a Sun reporter to discuss the project's purpose and challenges.

"The center we are planning to build will hold religious services and be a place where people from all faiths can come to meditate, receive formal religious teaching from monks and learn about Cambodian culture," said Meas.

More Vandalism At Buddhist Temple In

May 21, 2010

ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) ― Police are asking whoever's behind a string of vandalism incidents at a Cambodian Buddhist temple in Rochester to stop.

Investigators say the latest incident was Monday, when rocks, dirt and sand were put in the temple's mailbox. Twenty solar-powered lights were also taken.

Members say the mailbox has been vandalized five times in the past month, and there have also been five attempted break-ins.

Vandalism at the temple a year ago included smashed lights, yanked flowers and a cross along with "Jesus saves" spray-painted on the driveway in orange.

Olmsted County Sheriff's Sgt. Scott Behrns says the crimes are obviously motivated by bias.

[Wat IRAP] Temple leadership put to vote again

Congregants vote for nine new board members of Wat Vipassanaram in Long Beach on Friday. A court challenge to an election a year ago framed a yearlong dispute over leadership of the Cambodian Buddhist temple. More than 400 temple members were expected to vote. (Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer)

01/23/2009
By Greg Mellen Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

LONG BEACH - Despite a gloomy forecast, cold weather and rainfall, for the second time in a year about 400 congregants of a Cambodian Buddhist temple showed up to cast ballots in an attempt to find leadership at the embattled temple.

Friday's election, for all nine spots on the temple's board of directors, was ordered by Superior Court Judge Joseph Di Loreto, who has been overseeing a yearlong legal battle between the long-standing board of directors at Wat Vipassanaram and a dissident group of congregants supported by the monks.

Although temple bylaws allow only three members to be elected to the board in any year, Di Loreto said the existing board members had so abrogated their responsibilities that all nine seats should be put up.

The temple was open from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. to give working templegoers time to vote. Ballots were being counted late Friday night and results should be in Sunday's Press-Telegram.

The candidates are Yin Ath, Chhan Aun, Nhror Aun, Bryant Ben, Kosal Chhum, Kea Him, Amphan Keo, Elizabeth Keo, John Kong, Alex Lim, Siu Chheng Lim, Anthony Ly, Chou Ngim Ly, Sonly Muy, Teang Neth, Sovannara Nou, Chhakry Oun, Mum Pel, Teang Pream, Larry Sar, Hack Sok, Darin Sun, Sophal Um, Praseur Vann.

Twenty-four congregants were nominated and placed on the ballot, including monk Aun, in an apparent violation of the temple bylaws. Typically monks, especially in the conservative Theravada school of Buddhism practiced at Wat Vipassanaram, eschew politics and secular matters. Aun was the only monk to accept nomination to the board.

A last-minute appeal by the existing board of directors for an injunction to stop the election failed when the Second District Appellate Court denied the petition.

While the election was being staged on one side of the wat complex, Siphann Tith, executive director of the current board, and his supporters sat on the other.

Tith said he sent a letter to the dissidents saying an election wouldn't be allowed on temple property, but relented when the congregants arrived.

"As long as they don't cause problems," Tith said, he wouldn't contest the staging of the event.

"I'm not going to have a confrontation, there has already been too many," Tith said.

Regardless of Friday's results, the existing board of directors is appealing Di Loreto's authority and rulings. None of the current board members is on the ballot, and Tith says he will not recognize the results.

The dissidents say when Di Loreto approves the election results they will assume control of governance of the temple and its assets, which are currently being handled by a court-appointed receiver.

"It feels good, finally," said board candidate Ly, one of the original leaders of the group contesting the current board of directors. "We'll just follow the judge's orders and everything should be OK."

Ben, another board candidate, was eager for the results to come in Friday afternoon.

"As soon as the judge approves, we're going to take action right away," Ben said.

"We're going to clean up this mess," said Sar.

In January 2008, in similar weather, members of the wat showed up in big numbers to oust the existing board of directors in the first election in more than a decade.

At the time, members of the board asked that the election be postponed until March. They had been in the process of rewriting bylaws since June to conform to California law and said they needed to finish the job to provide a fair and legitimate election.

Members of the existing board accused outsiders of trying to hijack the election and control of the temple assets by orchestrating a large influx of temple members with no real connection to the wat.

No members of the board were listed as candidates in the 2008 election and the board did not recognize the vote.

The two sides have been in court ever since.

The year-long legal struggle for control of Wat Vipassanaram, which owns several properties and had $4 million in assets before the legal wranglings began, has been a tumultuous experience.

Along the way:

• The existing board of directors tried to dissolve the board and reform it as a separate entity.
• The court appointed a receiver because of fears of absconding of temple funds.
• The executive director was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to turn over financial records to the receiver.
• The temple had a brief relationship with a Gnostic church in Orange run by John Ramirez, aka Johnny Rhondo, who was implicated in a Texas insurance fraud scheme in 2002.

As the rain fell, Paline Soth, another dissident, reflected on the parallels between this year's election and last year's.

"If it's raining, a lawsuit will follow," he said with a laugh.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291

A new crop of hands-on Buddhist monk leadership? The case of Monk Mey Savann in Missouri

Mey Savann helps with the tiling of the roof with other members of the Cambodian Buddhist community. The farmland went through major transformations: The kitchen was remodeled, a porch was added, and cement was poured in a farm building, which will serve as the new temple. (Photo: JACKSON FORDERER/Missourian)

Mey Savann leads services during the Cambodian New Year’s festival, April 15. Savann serves as a spiritual leader for the community that is roughly 60 families large. (Photo: JACKSON FORDERER/Missourian)

Building a cultural community

Monk provides leadership to mid-Missouri’s growing Cambodian population

May 5, 2007
By SARA SIEW
Missourian (Missouri, USA)

On a quiet stretch of land in Hallsville, Kirk Ouk watches from a distance as about a hundred people – men and women dressed in their regal best – sit in a field on colorful reed mats, all clasping a flower in their hands, which are held together as if in prayer. The silence is a stark contrast to the laughter that was heard just moments before. Now, the ear discerns only the chanting of the monk standing at the head of the group.

Ouk came to America in 1981 as a refugee from Cambodia. Today, some two decades later, Ouk – and many like him – has started his own family here. Vibol Path, president of the Cambodian Buddhist Society of Mid-Missouri, estimates that there are about a hundred Cambodian families in Missouri.

“I can’t assume (the figures),” Path said, “but I know it’s grown.”

The presence of a first generation of American-born and raised Cambodians, however, is not the only indicator of a community that is taking root here.

In 2005, Mey Savann became the spiritual leader for mid-Missouri’s Cambodian community. Savann, who immigrated to California in 2003, was planning to return to Cambodia, but after a couple of visits to Missouri, he chose to move here. His presence has been central in further uniting the Cambodian community in Missouri.

Ouk said that with Savann, “people get together, people trust each other.” Besides leadership, though, Savann has united the people in other ways.

According to Buddhist tradition, monks rely on lay people to supply their basic needs – food, medicine and cloth for robes, among other things. The local Cambodian community has developed a system in which each family is assigned a day to prepare food for Savann.

The greatest affirmation of the community’s solidarity, however, was how it eventually pooled enough money to buy 7.25 acres of land for Savann, who had been living in a trailer home on Clark Lane. The land offers Savann a peace and quiet that is more suited for meditation and his way of life.

Savann, through a translator, said that his happiness with this new place stems mainly from the fact that more people can now come together. Indeed, in buying the land, the Cambodian community had reached a point where the benefits of having a place of their own would far outweigh the costs of buying the land. Rental costs at the American Legion hall where they were meeting were rising. “It was starting to cost more and more and everybody realized that there’s enough people here (to buy a piece of land),” said Thy Peng, who came to Missouri 23 years ago. “Money is supposed to be put back into the community.”

Community members also lent a hand removing brush from the property, remodeling Savann’s kitchen and adding a deck to his trailer. Today, the property boasts a gathering hall, a storage shed, a couple of ceremonial angel houses, a play area and a half-completed administration building.

In mid-April, the property was the site of the annual Cambodian New Year. Families drove in from places such as St. Louis and Kansas City to join the three-day celebration, in which the people came together over food, fellowship, traditional games and dancing, and a sincere wish for a peaceful new year.

Beyond being just a meeting ground, however, the land, it is hoped, will continue to unite the community so that the next generation of Cambodians in Missouri will not lose their cultural roots.

“It’s a lot better because it’s your own,” Path said. “You feel a lot of pride in you.”

Tempest Over A Temple

AT A TEMPORARY SHRINE in a Newtown house, Bith Thang Kham, right, of Danbury and Youta Khy of Waterbury worship. Four Cambodian Buddhist monks living there meditate twice a day and serve the spiritual needs of about 400 Cambodians who live in Connecticut. The town has rejected plans for a permanent temple. (Photo: PATRICK RAYCRAFT)

ONE OF THE MONKS, Heng Hok Sim, 78, is apprehensive as he peeks out the window of the residence at an approaching visitor. The monks say they are on edge after town and neighbors’ opposition to the Buddhists’ proposal to build a permanent temple on their 10 acres. (Photo: PATRICK RAYCRAFT)

"WE WOULD LIKE to live in peace with the people,” says Pong Me, 63, of Bristol, president of the Cambodian Buddhist Society of Connecticut Inc. Newtown residents have said the temple plan would generate too much traffic and septic usage and would destroy their quality of life. Others say the society has used “scurrilous” methods. (Photo: PATRICK RAYCRAFT)

March 11, 2007
By ELIZABETH HAMILTON, Courant Staff Writer
Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut, USA)

Hiang Uaen and Richard Coburn came to Boggs Hill Road for pretty much the same reasons: the tranquility, the woods and ponds, the sound of birds in the trees. But that is where their neighborly compatibility ends.

Uaen is one of four Buddhist monks who moved into the renovated barn in Newtown shortly after the Cambodian Buddhist Society purchased the property nearly a decade ago.

Coburn is president of the Newtown Residential Preservation Society and a 37-year resident of Boggs Hill who can still remember when it was safe to take your children on a horse-drawn wagon ride up the winding country road.

Since 2002, when the Buddhist society applied for a special exception from zoning rules to build a 7,600-square-foot temple on its 10 acres, Uaen and Coburn have been on opposite sides of an increasingly bitter battle. It has played out largely in hearing chambers and courtrooms as a zoning dispute that has made it all the way to the state Supreme Court.

But it also played out more quietly as a clash between two cultures and dueling accusations. Neighbors say the society held rowdy outdoor festivals for hundreds of people on the property before the town issued a cease-and-desist order, and they complain that the temple plans have been both vague and fluid since they were filed.

More serious are the accusations of religious intolerance and petty vandalism leveled by the Cambodian Buddhists against residents of a classic New England community that is more commonly identified by the 110-foot flagpole in the middle of Main Street and tidy rows of antique homes that line the town center.

Coburn called the accusation ridiculous. Residents, he said, are opposed to the project because they believe the temple would generate too much traffic and septic usage for a rural neighborhood that is zoned for residential use.

"We're not bigots. We just want to be decent, law-abiding citizens and we expect others to be, too," Coburn said last week, adding that several residents have offered to help the society find a more suitable property in Newtown for its temple.

Evening Prayers

At the society's home on Boggs Hill Road last week, Uaen, the head monk, and three other monks gathered in their saffron-colored robes for evening prayers and meditation in front of a low altar. A large gold statue of Buddha and at least a dozen smaller statues sit in front of a section of wall painted to depict the tree and surrounding forest in India where Buddha Shakyamuni was enlightened in 649 B.C.

The room was intensely still, the only sounds coming from a clock and the wind rattling tree branches outside. Four of the society's elders kneeled on mats behind the monks, while Pinith Mar, who, at 38 is one of the younger generation in the Cambodian Buddhist Society and is still becoming comfortable with the practices of Buddhism, looked on.

The teachings of Buddha 2,500 years ago are practiced by these four monks and, as a result, when they sit down later to talk about the conflict over the temple, not one of them will say anything critical of their neighbors.

"We're here for peace only," said Uaen through a translator.

Other members of the society, however, said there has been hostility against the project from the beginning - hostility that culminated in February 2003 with the planning and zoning commission's unanimous denial of their application.

Society members complain that there have been numerous acts of vandalism against the property. The mailbox has been knocked over repeatedly, they said, and once someone arranged empty beer bottles in a circle around it.

People on motorcycles ride up the driveway and rev their engines as they race around the property, they add. There has even been verbal harassment.

"An older member who went outside the house, they got yelled at, `Go back to your own country!'" Mar said.

Neither Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe nor First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal were aware of the harassment described by the Buddhists. Police records show only a smattering of complaints from the Buddhist society, said Kehoe, including one about a felled mailbox.

"Those could be isolated incidents," Rosenthal said. "But we're a town of 28,000 people and I'm sure we have our share of individuals who harbor those views."

Out Of Time

Mar and others said the dispute has exacted a heavy toll on the society's members. They believe that time is running out for the elders to pass along the practices of Buddhism to the younger generation and ready themselves for death.

Mar, who escaped from a Cambodian refugee camp when he was 13, said all the adult members of the society were victims of the Khmer Rouge, the communist party that ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s. Because Khmer leader Pol Pot and his followers executed monks along with intellectuals and professionals, the culture and religion of Cambodian Buddhism exists solely in the memories of those who survived.

"My father passed away two years ago without seeing the temple," Mar said. "It's very hard for me to look at these elders and know they are facing a loss of everything."

There is a practical issue at hand. Buddhism is made up of what are known as the Three Jewels: the Buddha; the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha; and the Sangha, which includes the monks, the temple and worship. If one of these things is missing, you can't truly practice Buddhism.

When the Cambodian Buddhists found their 10-acre site in Newtown, Mar said, they were elated because it contained the elements necessary for the creation of a temple - a pond, enough elevation for the temple to look out toward the east, trees, space for a garden, and tranquility.

That last quality is precisely what neighbors fear would be destroyed if the temple was ever built.

Neighbors don't buy the argument that the site on Boggs Hill Road is the only place the Buddhists can build their temple.

"People can go elsewhere and still have the elderly inspire the youth," Coburn said.

But Mar said the society already has spent a considerable amount of time and money on the current property and is afraid the same problems would crop up elsewhere if they started over again.

Local Zoning

During the two public hearings before the planning and zoning commission in October and December of 2002, neighbor after neighbor stood up and voiced opposition to the plans.

Among the reasons cited were the usual concerns about traffic, the water supply and septic waste disposal that any significant project can generate. But according to transcripts of the hearings, neighbors also spoke at length about how the temple would destroy their quality of life.

One woman even said her stress about the proposed temple pushed her into a serious illness.

Many of them also said didn't believe society members' claims that there are only four or five major festival days a year - a mistrust born, they said, from the outdoor festivals that marked the society's early tenure on the property.

"We can only judge from their past actions that they will do whatever they can that they can get away with and we're concerned about that," said Robert Cox, a Boggs Hill Road resident.

Other residents were even more pointed in their criticism, accusing members of the Cambodian Buddhist Society and their agents of having little integrity.

"I don't feel that the Buddhists I have known would react in this way ... and would be so scurrilous in handling this type of matter, and so unforthcoming," said town resident Michael Stirk. "I feel they would have more integrity and I would expect that integrity, not only from a friend or a person, but I would certainly expect it from a religious institution."

Mar and other representatives of the society have acknowledged that the early festival days were an unfortunate way to begin their relationship with the neighbors, but say the crowds were prompted by excitement throughout the Cambodian Buddhist community about the property.

If built, this would be the first Cambodian Buddhist temple in Connecticut.

The society appealed the planning and zoning commission's denial in March 2003, citing religious freedom protected by federal and state law. Superior Court Judge Deborah Kochiss Frankel upheld the Newtown board's decision, however, prompting the society to appeal again. The case was heard by the state Supreme Court last week.

Rosenthal, the first selectman, said that while he and other town officials are sympathetic to the society's goals and the terrible ordeal they experienced during the Khmer Rouge era, they still have to do what is best for the town.

"As much sympathy as you can have for them, and I do, we still have to do what we think is appropriate," Rosenthal said. "It doesn't make it more appropriate because the people have a good reason to be there."

Contact Elizabeth Hamilton at ehamilton@courant.com.

Town vs. Buddhists

Temple Dispute In State's High Court

March 7, 2007
By LYNNE TUOHY, Courant Staff Writer
The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut, USA)

Many members of the Cambodian Buddhist Society of Connecticut fled the "killing fields" of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime three decades ago. Their crucible now is a pitched legal battle over whether they can build

With elders dying off, the Cambodian Buddhists say the risk is grave that their religion and culture will die as well. Theirs would be the first Cambodian Buddhist temple in Connecticut.

"Time is running out. The older generation is dying," said Pinith Mar, who fled a Cambodian refugee camp at age 13 and is now an engineer with the state Department of Transportation. Because the Khmer Rouge systematically killed monks and the educated, Cambodian Buddhism and the culture it represents dwell in those who escaped annihilation.

"If they are gone, I have nowhere to go," Mar said of the elders who can teach him and his 8-year-old twin sons the rites and traditions of his religion.

Newtown officials and neighbors on Boggs Hill Road oppose use of the rural property for a temple that could attract up to 450 people on the handful of days when religious festivals are held.

The Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission, in its unanimous decision in February 2003 denying the special permit application, stated in part: "Although the commission would welcome the Buddhist religion into the community, the planned and expected future level of activity proposed ... is too intense."

Attorney Robert Fuller, representing the commission, and attorney Thomas Beecher, who represents neighbors opposed to the temple, both argued that the decision does not hinder or burden the exercise of religion, but states only that the location is not appropriate for a temple.

The commission initially gave six reasons for its denial of the permit application, including that the Asian architecture would have a negative impact on property values and was not in harmony with the area's traditional New England architecture. Superior Court Judge Deborah Kochiss Frankel ruled that five of the commission's reasons were unsubstantiated, but upheld the decision based on the commission's concern that the society had not yet obtained well and septic permits.

Fuller also denigrated what he termed the "melodramatic" assertions of the Cambodian Buddhists that it was imperative that they build their temple as soon as possible. He noted that they let three years lapse between buying the property in 1999 and applying for the special permit in 2002.

Attorney Michael Zizka, who represents the Cambodian Buddhist Society, succinctly explained that delay to the justices: "This is not a society that is flush with money."

He later said outside the court that the society does not want to invest in a well and septic system if it doesn't have a building permit. He said it was the jurisdiction of the local and state departments of health, and not the planning and zoning commission, to oversee septic and drinking water concerns.

The case will require the justices to analyze both the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the state's Religious Freedom Act in the context of the proposed temple. Fuller argued that those laws don't mandate special treatment for religious groups; Zizka countered that they do. In his brief, Zizka cast the commission's denial as thinly veiled discrimination.

Justices Peter Zarella and Richard Palmer both commented that the state's Religious Freedom Act is "a significant overlay" on established law. They and Justice Flemming L. Norcott Jr. asked Fuller why the commission didn't approve the permit with the condition that well and septic permits be obtained before the start of construction.

"It's preferential treatment that someone else isn't going to get," Fuller replied. "The cases don't say that. They say they [the Buddhists] should be treated no better or no worse. They don't get an automatic free ride."

Beecher, in his brief, argued that the planned size of the temple grew from 6,000 square feet to 7,600 square feet before the first public hearing on the issue. The Newtown Bee newspaper on Tuesday featured a story about an 8,200-square-foot house on Boggs Hill Road that sold last month for a record price of $1.87 million.

Outside court, Mar, and Bruce P. Blair, Buddhist chaplain and director of Yale University's Indigo Blue center for Buddhist life, explained the importance of having a temple.

They said a monk is not a true monk unless he has a temple, just as temple is not a temple unless it is inhabited by a monk. The monks can leave the temple and its grounds, but cannot be away overnight.

"It ends up being a question of the integrity and legitimacy of the faith," Blair said.

"When we go to a temple, we go to pay respect for our loved ones who have passed away, and we believe the spirit of the loved one goes to the temple to see the family," Mar said. "The monk is a channel between the living and the dead."

Blair said the temple is in no way a social club. "It's a place wherein the faith can be handed from one generation to the next," he said. "To deny that liberty is to extinguish the very life of the community. It is to finish the work of Pol Pot. It is something that is so wrong."

The court is not expected to issue a ruling in the case for at least several months.

Contact Lynne Tuohy at ltuohy@courant.com.