Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda (1929 -2007)
Buddhist Monk of the Theravada tradition.
Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism during Pol Pot’s reign of terror
Maha Ghosananda, his Pali Monastic name means joyful proclaimer
He lost his entire family and his friends at Khamer Rouge
Biography HERE
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“Peace is possible!”
Maha Ghosananda’s motto.
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“Don’t struggle with people, with men. Struggle with the goals and conditions that make men fight each other.”
“If a driver is not sober how can he drive a car? If you don’t calm your spirit, you cannot bring peace to the country.”
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“I do not question that loving one’s oppressors – Cambodians loving the Khmer Rouge – may be the most difficult attitude to achieve. But it is a way of the universe that retaliation, hatred, and revenge only continue the cycle and never stop it. Reconciliation does not mean that we surrender rights and conditions. It means that we see ourselves in the opponent – for what is the opponent but a being in ignorance, and we ourselves are also ignorant of many things. Therefore, only loving kindness and right mindfulness can free us. [From his essay The Human Family.]
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“We must find the courage to leave out temples
and enter the temples of human experience,
temples that are filled with suffering.
If we listen to the Buddha, Christ or Gandhi, we can do nothing else.
The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos
and the battlefields will then become our temples.”
and enter the temples of human experience,
temples that are filled with suffering.
If we listen to the Buddha, Christ or Gandhi, we can do nothing else.
The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos
and the battlefields will then become our temples.”
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I was so taken with the story of this “joyful proclaimer” in Rob’s story yesterday, that I had to do research on him. I don’t think he’s written any books and there are few videos and none with a dharma talk, but the whole of the man’s life was a dharma talk,* an inspired and inspiring one. J.D.
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The quotes were gleaned from two sites, which others may wish to visit:
Photo credit –nyana_ponika under under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license via Wikipedia.
* Dharma talk – public discourse. The wonderful thing about dharma is that it is not dogma! J.D.
The BeZine 
thanks a million times jamie for sharing this wonderful person. he sure knows what love and compassion is.
the quotes you added show the same thing.
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Thank you Jamie for the background research on this amazing Buddhist leader. He, like Ghandi and Martin Luther King are sources of inspiration and courage in thinking outside the “box” of endless cycles of fear, hate, and revenge that we seem to be trapped in.
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He truly was a “joyful proclaimer”. What an appropriate name for such a beautiful human being. Thank you for sharing, Jamie.
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