Contents Vol. 36 No. 1 January - April 2563 (2020) Publisher 3 Editorial Note INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF ENGAGED BUDDHISTS (INEB) 4 Country Reports 4 Cambodia: Te Sound of Silence / Paul Millar Editorial team 7 India: 1,500 Dalits Embrace Buddhism for ‘Equality’: Sulak Sivaraksa (Advisor) Gujarat / Sabrangindia Harsha Kumara Navaratne (Advisor) Somboon Chungprampree (Editor) 9 India: Tibetan Spiritual Leader Dalai Lama Endorses Teodore Mayer (Assistant) Global Climate Strike by Students / Nina Alekseyeva Arjun Kumar (Assistant) 10 Siam: Supreme Patriarch Greets Pope as ‘Old Friend’ Rita Litwiller (Assistant) 11 Siam: Temples No Longer Safe for Children Dhanakhorn Tongdeang (Assistant) / Sanitsuda Ekachai Cover 12 Siam: BBC Names Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, Tailand’s Sculpture by Tai artist First Female Monk, among 100 Infuential Women of Dr Santi Leksukhum 2019 / Craig Lewis Lay-out Surapong Petnamlai 14 INEB 14 Te Opening Speech at the 2019 INEB Biennial Distributed by Conference / Harsha Navaratne Suksit Siam 16 International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) 113-115 Fuangnakorn Rd., Bangkok 10200 19th Biennial Conference & Celebration of its 30th Tel. (662)2259536-40 Anniversary / INEB Staf [email protected] 21 His Holiness, Te Dalai Lama Meets with Engaged Buddhists / Dalailama.com Baht 100 per issue 23 RRealizing the Truth at the Edge of Contradictions- Suggested annual subscription US $50 Keynote Presentation of Ouyporn Khuankaew Payment info: 27 Te Culture of Living and Dying INEB Conference • A cheque payable to INEB. Workshop Summary / Jonathan Watts Personal cheques from the UK, US, 28 Young Bodhisattva Program: for Spiritual Resurgence & and Euro are accepted. Social Transformation / Doreen Wang • Paypal, please go to the INEB website. 30 Second High-Level Summit of Buddhist Muslim Leaders Seeds of Peace /K V Soon 666 Charoen-Nakorn Road, 32 2019 International Day of Peace Celebration & Religious Klongsan, Bangkok 10600 Siam and Traditional Peacemakers Congregation in Bangladesh Tel. (662)860-2194 Fax. (662)860-1277 34 SEM [email protected] 34 Rekindling Regional Pride: Te Dawei Art Space www.inebnetwork.org / Ben Dunant Seeds of Peace is published thrice annually in January, May and September, in order to 37 Sulak Sivaraksa promote the aims and objectives of the 37 Sulak Sivaraksa: Behind the audience with the King International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) and its members around the world, / Hathairat Phaholtap and the organizations under SNF including the Spirit in Education Movement (SEM) 41 Articles and the School for Wellbeing Studies 41 Tera (Temple) Energy: Supporting Inner Ecology through and Research. Outer Ecology /Translated by Jonathan Watts 2 Editorial Note ongoing inequality and challenges that Buddhist women 43 Te ‘Me Too Movement’ Within Buddhism continually encounter. Perhaps the gender scales are and Global Buddhist Women’s Solidarity for tipping more in favor of women as Dhammananda Gender Equality / Bogyean Ok Bhikkhuni was named by the BBC as one the 100 most 46 Te History and Impact of Indian Buddhists infuential women of 2019. on the Development of Buddhism in China: Our friend Mangesh Dahiwale wrote an insightful Relevance to the Contemporary Situation article about the history and impact of Indian Buddhism / Mangesh Dahiwale on the development of Buddhism in China. Te sad 49 Dear Sombath...from Shui Meng disappearance seven years ago December 2012, of our 51 Updates from Advancing Inter-Religious dear friend Sombath Somphone is poignantly shared by Dialogue Project (SEA-AIR) Initiates Re- his wife Shui Meng. Other contributors tell about tera search and Fellowship Activities To Enhance (temple) energy that supports inner ecology through Freedom of Religion or Belief - FoRB in outer ecology, updates on various projects, in addition to South and Southeast Asia / Philip Gassert a book review, letters and the obituary of Ram Das make 53 Young Woman Farmer’s Contribution to interesting reading. Sustainable Development in Vietnam Te year is beginning with many events scheduled / Dang To Kien & Mai Tuy Huyen below: 54 Letters 2020 INEB Event Calendar January 55 Book Reviews 12 Opening ceremony of the School of English for 55 Roar: Sulak Sivaraksa and the Path of Socially Engaged Social Service (SENS), Wongsanit Ashram Engaged Buddhism / Jane Haile 24 Strategic meeting of the Eco Temple working group 56 An Academic Life: Te Memoir of a Much- in BKK loved Student of Tailand / Chris Baker Feb 56 Obituary 3 - 4 SEA AIR FoRB core group meeting, Bangkok 5 - 9 SEA AIR FoRB fellows workshop 8 SEM annual lecture at Tammasat University, Editorial Note Bangkok 20 – 22 40th anniversary conference on Education For Dear Friends of INEB, Right Livelihood to Inspire Change - Connecting We send our best wishes for a most auspicious Activism and Academia, Bangkok 2020, in addition to celebrating Chinese New Year in February and Songkran in April! March Tis issue of Seeds of Peace highlights sessions from Early March Launch the Asia Buddhist Network for INEB’s recent conference held in Deer Park, Bir, India, Child Protection in Vietnam during October 2019. Among them are Te Culture of 28 Sulak Sivaraksa’s birthday celebration in Bangkok Living and Dying, and the ‘Me Too’ Movement within April Buddhism and global Buddhist women’s solidarity for 1-5 Maitreya Culture study trip to Ningbo, China gender equality. One specifc outcome was that the 29 – May 3 Gender Equality and Gender Justice coalition for Gender Equality and Gender Justice workshop – Seoul, S Korea emerged during discussions held during the conference. Tis issue includes several articles on addressing May gender justice and equality in Buddhist countries, 18 – 31 Young Bodhisattva Program, Taoyuan, Taiwan especially in monasteries where young boys have been 24 – June 1 INEB study tour to Jungto Society in S Korea preyed upon by monks and abbots, in addition to the Vol. 36 No. 1 January - April 2020 3 Country Reports Cambodia boy would describe how he live reports of children had been raped on as many beaten and brutalised across as 25 separate occasions. the nation, he passes over a Each time, when it was over, photo of a drowned child, The Sound the abbot would hand him a black and bloated, to stop at crumpled fstful of 10,000- a double spread of gaunt riel notes, each one worth young boys in safron robes. of Silence $2.50. It was only when the Among them is Samnang. last boy he attacked, new to Although Vong Chet pre- Paul Millar the temple, told his parents sided over the longest period 12 February 2018 what had happened that the of sustained sexual abuse GLOBE - https://southeastasiaglobe.com/ police were called. that McCabe had uncovered Now 18, Samnang in the nation’s pagodas, he “At frst he was nice to me,” relish, rising every morning works at a motorbike repair tells Southeast Asia Globe, it Samnang says, his eyes far to sing the holy scriptures of shop in Siem Reap town. was far from the frst. away. “He made me feel his faith. Fifeen kilometres Scrawny and sombre, his “It’s institutional abuse,” important; made me feel from the nearest village, voice never rises above a he says. “Tey’ve got access special.” Ratanak Mony Rong Ko was murmur as he describes the to children, without any Samnang, whose name a small pagoda with just betrayal he felt when he real monitoring. We’ve [been has been changed to protect nine other boys studying found out that every older involved in the arrest of ] at his identity, was barely 15 alongside him under a monk at the pagoda had least ten monks in the past years old when he lef home handful of monks. Above known about Vong Chet’s three years for the abuse of for Ratanak Mony Rong Ko these monks was 45-year- abuse of the boys in their boys. Quite ofen there were pagoda in Kralanh district old Vong Chet, the abbot, or care – and kept silent for multiple victims – some- on the outskirts of Siem chief monk, of the pagoda. more than two years. “Tey times two, sometimes three, Reap town. Born into a A man whose words carried knew before everything sometimes four. A majority poor family in a run-down great weight with the com- happened,” he says. “No one of the time, it was only village, and desperate for a munity, he soon began to dared to tell me. All the through the parents or a way out, he asked his parents take an interest in the pago- monks knew about what relative that the disclosure to send him to study with da’s newest arrival. was going on, but no one was made.” the local monks. “A lot of the other told us kids. No one told us Set up to work with “My family had so monks didn’t like him,” to be careful.” local law enforcement to many problems – they were Samnang says, staring at his Tere is little anger lef bring forensic specialists fghting a lot,” he tells fngers. “Back then, I didn’t in him now, he says. He sips and investigators to work Southeast Asia Globe. “I know why.” his water and falls silent. on cases where children are wanted to be calmer. So they Over the course of the Leafng through a thick abused, raped, assaulted or had to send me to live in a next year, Vong Chet repeat- red ledger in his ofce in killed, the CPU was active pagoda, where I could have edly raped Samnang and the central Phnom Penh, Child in securing Vong Chet’s free food and education nine other novices living at Protection Unit (CPU) di- arrest and 15-year impris- with the monks.” the pagoda. Te abbot rector of operations James onment. Following reports Bearing the shaved would corner them in the McCabe sifs through the that the abbot had previ- head and safron robe of a stained toilets of the pagoda hundreds of cases of torture, ously served a series of novice, Samnang says he or lure them into his private rape and death that his short stints – no more than took to his studies of scrip- quarters.