The Theravada tradition of Buddhism is typically associated with monastic purity and austerity. But according to Trent Walker, a scholar of Southeast Asian Buddhist music and author of the new book Until Nirvana’s Time: Buddhist Songs from Cambodia, this is only half true because it ignores the rich and vast traditions of Theravada liturgical music. In “Dharma Songs to Stir and Settle,” his article in the spring 2022 issue of Tricycle, Walker offers an introduction to the Cambodian dharma song tradition, with a particular emphasis on the affective states that dharma songs elicit. For Walker, dharma songs strike a balance between aesthetic expression and monastic austerity.

On Tricycle’s podcast, Tricycle editor-in-chief James Shaheen spoke with Walker about classical South Asian theories of emotion, his hopes for the future of Buddhist studies, and how music and aesthetics fit into the Buddhist path to salvation. Read an excerpt from their conversation below, and listen to the full episode (including Walker’s performance of two dharma songs) here.

***

You write that dharma songs illustrate “a mischievous streak in Buddhist monasticism, a verve for aesthetic freedom within the austere regulations of the order.” How do Buddhist monastics navigate this tension between aesthetics and austerity? In the Theravada tradition, Buddhist monasteries have multiple responsibilities: they are tending after and caring for the dharma and allowing the place for Buddhist teachings and practices to flourish, and they’re also taking care of and creating a space for traditional culture that may not be expressly Buddhist, including visual arts, dance, theater, and music. This is very much true in Cambodia, both today and in the past. For instance, in Cambodia, before the onset of secular education for all children, the monastery was one of the few places where people outside of elite circles could get an education in Buddhism but also in secular subjects. Monasteries have long been hubs for cultural knowledge, and within that twin role that monasteries have held, there has always been a tension between the vinaya (the monastic regulations that monks are expected to follow and the precepts that lay people are also expected to follow) and the importance of beauty and finding a place for the aesthetic, a place for creating lovely works of art and beautiful pieces of music.

Dharma songs are one way of expressing this binary. On the one hand, this form of melodic chant is understood to be permissible for monastics to engage in. In other words, it’s not considered singing in the secular sense, and only very rarely would it have musical accompaniment. On the other hand, the melodies and musical modes and scales that are used have a close relationship with traditional Cambodian music, particularly the music used for weddings and funerals. As a result, the dharma song tradition sits at this intersection. It’s one example of the middle way that many Buddhist practitioners of art forms try to take, navigating between the extreme of sensuality and indulging in art or music only for the sake of aesthetic pleasure and the extreme of asceticism and cutting away all that might be beautiful and inspiring, all that might draw people into the dharma through our sense faculties, through our capacities to be inspired and moved by art and music.

Though they’ve been largely ignored by scholars, dharma songs play a very important role in life in Cambodia and in the Theravada world more generally, particularly in funerals, healing rituals, and celebratory festivals. What is it about these dharma songs that lends them so well to these moments of mourning and celebration? To me, there are two key archetypal rituals that dharma songs are associated with in Cambodian culture. One is deathbed rites, and the other is the consecration of Buddha images. In a way, both of these are moments of profound transformation: the transformation as we as human beings face the end of our lives and transition into death, into a new rebirth, and the way in which an icon of stone or metal or wood is transformed into an embodiment of the awakened qualities of the Buddha. Those two moments of transformation are where dharma songs are most closely associated.

Partly because these are moments of profound transformations, the chants, liturgical patterns, and ways in which those rituals are conducted are special. They are set apart in some way, and they invite a slowing down of time and attention. In comparison to other techniques and approaches to chanting in Cambodia, dharma songs are the slowest and most complex. They require the biggest breaths and longest sustained notes. For a listener, they require the most focus, attention, and engagement just to be able to understand the words that are being recited. As such, they’re appropriate for these times of already heightened awareness and attention on everyone’s part—on the one hand, attending to someone on their deathbed and creating a space of peace and renunciation, being stirred by the basic facts of life that this body is impermanent, that suffering is inevitable, that whatever we hold on to as our self is not really a permanent self; on the other hand, for the moment of consecrating a Buddha image, gathering everyone’s aspirations, intention, and devotion to the qualities of the dharma and to the qualities of the Buddha that make devotion to the three jewels possible.

As a scholar of Buddhism, do you have any hopes for the future of the study of Buddhist aesthetics and performance? I think one key aspect lies in teaching. As someone who teaches in a university setting, I’m always thinking about how I can give students a chance to engage in a deep and meaningful way—not necessarily in a religious or confessional way, but in a deep and meaningful way with the traditions that we might be learning about in class. For me, when teaching about Buddhism in Southeast Asia, music is a really key element of that. For students who spend a lot of time engaging with Buddhism as expressed in words, in texts, and in textbooks, it’s a real relief sometimes to be able to not engage with the eyes at all and just focus on listening and to use that as a vehicle for intellectual exploration of this tradition—to find new ways of listening that can support the other kinds of inquiry we do in the classroom. Since I see what happens in the classroom as integral to what happens in research in the field of Buddhist studies, for me, beginning there is essential. I think the other dimension is reminding everyone who studies Buddhism in an academic way that even if they don’t have training in music theory or in a particular discipline of music, they too can learn the kinds of simple but powerful techniques for analyzing what they hear, for writing down the responses to what they hear, and for describing the sounds and the silences of Buddhist rituals and liturgical performance. I hope that that can be a larger part of how we describe what happens in particular Buddhist spaces and societies, as well as the very audible lives of texts we study.

The post The Neglected Music of the Theravada Tradition  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Glancing furtively over his orange-robed shoulder, a young Cambodian monk clambered up the steep sides of the stone stupa. Standing atop Wat Ounalom’s shrine to the Buddha’s hair tuft relic, facing the first glimmerings of dawn, he breathed in the cool morning air and began to sing “Lotus Flower Offering” (botum thvay phka):

Fresh blooms of lotus—
I offer them with joy.

This novice monk, named Un, was about to be expelled from the monastery for misbehavior. In one last act of defiance, his vibrato-soaked voice rang out over the sleepy markets and shophouses of Phnom Penh:

With hands cupped like buds,
I lift them to my brow.

Un’s song carried over the high walls of the royal palace, stirring King Sisowath Monivong from his slumber. As the king summoned a servant to identify the source of the rapturous melody, Un continued:

I raise my joined palms
high above my bowed head,
bending low beneath
his feet in deep respect.

News of the king’s delight soon arrived at Wat Ounalom, and Un was allowed to remain in robes. Some years later, he received the honorific title of balat by royal decree. Until his death in the early 1960s, Balat Un traveled across Cambodia to share his soaring renditions of Pali and Khmer Buddhist texts. His breathtaking vocal mastery—partly due to an unusual aspect of his anatomy that caused him to drool constantly, even when performing—was captured on a few vinyl recordings of the era. These recordings, which still circulate in Cambodia on cassette tapes and CDs, secured Balat Un’s undisputed reputation as the foremost smot or dharma song (thor bot) master of the 20th century.

I first heard this tale from my first dharma song teacher, Prum Ut (1945–2009), whose teacher, Toeung Phon, had studied with Balat Un. Other masters I met across Cambodia narrated slightly different versions, but all of them pointed to the singular influence of this man, whose expressive performances of Buddhist texts brought them new life. This story of the young Un points to a mischievous streak in Buddhist monasticism, a verve for aesthetic freedom within the austere regulations of the order.

The tension between Buddhist aesthetics that celebrate evocative presentations of the dharma on one side and Buddhist austerities that attempt to limit the musical expression of the faithful on the other can be traced back to the oldest recorded Buddhist texts. Early Buddhist monastic codes expressly forbid monks and nuns from even listening to music, let alone performing it. Yet the Pali Vinaya records instances where the Buddha permitted and even celebrated a certain kind of melodic recitation called sarabhanna, a chanting style that preserves the distinction between long (digha) and short (rassa) vowels (sara). Even though the cadence of sarabhanna in the Buddha’s time is lost to history, its “middle way” approach—between monotone recitation and secular music—represents the core dilemma of Buddhist liturgical music: navigating a course between the twin extremes of asceticism and sensuality.

There’s a mischievous streak in monasticism, a verve for aesthetic freedom within the regulations.

The Theravada tradition, dominant in Cambodia since at least the 15th century, is often stereotyped as being concerned only with monastic purity and the supramundane path to nirvana, to the detriment of the arts. This is, at best, only a half-truth, for the well-studied visual arts of the Theravada in Cambodia are as rich as those of any Buddhist school. But scholars have largely ignored the equally diverse traditions of Theravada liturgical music in both its instrumental and a cappella forms. Among these neglected art forms is the Cambodian dharma song tradition: the centuries-old Cambodian Buddhist practice of singing liturgical texts in Khmer and Pali with complex melodies. Very little scholarship thus far has addressed this musical tradition, whose ornate melodies fly in the face of modernist Theravada strictures against extracanonical practices.

Despite the decimation of traditional culture during the Khmer Rouge period (1975–1979), dharma songs remain an integral facet of Buddhist life among Khmers in Cambodia and in diaspora communities. A Cambodian funeral would hardly be complete without the wail of dharma songs in the background. Although the proliferation of cassette tapes and the scarcity of trained masters have made live performance a rarity in the 21st century, there can be little dispute that dharma song melodies with their aesthetic power lend themselves perfectly to mourning. Yet while dharma songs are commonly associated with funerals, they feature in a wide variety of ritual settings, from brief memorials to all-night Buddha-image consecrations, from intimate healing rituals to exuberant annual festivals. If Cambodia’s ubiquitous temple murals are the most vivid visual representation of the country’s Buddhist life, dharma songs are their aural equivalent.

In 2005, after several months of intensive language study in the capital, I set off for rural Kampong Speu province to begin research on these songs. Arriving at a village at the foot of a small hill along National Road No. 3, I saw two dharma song masters waiting to greet me, a tall, white-haired man and a younger, blind woman with short-cropped brown hair. The man, Prum Ut, smiled broadly as I bowed to them in respect. The woman, Koet Ran, placed her warm hands on my face, tenderly feeling the contours of my nose and cheeks. They led me to a stilted house where I knelt on the hardwood floor alongside fifteen of their young students, who had gathered for their daily dharma song lesson. Prum Ut cleared his throat. The mellifluous voice that emerged seemed at odds with the striking severity of the lyrics from “The Subtle Marks” (sukhumalakkhana):

Bodies and minds don’t last long—
like all things, they break apart.
Birth then death, death then new birth,
time and again without end.

Old age creeps up quietly.
Bodies and minds soon decay.
Thoughts fade away in silence—
nothing can last forever.

The students and I applauded softly before turning to Koet Ran. Her voice resounded with poise and dignity as she sang verses from “Orphan’s Lament” (tumnuonh kon komprea):

O night, how long and how deep!
Before I’d sleep, you’d hold me tight—
Mother, you’d sing through the night,
lest I, in fright, wake and cry.

Mother, I wail for your grace.
Never again your face will I see.
Alone, I burn in agony—
what misery, day after day.

Every afternoon for the next five months, I studied with the two masters and their students. At night I returned to Prum Ut’s one-room house to kneel on the wooden floor and study with him by candlelight until the village was fast asleep. We pored over the pages of traditional accordion-fold manuscripts as I memorized the rhyming stanzas and flowing melodies, Prum Ut patiently correcting my vocal technique and pronunciation.

I was drawn to dharma songs for their hauntingly beautiful exposition of Buddhist doctrines. But I was surprised to find that many dharma songs were dramatic stories of grief and loss that seemed unrelated to the classical Buddhist path to liberation.

What is the importance of dharma songs, I wondered, if they don’t offer teachings on the development of virtue (sila), meditation (samadhi), and wisdom (panna)? One day I brought this question to Koet Ran. “Dharma songs allow us to contemplate our existence,” she replied, squeezing my arm intently.

“We use dharma songs to calm our hearts. We use them to cleanse our hearts, so we can be free of our greed, hatred, and delusion.” I knew that some songs, like “The Subtle Marks,” explicitly focus on the Buddhist contemplation of impermanence, suffering, and not-self. But “Orphan’s Lament,” one of Koet Ran’s favorite songs, seemed more like a secular lament. Koet Ran explained that “after the death of both her parents, the child is stirred. Don’t you understand? We contemplate the story, so that we can be stirred and change our lives for the better.”

Her answer shocked me out of my presumption that only songs that teach about the path to nirvana could be considered dharma songs. In another interview, Koet Ran further clarified, “Dharma songs stir us and still us if we have affinity for the dharma.” In this context, “stirring” is a reference to the Pali word samvega, which literally means “shaking” but figuratively means being stirred or shocked, especially by impermanence. “Stilling” is a translation of pasada, literally “settling” but figuratively the stilling of the heart, a joyful experience of settled conviction. “Affinity,” or the Pali word nissaya, literally “dependence,” is used in Khmer to denote karmic connection or karmic affinity, or that which sprouts from wholesome seeds sown in the past.

Through two years of field research in Cambodia and many more devoted to textual and musical analysis back in the United States, I delved deeper into Koet Ran’s claims about samvega and pasada. My findings showed that the power some Cambodians attribute to dharma songs to either stir or still is intimately connected to each song’s melody, lyrics, and ritual context. Some dharma songs are based on the buoyant sounds of major pentatonic scales (for example, C-D-E-G-A), such as Balat Un’s rendition of “Lotus Flower Offering.” These pasada-evoking songs often feature devotional lyrics and are performed in rituals of worship or blessing. By contrast, other dharma songs, such as “The Subtle Marks” and “Orphan’s Lament,” are based on the mournful strains of dominant pentatonic scales (such as C-E_b/E-F-G-B_b). These samvega-evoking songs feature narrative or didactic lyrics suitable for funerals, healing ceremonies, and recitals of emotive Buddhist stories.

The evocation of samvega and pasada is central to the contemporary performance of Cambodian dharma songs, both in their narrative, didactic, and liturgical lyrics and in their complex melodies. Indeed, to better understand dharma songs—and Buddhist chants more generally—we must look at how their textual and musical features interact within a larger aesthetic.

Both Indic and Khmer Buddhist texts refer to samvega and pasada, separately and in tandem. In Khmer, samvega and pasada take on new dimensions that are especially important for analyzing the aesthetics of dharma songs. The Pali and Sanskrit term samvega is etymologically composed of the intensifying prefix sam + the verbal root vij (“to tremble or shake”). In Indic Buddhist texts, the noun form samvega has a primary meaning of “trembling,” usually in fear and disgust as a response to impermanence, and a secondary meaning of “being moved,” an aesthetic sentiment aroused in the presence of Buddhist teachings and holy sites. However, the recitation of a Buddhist text may elicit this same sense of samvega. Both meanings are crucial to understanding the soteriological relevance of samvega in artistic traditions such as dharma songs.

In Cambodia, samvega takes on a third dimension of empathetic response, an important theme in many dharma songs. The word sangvek in Khmer is a simple transliteration of the Pali samvega and retains both the meanings of “trembling” and “being moved.” The primary stimuli for samvega include impermanence, the suffering inherent in samsara, and the presence of Buddhist holy sites, relics, artwork, teachings, and rituals. But sangvek is connected as well to an empathetic response to the suffering of others.

Dharma songs also invoke the broad semantic field of pasada, a Pali noun connected to the verb pasidati, etymologically composed of the prefix pa (“forward, forth”) and the verbal root sad (“to sink”). In the classical South Asian Buddhist context, pasada is (1) a state of clarity, leading to (2) clear conviction about the main objects of Buddhist devotion and (3) a clear intention to make merit, whether through giving, mental cultivation, or other practices. All three of these meanings are at play in Cambodian dharma songs. (Koet Ran, like most Cambodians, almost never uses the Khmer transliteration of the Pali pasada [pasat]. Instead she uses the vernacular compound chreah thla [“clarity”] to refer to the same concept.)

To understand dharma songs we must look at how the texts and music interact within a larger aesthetic.

The aesthetics of Cambodian dharma songs depends not only on the separate functions of samvega and pasada but also on how they function together. In the Pali canon, the terms are quite common in their various grammatical forms. However, passages in which the two terms occur together or in close proximity are unexpectedly rare. They only begin to appear together in post-canonical texts and commentaries.

One possible avenue for understanding the pairing of samvega and pasada is to turn to the classical South Asian study of emotions and aesthetics, in particular the rasa theory. Rasa (Skt., literally “juice” or “essence”) is a term set in contrast to bhava in the Natya Shastra, Bharata Muni’s treatise on drama (written between 200 BCE and 200 CE). When an actor performs a bhava, or basic emotion such as love or fear, the audience receives the “juice” or “essence” of that emotion, called the rasa, which can be relished by the audience whether or not the emotion is a positive one.

From Koet Ran’s perspective, dharma songs are less about cognitive or didactic content and more about the rasa–like aesthetic experiences they effect in the audience. In this Cambodian musical tradition, we encounter repeated themes, musical modes, ritual contexts, and stated intentions to evoke aesthetic experiences in a receptive listener.

In classical Indian drama, facial expressions, makeup, costuming, gestures, and voice all come together to evoke different rasas, while in classical Indian music, particular ragas (musical scales) are associated with different rasas. Similarly, Cambodian dharma song performance brings together various elements to engender the aesthetic experiences of samvega and pasada. Although the context that rasa theory is historically associated with is not Buddhist but Vedic (Hindu), the basic principle of separate textual and musical elements converging to evoke aesthetic experiences provides a compelling model for understanding dharma songs.

The texts of dharma songs comprise a distinct body of vernacular Buddhist literature. Over the course of reading, memorizing, performing, translating, and analyzing these texts, I developed six genres to categorize them. These categories are my own; none of the dharma song masters I interviewed made such explicit distinctions, though they used informal categorization systems to explain why certain songs would be performed with certain melodies or at rituals. My classification is also influenced by categories developed in 20th-century printed collections of dharma songs.

These six genres can also be conceptualized as belonging to three functional categories of texts: didactic, narrative, and liturgical. Didactic dharma songs focus on explanations or exhortations related to key Buddhist concepts (the first genre, dhammasamvega) or the virtue of parents (the second, matapituguna). Narrative dharma songs, by contrast, draw on either the past lives of the Buddha (jataka) or his final life (buddhappavatti). Finally, liturgical dharma songs may either focus on worship (puja) or protection (paritta).

What is most striking about the six genres of dharma song texts is that despite their apparent diversity of content and practical function, they can be divided rather cleanly into genres that convey either samvega or pasada. The two narrative genres, jataka and buddhappavatti, along with the two didactic genres, dhammasamvega and matapituguna, tend to convey samvega. The two liturgical genres, puja and paritta, tend to convey pasada. Within the dharma song tradition, stories and moral instruction serve to elicit fear, grief, and shock, in contrast to the soothing and inspiring function served by the pasada-conveying liturgical texts.

Furthermore, as witnessed by the admiration awarded to vocalists like Balat Un, the aesthetic dimensions of dharma songs are not limited to their textual content. Their musical qualities are equally important.

I have identified six styles in which Cambodian Buddhists intone texts (an, reading aloud; bol, between an and sot; sot, chanting with one to four pitches; me sot, using four or more distinct pitches without a strict metrical pulse; chrieng, using four or more distinct pitches with a strict metrical pulse; and smot, intonating longer and more complex melodies without a strict metrical pulse).

Dharma songs use the sixth and most complex style, smot. In short, the smot style is the slowest, longest, and most ornamented of all Cambodian Buddhist vocal performance styles. Although the other five styles can each play a role in Cambodian Buddhist ritual performance, only the final style, smot, represents the melodies used by the dharma song tradition. The smot style is so closely associated with the dharma song tradition that smot is actually a more common Khmer term for the tradition than dharma song (thor bot). I have preferred this latter alternative for “dharma song,” however, since smot also refers to a particular vocal performance style that applies equally to non-Buddhist texts and rituals.

I tracked how dharma song melodies within each for the eight smot sub-styles are performed with either Buddhist or secular texts and found distinct patterns connecting samvega–conveying and pasada–conveying texts with certain scales and tonalities. Fifteen melodies and their variations make up the majority of dharma song performance, particularly by laypeople. It became clear that the musical characteristics for smot melodies used with metrical verse texts are intimately related to how aesthetic experiences are expressed and received, and that dharma songs convey samvega and pasada not only through textual content but also through musical characteristics.

The centrality of samvega and pasada in the dharma song tradition suggests a new way of understanding Theravada soteriology in aesthetic terms. Much of the Western academic study of Buddhism over the past 150 years has focused on the cognitive means of salvation in the religion; indeed, the rationality and intellectual cohesion of Theravada Buddhism are widely cited in academic literature. But in the past two decades new approaches to Theravada studies have taken hold. The dharma song tradition is an example of the local production of meaning, wherein the soteriological emphasis of samvega and pasada as the first (and perhaps also the last) step to salvation is distinctly developed.

Musical performance of sacred texts is central to these dimensions across Buddhist cultures. From Japanese shomyo to Tibetan dbyangs, from Chinese fanbai to Sinhala pirit performances, the world of Buddhist textual recitation resounds with melodic strains and rhythmic beats. Many of these musical traditions underwent dramatic change in the 20th century and continue to transform today. Few of these have been studied by scholars outside of ethnomusicology. Despite the repeated calls for more attention to performance in Buddhist studies, only a handful of scholars have addressed the manifold connections between aesthetics, text, music, and ritual in Buddhist cultures. My research provides just one example of the fruits of studying this rich field.

The legacy of orality, music, and performance in Buddhism is so significant, widespread, and salient to the identity and history of the religion that scholars should no longer avoid studying musical traditions along with texts. Sound has been one of the primary mediums by which the dharma is transmitted—a medium as significant as the visual images of Buddhist art and the written words of the canons. The Cambodian dharma song tradition exemplifies the importance of recognizing, studying, and documenting the ways Buddhists express their aesthetics and aspirations through music.

♦

Listen to Trent Walker sing two of the dharma songs discussed in this article in his conversation with James Shaheen on Tricycle Talks.

Adapted from the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (vol. 41 [2018], pp. 271–325). The original article, titled “Samvega and Pasada: Dharma Songs in Contemporary Cambodia,” includes additional information about Trent Walker’s research methodology and findings. A digital copy of the article and a collection of dharma song texts and recordings can be found at trentwalker.org. 

The post Dharma Songs to Stir and Settle appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the Kampong Cham province of Cambodia, not far from a section of the Mekong River, a temple known as Wat Phum Thmei Serey Mongkol houses the most complete library of palm leaf texts in the country. Having outlasted colonialism and civil war when so many libraries did not, the library is a rare exception and a testament to the power of preservation. Scholars estimate that between 1975 and 1990 more than 95 percent of manuscripts in Cambodia disappeared, either through neglect or outright destruction at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. This is what makes the Wat Phum Thmei library so remarkable. No other library emerged from the Khmer Rouge era as unscathed. 

Traditionally in Cambodia and Southeast Asia more broadly, Buddhist texts were etched onto palm leaves or inked onto even more delicate bark paper, which made them vulnerable to the ravages of insects, humidity, and fire. To protect the texts from loss, scribes would regularly recopy manuscripts, transmitting knowledge from generation to generation. Although manuscript production had largely ceased in Cambodia by the time the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, manuscripts remained crucial sources for Buddhist rituals, sermons, meditation instructions, traditional astrology, and medicine. Buddhist monasteries, which were the center of intellectual life in many villages, continued to hold extensive palm leaf libraries. 

But in its quest to remake Cambodian society, the Khmer Rouge violently targeted Buddhist institutions and destroyed temple libraries on a mass scale. In May 1975, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge’s leader, and Nuon Chea, the regime’s “chief ideologist,” announced a program that included a plan to “defrock all Buddhist monks and put them to work growing rice,” Ian Harris writes in Buddhism in a Dark Age: Cambodian Monks Under Pol Pot. Thousands of monks were killed, disrobed, or forced into exile. Texts were burned, buried, or woven into hats for the military. Harris writes that in 1978, Yun Yat, the minister of culture, information, and propaganda, declared, “Buddhism is dead and the ground has been cleared for the foundations of a new revolutionary culture.”Although Buddhist practices and institutions eventually recovered after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge, thousands of Buddhist manuscripts were lost forever. Today, collections that rival Wat Phum Thmei’s are either an amalgamation of multiple libraries or missing many texts. 

“[Wat Phum Thmei] offers Cambodians and others the best chance of reconstructing what many monastic libraries must have been like at the end of the era of manuscript copying in Cambodia,” says Dr. Trent Walker, a scholar of Southeast Asian Buddhism, lecturer at Stanford University, and advisor to the Buddhist Digital Resource Center. Although most surviving manuscripts in Cambodia were created between 1850 and 1950, the texts themselves date back to the sixteenth century or earlier because manuscripts were regularly copied by scribes. Indeed, according to Dr. Kunthea Chhom, an epigraphist working with Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture, the content and form of the manuscripts echo inscriptions of the Angkorian period, the 9th–14th century era of the Khmer Empire that gave rise to the world famous Angkor Wat. “As a whole,” Chhom says, “the manuscripts reflect both the continuity of the Angkorian intellectual tradition and the [flourishing] of the language.”

Importantly, the Wat Phum Thmei collection does not simply contain old copies of the standard Pali canon. It includes a diversity of texts that reflect the richness of Cambodian Buddhist practice and offer a snapshot of pre-colonial Cambodia society, revealing a complex cultural and spiritual landscape. The majority of texts in Wat Phum Thmei’s library are “bitexts,” bilingual sermons and treatises that elegantly interweave Pali and Khmer. They include the Jataka tales, the Paṭham trās’ (the oldest life narrative of the Buddha found in Cambodia), and several copies of an unusual work known as the Cetanābhedā, or “the scattering of the [32] minds,” a story collection that exists only in manuscript form and reconciles Buddhist conceptions of the mind with the Southeast Asian idea that humans have multiple internal spirits that sometimes wander off and need to be recalled to the body—much like the Tibetan concept of bla, or “energy body.” 

For decades, the Fonds pour l’Édition des Manuscrits du Cambodge (FEMC), an initiative run by local Cambodians and backed by the prestigious French research institute École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), was the leading organization tackling the painstaking work of preserving Cambodia’s manuscripts, including those from Wat Phum Thmei. Between 1990 and 2012, the EFEO-FEMC team visited well over a thousand monasteries, with a focus on libraries in the provinces of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Kandal, and Kampong Cham. In addition to cleaning and reassembling texts in monastic libraries, the team extensively documented the contents of those libraries in a two-volume catalog, photographing the texts to guard against loss in case the physical manuscripts were later destroyed. 

Leading the effort were local scholars Leng Kok-An and the late Kun Sopheap. Having spent more than thirty years reading and reassembling manuscripts, assisted in their early work by older monks and scholars who had studied manuscripts between the 1940s and 1960s, Kok-An and Sopheap were two of the only people in the world with the knowledge necessary to identify and reassemble surviving texts from a jumble of palm leaves. Surviving collections—many concealed from the Khmer Rouge in rafters and, in one case, a false ceiling in a monastery—were often found in advanced states of decay and disorganization, with many texts missing or damaged. Stuffed in bags, heaped in piles, or even chewed by insects and rats, the palm leaves had to be separated, cleaned, and sometimes re-inked with oil and a traditional ink mixture before being identified and reassembled into texts. Leng Kok-An estimates that of the monasteries visited by the EFEO-FEMC team between 1990 and 2012, only ten percent still possessed manuscripts. According to the EFEO, 358 of the 433 monasteries visited in Phnom Penh and Kandal provinces did not have even a single manuscript.

Wat Phum Thmei’s collection was saved thanks to the foresight of its head monk. In 1975, as the Khmer Rouge was assuming control of Cambodia, the head monk distributed manuscripts among devout villagers for safekeeping. At some point after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the texts made their way back to the monastery. The EFEO-FEMC discovered them, disorganized and dirty from their years in hiding, in 1996. It took two years to restore the approximately 2,500 manuscripts in Wat Phum Thmei’s collection. During that time, Leng Kok-An met a villager who offered a hint of the treasures that might still exist in the Cambodian countryside. The villager possessed a copy of an extremely rare cosmological treatise known as the Trai Ṭā, which integrates Brahmanical themes and lore with a Khmer Buddhist understanding of the universe. The villager showed Kok-An the manuscript but did not let him photograph it (Wat Phum Thmei has an incomplete copy of the Trai Bhed, another very rare, closely related manuscript, available in the Buddhist Digital Resource Center’s online library). 

The work of preserving manuscripts in Cambodia continues. In 2019, with a grant from A Khmer Buddhist Foundation, the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC) launched a project to digitize surviving manuscripts in Cambodia and help preserve these irreplaceable artifacts. As part of the project, Leng Kok-An once again conducted extensive fieldwork, particularly at Wat Phum Thmei and surrounding monasteries, and the library at Wat Phum Thmei has since expanded even more. The temple library now holds 5,000–6,000 manuscripts, enhanced with collections donated by nearby monasteries. Once the BDRC project is complete, the images of the texts will be made freely available online, with a website specifically designed for the Cambodian community slated for launch at the end of the year. The new digital resource will not only help preserve a priceless record of Cambodian society and history, but it will also provide modern readers access to a trove of Cambodian Buddhist literature, and bring the texts to the world by making new translations possible. A forthcoming book by Walker, Until Nirvana’s Time: Buddhist Songs from Cambodia (Shambhala Publications, Fall 2022), will introduce some of these texts to the English-speaking world.

From Vulture Peak to palm leaves and printing press to PDF, to follow the history of dharma transmission is to follow the evolution of knowledge technology, a series of advances born from humanity’s resolute desire to learn and teach. Memories fade, paper burns, hard drives fail, but knowledge remains, and each iteration leaves its mark on the world, in bits, bytes, and palm leaves. “All conditioned things are of a nature to decay,” the Buddha said just before his death (Dīgha Nikāya, translated by Maurice Walshe). “Strive on untiringly.”

The post Cambodia’s Wat Phum Thmei Palm Leaf Library and the Resilience of Buddhist Texts appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Sri Lankan Pastor Forced to Close Church After Threats from Buddhist Monks 

After facing threats and intimidation from Buddhist monks, a Christian pastor in Sri Lanka was forced to close his ministry. According to the Christian Post, the pastor, referred to as “Daniel” to protect his identity, shut down his church after being detained by police and threatened by Buddhist monks. On October 18, police arrived at Daniel’s home in Bakamuna, a town in Sri Lanka’s Polonnaruwa district, the Barnabas Fund, a Christian aid agency, reported. The police immediately ordered Daniel to report to the police station, where he was taken to an office packed with Buddhist monks. Daniel had received similar threats in the past, but this time was different, he said. The monks, Daniel said, showed him that they had acquired a list of people who attended his church and demanded that he close his ministry. 

“In recent years, we’ve seen a steady increase in mobs orchestrated by Buddhist extremists. . . These mobs especially target Christian converts from Buddhism,” Storm Hendrik, Barnabas Fund’s international CEO, told the Post. Christians make up 8 percent of the nation’s population, and face persecution from both the nation’s Buddhist majority and Muslim minority, according to Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors. Some of the persecution is rooted in nationalism, Hendrik said, as many Sri Lankans see conversion to Christianity as a betrayal of their nation’s heritage: “They’ve become Christian; their allegiance is now with Christ,” he told the Post. “They are seen as rejecting that which everyone else holds to.”

Paintings Discovered in Buddhist Temple May Be 1,300 Years Old

Researchers recently discovered that paintings of bodhisattvas on pillars in the Saimyoji temple in Kora, Japan, may date back more than 1,300 years, Smithsonian Magazine reported. The paintings were originally thought to be from the Heian era (794–1185 CE), but art historian Noriaki Ajima of Hiroshima University said that the depictions of the bodhisattvas’ inner ears, palm creases, and clothing suggest that the works are most likely from the later part of the Asuka period, which lasted from 538 to 794 CE. If the new estimations are correct, the paintings are the second-oldest known paintings in Japan. 

Monks in Cambodia Help Families After Devastating Floods

Cambodia, which has already been struggling economically from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has also been experiencing heavy rains and flooding caused by intense tropical storms. As of October 21, about 156,137 homes were reported to have been damaged; flooding has also unearthed mines and other military weapons and destroyed farmland, Buddhistdoor Global reported. 

Buddhist monks have been leading relief efforts at the grassroots level: Venerable Vy Sovechea, president of Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University, Battambang Branch (SBUBB) and a member of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, told Buddhistdoor Global that  he and his fellow monks have helped 61 families over the past two days and plan to help 80 more families over the next few days. “We delivered 20 packages of relief supplies to 20 families in cooperation with the local Catholic community, and we have also received some donations from Khmer American Buddhists in the USA,” he said. “The SBUBB always cooperates with other faith leaders, such as the Catholic, Muslim, and other ehtnic communities in Battambang, working together for social welfare, charitable activities, education, peace-building, the environment, and climate change.”

Awards for Tricycle Contributors 

Photographer Jeenah Moon, who has been contributing to Tricycle’s A Day in the Dharma series since 2018, was selected for Best Coronavirus Photo and Best Breaking News Photo by NewsWomen Club New York 2020 Front Page Awards. Moon’s photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg Business, and other major news outlets. 

Documentary photographer Richard Mosse, whose photo is paired with Ocean Vuong’s writing in our latest Parting Words, was just named an Honorary Fellow at the Royal Photographic Society in Bristol, United Kingdom.

The post Buddha Buzz Weekly: Sri Lankan Pastor Closes Church After Intimidation from Buddhist Monks appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Thai Monk Speaks Out About LGBT+ Rights

As Thailand prepares to pass a landmark civil partnerships bill that would recognize same-sex unions with nearly the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, one Buddhist monk is openly showing his support for the LGBT+ community. According to the nonprofit arm of the Reuters news service, the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), 52-year-old Shine Waradhammo has been attending LGBT+ events in Thailand, where his saffron robe and shaved head are often conspicuous, and posts frequently on social media about issues affecting the queer community. “He is quite exceptional; it is not common to see a Buddhist monk take such an interest in these issues, and be vocal and supportive, and even show up at events,” Anjana Suvarnanda, co-founder of the LGBT+ organization Anjaree Group, told TRF. “He also helps us frame the argument from the religious perspective, reminding people of the Buddhist philosophy of accepting all people. If we had more monks like him, it would make a real difference.” 

If the Civil Partnership Bill is passed, Thailand will be the second country in Asia after Taiwan to allow the registration of same-sex unions. But Waradhammo says it doesn’t go far enough. He supports a separate initiative that seeks to change the Civil Code, Thailand’s main body of laws, so that marriage is defined as being between two persons rather than between a man and a woman. “The Civil Partnership Bill does not give equal rights [to gay couples],” he said. “Changing the Civil Code would be better.” 

In Theravada Buddhism, LGBT+ people are sometimes seen as paying the price for bad karma from a previous life, Waradhammo told TRF. But he doesn’t agree. “The Buddha never said anything against LGBT people, so it is a very wrong interpretation of the scriptures that leads to bias and rejection of LGBT people. Monks generally avoid talking about LGBT and gender issues, but we should be talking about issues that affect society, and religious teachings have to reflect the present times—otherwise religion becomes a dinosaur.”

Resettlement Prospects Look Bleak for Rohingya Refugees from Myanmar

Resettlement for Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar has become even more dangerous as countries like Malaysia have closed their borders and threatened to push boats back to sea to protect jobs and resources amid coronavirus lockdowns, according to Reuters. In 2018 and 2019, two attempts at a repatriation process failed when refugees refused to return to Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country where the ethnic minority has been denied citizenship and where the military’s campaign of violence against them forced millions to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. 

Bangladesh used to run a resettlement program that offered a way for refugees to find permanent homes, but they ended that program in 2010. Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner told Reuters that if the government resumed the program, they would focus on resettling refugees in other countries. H.T. Imam, a political advisor to Bangladesh’s prime minister, however, has called that process unrealistic because European countries and the US are so reluctant to accept Muslim refugees. 

Buddhist Monk’s Reputation Destroyed in Government Smear Campaign on Facebook

Buddhist monk Luon Sovath, who had spent decades fighting for the human rights of his fellow Cambodians, was the victim of a Facebook smear campaign backed by the Cambodian government. An investigation by the New York Times found that government employees were involved in creation of fake social media accounts and false claims that led to the takedown and eventual exile of Luon Sovath, who has been an outspoken critic of his country’s authoritarian policies. After grainy videos appeared on a fake Facebook page, claims began circulating that the monk had slept with three sisters and their mother. A government-controlled religious council then defrocked Luon Sovath, alleging that he had broken the monastic precept of celibacy. Fearing imminent arrest, the monk fled Cambodia for Thailand, where he now lives in exile. Luon Sovath’s plight draws attention to the fact that the Cambodian government can easily use Facebook, the only digital interface for millions of people in the country, to crack down on dissidents. Under Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the government has repeatedly used falsified Facebook posts or manipulated audio to denigrate and imprison politicians, activists, and other human rights defenders. 

Remains Found in Japan Suggest 1800s Epidemic

Archaeologists in Osaka, Japan, dug up remains of more than 1,500 people who were buried in a 19th century mass grave, reported the Associated Press. Some graves were small round holes with bodies apparently stacked and buried together; others contained coffins with multiple remains. Experts cited these as signs that many victims of an epidemic were buried together. Lesions on limbs of the remains suggest that there may have been a syphilis outbreak, which was rampant in the 1800s in populated areas like Osaka. Archaeologists also found coins, Buddhist prayer beads, headdresses, combs, sake cups, and clay dolls, which has taught them more about regional burial practices.

The post Buddha Buzz Weekly: Thai Monk Backs Marriage Equality appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Age: 54
Profession: Classical Musician and Composer
Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Your latest work, Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, draws on the personal and collective trauma of living under the Khmer Rouge regime. How do you deal with the emotional exhaustion from revisiting the past? When I composed the requiem, I relived the feelings I had during the Khmer Rouge. It was hell on earth, but I still hold these memories closely in my heart and spirit. It is important for the requiem to be shown around the world so everyone can see that tragedy is a shared experience. For me, as a composer, I find hope in creation.

Sometimes I lose my energy. If I get too tired, I’ll just stop and do something else. Other times, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. It helps when I see audiences enjoying my work at a performance. This brings me happiness.

Art is powerful because it can heal. It can change your thinking.

After you survived the Cambodian civil war and genocide, you traveled to Russia, where you pursued a doctorate at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. What was it like leaving your homeland? In 1985 I received a scholarship to study in Moscow, and I lived there for almost 14 years. When I first moved, I was under the impression that Russians thought of Cambodians as people from the jungle, with no culture or civilization, when, in fact, it is the opposite. We had a great civilization, but under Pol Pot’s brutal communist rule, nobody even thought about culture. They only wanted to escape from the fighting.

I wrote many compositions, concertos, and symphonies at the Conservatory because I felt that I had lost time during the war. Memory from Darkness is a trio for piano, violin, and cello that I composed while I was a student. This music is not from the head; it is from the heart. And it is inspired by memories from my childhood, back when Cambodia was a battleground in the 1970s. It took me 6 months to complete. Today, you can hear this melody playing on the audio guide to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, a mass gravesite on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Has Buddhism been a refuge for you? If you read the old Buddhist texts, you’ll see that the Buddha made great sacrifices. He devoted his life to looking for transcendental knowledge and resolved to throw away all of his attachments and greed. For this, I bow down to the Buddha and have profound respect for him as a great being. Up until the civil war, I went to the pagodas for ceremonies and rituals with my parents. But during the war there was no religion. People were afraid to go to the pagodas and pray.

Buddhism can be a real force for good in the world, but like all traditions, it has become denominational. With every religion, there will always be people who manipulate its original theology, become extremists, exploit belief for material gain, or use religion to justify violence and destruction. We have to serve the world by guarding against these kinds of actions. I have become more of a humanist over the years, which is why Bangsokol [its title is the name of a funeral rite], though it is rooted in Buddhism, is not religious in a strict sense. It is an act of protection, a humanitarian message for everyone—Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists.

Your compositions blend traditional Khmer music with a medley of contemporary genres—classical, opera, rock, rap, electronic, you name it. Five years ago, you built a music school in the capital for young musicians to learn the ropes. Do they enjoy your quirky approach? They are certainly never bored! You can’t eat the same sandwich every day. You’ve got to vary your diet and try new food.

Some of my young students believe that writing one song will make them rock stars. [Laughs.] It’s not easy to find students who want to devote their lives to becoming professional composers, pianists, or violinists. There are a few who are striving. At the same time, many don’t take their studies seriously and will go on to play pop music, or they are preoccupied with things that don’t have lasting value. It’s very different from my generation. We grew up under the civil war. We didn’t have smartphones or cars. This is where my resilience comes from and why my passion to become a composer runs deep.

Why is musical education important, especially for young Cambodians? For a nation to rebuild, its economy and infrastructure must grow, of course, but it also needs to grow as a culture. Though we can honor our ancient heritage, we have to develop.

In the early 2000s I teamed up with Patrick Kersalé, a French ethnomusicologist, and Keo Sonan Kavei, a Cambodian master craftsman, on a project to reconstruct an Angkorian pin harp, an instrument that was lost for centuries after the fall of the Khmer Empire. From looking at 12th-century bas-relief carvings found on the walls of Angkor Wat and the Bayon temple, we were able to recreate the harp. It was a big collaboration and tough work. After we finished, the only problem was that there weren’t any musicians who knew how to play it, or teachers who knew how to teach it. So I ended up giving harp lessons to a handful of students, all girls, and now they can play.

The post This Buddhist Life: Him Sophy appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Bang That Tibetan Bowl

The year is admittedly young, but I’m already giddy about what will undoubtedly survive as one of the best headlines of 2014. This doozy comes from the Hong Kong–based South China Morning Post (SCMP), which splayed the following across its paper a couple days ago: “Local Buddhist Metal Band Chock Ma Find a Groove in Spiritual Awareness.” The only danger is that the chuckle-inducing headline will discourage readers from further investigation. Beneath this comic novelty is an authentically awesome group of young Buddhist artist-activists.

Chock Ma started playing in 2003, and has evolved into what the SCMP calls “a blend of progressive metal and post-rock, with a touch of traditional Chinese music.” Occasionally their songs even feature an indigenous Australian instrument known as the didgeridoo and Tibetan singing bowls. In March, they plan to release their debut album, the title of which translates from Chinese into “Expose the Nature from Inside.” The alternative title for English audiences, Dharma Bums, evokes the band’s religious beliefs and western influences.

Chock Ma is known for provocative lyrics that combine Buddhist themes with environmental and political messages. One of their songs, entitled “Born Together-Reared Apart,” explores the shifting sociopolitical identities between Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. Another song, “No Escape,” gravely describes post-apocalyptic environmental wreckage in language reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s “Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Taking their commitment to environmental action one step further, the band has vowed to provide bags of seeds for the first 100 people who pre-order their new album. Though its lyrics are in Chinese, their recent song “Bird Speech” (music video below) features an inspiringly strange mix of urban metal, spiritual aspirations, and environmental awareness.

Bogus Buddhists Seek “Alms”

In Sydney, Melbourne, and other cities across Australia, conmen have posed as Buddhist monks in order to yield donations from unsuspecting passersby. The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reports that the local intrepid outfit may include up to six collaborators, who don traditional brown robes and shaved heads, yet—according to one victim—seem to have overlooked proper foot exposure: “The police asked: ‘Have you ever seen a monk asking for a donation before? I said ‘No I guess not.’ They asked if I’ve ever seen a monk in Nike shoes? I haven’t.” What good is theft if you have to spend most of your loot on foot bandages?

Jokes aside, the scam has sparked a debate over what makes a monk a monk and what a makes a fraud a fraud—especially after police initially insinuated that participants had not committed any crime. Apparently the thieves have tiptoed around the law, in part by avoiding any verbal self-identification as monks. Yet Greg Heathcote, a criminal lawyer in Sydney, will not tolerate this coy defense. He told the SMH that the thieves are “claiming to be monks by wearing the garb.”

Surely these scammers are capitalizing on our collective sympathy toward spiritual ascetics, and they’re relying on a particular cultural and religious tradition to do so—namely, Buddhism. But who are we to say whether or not these alleged thieves are monks? Perhaps we demand they meditate five hours per day, or chant specific sutras, or—at the very least—abstain from drinking. Yet the thought of imposing religious standards upon them would likely sound antiquated and arbitrary to the tourists of Sydney. I’m reminded of my fellow diaspora Jews who poke fun at the inconsistent constraints of kashrut—Jewish dietary laws. But yes, yes, at the very least we expect lip service to be paid to lofty intentions like self-transcendence, world harmony, liberation from suffering. And we demand that our donations further those ends, in part so we don’t have to. Maybe what’s so appalling about postured virtue is how it reminds us collectively of our own similar, less visible scam.

Uprisings in Cambodia, Too

One month ago, I discussed the role Buddhist monks have played in the large political demonstrations that ensnared Bangkok. Today, those protests continue and have garnered predominantly negative press, as the opposition leadership refuses to participate in an upcoming election that they’re likely to lose. Meanwhile, similar nonviolent mass actions have broken out in nearby Cambodia, where 96% of the population is Buddhist. Unfortunately, the Cambodian government has been more violently repressive than its Thai counterparts: last week it killed at least three and injured twenty.

The government crackdown came in response to the tens of thousands of people who have marched on the capital of Phnom Penh demanding the removal of longtime authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who regained power in a possibly illegitimate election last June. The protestors range from underpaid garment workers to opposition party stalwarts to—you guessed it—Buddhist monks. In this case, the monks bring a very specific grievance to the uprising: they are angry about the recent theft of a prized urn, which some believe holds the ashes of the Buddha himself. They argue that the successful theft exposes the priorities of a regime that’s more interested in protecting its own interests than those of the overwhelmingly Buddhist population.

The incident has prompted a rift within Cambodia’s nationwide hierarchical Buddhist institution, fittingly referred to as the sangha. Monks aligned with the opposition party recently confronted Buddhist leadership at a meeting in Phnom Penh, demanding the resignation of Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong, who is widely considered an extension of Hun Sen’s power. That is, unless he can track down the lost relic.

—Max Zahn, Editorial Intern

The post Buddha Buzz: Week of January 6th appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Enlightenment is a sweaty endeavor. Countless awakened ancestors have lost countless beads of sweat with a zafu clenched between their thighs. In the tropical heat of Southeast Asia, however, it is unwise to engage in such endeavors when the sun is at its peak. So when I happened upon Ko and Socheal, two monks living in a small Wat on the outskirts of Ream National Park near Sihanoukville, Cambodia, they were relaxing on hammocks in the shade.  But, excited by the prospect of speaking to a foreigner, they braved the sun to take me on an impromptu jungle trek. Along the way Socheal, 24, routinely crouched down and pulled his robe up over his head for cover, dripping sweat and reconsidering the worth of such an excursion. Meanwhile, the younger Ko eagerly asked me questions about America.  “Michael Jackson…dead?” Yes. “Aww, Cambodia love Michael Jackson.” Then he began to rattle of song titles like they were monk vows.  

After a ten-minute climb we came to a clearing. A stream trickled over large boulders to a pool where naked boys frolicked in the water. Some of them were young monks, but robeless they were only distinguishable from the villagers by their freshly shorn hair. They leapt off of a ten-foot high cliff into the pool below, bellowing with delight. On this sweltering day, at this hour, no other activity seemed as important. Ko, taking off a layer of his bright orange robes and wrapping the rest up like shorts, took a plunge over the cliff as well. I splashed cool water on my face and neck and showed the enraptured boys videos of them jumping of the cliff moments before. Before heading back Socheal asked me, “Sit mountain happy?”  Happy indeed.   

On the way down I was given a brief tour of the Buddha hall, empty at that late afternoon hour. Further down the hill, by a reclining Buddha statue, elderly laypersons sat in the shade, accepting donations for red “good luck” strings to be tied around the wrist. I kneeled before Ko, who, with an affable smile on his face, closed his eyes and chanted a verse for me. It had taken until the sun started to dip over the horizon, but here was a glimpse of something more overtly spiritual.  Monks will be boys, and monks will be monks. Sit mountain happy in the heat of day, a verse as the sun starts to descend.

The Theravada school is sometimes pejoratively referred to as the Hinayana, the Lesser Vehicle. Lesser Vehicles—the longtail boats of the Mekong river or the ubiquitous village bicycles—will get you to your destination, only at a much slower pace. But when the sun blisters everything it touches, and you have countless lifetimes to reach the other shore, who cares about speed?

The post Cliff-Jumping with Cambodian Monks appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently announced that it would award Cambodian Buddhist monk Bun Saluth for his environmental work. Bun Saluth has devoted himself to preserving over eighteen thousand acres of forest land in the Oddar Meanchey province of Cambodia and has worked with local communities to create the Monk’s Community Forestry (MCF). From the UN press room:

[Bon Saluth] is on a crusade to preserve an 18,261 ha forest area in the province. Over the past eight years, he has come to the rescue of dozens of wild animals from traders, and also leads a volunteers’ patrol to prevent illegal logging. It’s a mission which has earned him an award from this year’s Equator Initiative, a UNDP prize for efforts to conserve global biodiversity for poverty reduction. Ven. Bun Saluth received strong words of encouragement from the initiative’s organizers for his efforts. “We commend you on the remarkable work of your initiative. You have provided us with a strong demonstration of the ingenuity of community-based work currently being undertaken in the tropics, often against tremendous odds,” Eileen de Ravin, manager of UNDP’s Equator Initiative, wrote in a letter informing the monk about the award. Ven. Bun Saluth began his environmental mission in 2002. Then peace had just returned to Cambodia after nearly 30 years of armed conflict. The province, once a major battle zone, became an attraction for migrants and people with business interests seeking free land. Slowly, the trend began to take a toll on the forest. He said he had to act to put the breaks on further forest destruction – even if it sometimes meant pitting himself and his forest guardians against gun-wielding poachers. “When Buddha was still alive, he used trees and caves as lodging to obtain enlightenment. In this way, he has taught us to love the natural resources and wild animals,” Ven. Bun Saluth, 39, said during a recent patrol of the site known as Monk’s Community Forestry (MCF). It is with this spirit that he protects the flora and fauna in his local area. Under his leadership, six villages have come together to protect the area – currently the largest community-managed forest conservation site in Cambodia. It is a sanctuary to some of the country’s threatened species. The villagers rely on it for non-timber forest products such as mushrooms, tree resin, wild ginger, wild potato, and bamboo, that they collect every day to support their families.

Congratulations to Bon Saluth. Keep up the good work! Image: ki-media.blogspot.com

The post Buddhist monk wins UN environmental award appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Between 1975 and 1979, during the brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge, the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh was severely damaged. According to the New York Times, “Khmer Rouge purges wiped out much of its staff; its buildings, abandoned, were disintegrating. The art that didn’t disappear was severely damaged.” From the museum’s website:

The turmoil of recent decades has devastated all aspects of Cambodian life including the cultural realm. During the years of Khmer Rouge control the Museum, along with the rest of Phnom Penh, was evacuated and abandoned. The Museum suffered from neglect during this time and after the liberation of Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979 it was found in disrepair, its roof rotten, collection in disarray and garden overgrown. The Museum was quickly tidied up and reopened to the public on 13 April 1979. Tragically, however, many of the Museum’s employees had lost their lives during the Khmer Rouge regime. The resulting loss of expertise, combined with the deterioration of the Museum building and its collection, have made rehabilitation of the Museum a daunting task.

It is only within the last few years that the museum has been able to get back on its feet, thanks in large part to aid donated by institutions abroad. Freer and Sackler Galleries, with help from the Getty Foundation, helped to establish the Cambodian museum’s first metal-conservation laboratory, which allows for the preservation and study of the museum’s bronze sculpture. Now, thanks to the laboratory’s care, ancient Southeast Asian metal sculptures from the museum’s collection are currently on exhibition at the Arthur M. Sackler gallery at the Smithsonian in D.C. From the New York Times review of the exhibit:

This Sackler show — organized by Paul Jett, head of conservation at the Freer and Sackler, and Louise Allison Cort, curator of ceramics there — demonstrates some of the results of that care. It is also a reminder of how crucial is the search for fresh news from the past, a past that is every bit as much in flux as the present, and just as easy to miss if we’re not looking. For ancient art from Southeast Asia, we need every scrap of news we can get. Even the most basic facts elude us. We have no clear idea, for example, of when metal casting arrived in Cambodia, or where it came from when it did.

If you visit the exhibit, you may have a hard time distinguishing between Buddhist and Hindu artwork. The review goes on to say that in many cases, it’s hard to tell what’s Buddhist and what’s Hindu:

Visual distinctions between religions, like doctrinal differences, were often vague. This is true at the Sackler. One impressive 10th-century figure of a broad-shouldered, four-armed male deity could be either Hindu or Buddhist. We might be able to tell if we could see the symbols in his crown. But at some point his head was knocked off and lost, so we’ll never know.

Read Holland Cotter’s full review of the exhibit here. Read more about the history of the National Museum of Cambodia here. 

The post After destruction, National Museum rises again appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.