Ghosananda in Providence and Lowel

The Brittish monk Ajahn Sucitto visited Maha Ghosananda's small temple in Providence, Rhode Island in 1988, and described the meeting in an old newsletter.

Sucitto was meeting with the Unitarian minister Tom Ahlburn, a friend of Ghosananda, who lived in a small temple catering to the Cambodian refugee community of Providence.

"Although Venerable Maha Ghosananda’s English was patchy, his delightful presence, and the plight of the refugees had motivated Tom to get involved with the Wat Khmer," Sucitto said. "And when I gave my talk to the group, Venerable Maha Ghosananda was there beaming with delight, as was normal for him."

“After the talk, Tom and his wife drove us over to the Wat Khmer on the other side of town where we were to spend the night. It was the rough side of Providence, broken-down streets, boarded up houses -- and as we got out of the car, Tom suggested that perhaps it wasn’t such a wise idea to go pindabaht the next morning."

"In the Wat itself, which was just a simple tenement house, there were posters giving notification of the plans to purchase a center which would be a place for meditation and Dhamma teaching, for medicine, for education and for Khmer culture - it was quite a visionary complex. Maha had found a suitable area of land outside Providence and was asking people to make donations to the tune of half million dollars, which, from the impoverished state of the Wat, seemed way out of reach."

“But Maha Ghosananda, beaming with confidence, was another story. Early next day he breezily suggested we go out on alms round and despite Tom’s initial apprehension, the matter was clinched when a local Cambodian man came in, lit up with glee, and ran out to tell nearby families that the bhikkhus were coming."

"We put our bowls over our shoulders and walked out to the street – and things started to happen. People came tumbling out of their houses, rushing backwards and forwards bearing bowls of rice, loaves of bread, and fruit, and eagerly wedged them into our alms bowls."

"Some people put envelopes with money in to our bowls. Tom diligently collected the money, the loaves of bread, and the things that wouldn’t fit in, or weren’t suitable for monks to carry; and we chanted blessings, and they chanted sharing of merit with the dead, and we chanted some more. And all along this street in Providence, there occurred this wonderful enactment of devotion to the Triple Gem."

"And for those few moments, that back street in the rough side of Providence turned into something more like the Devaloka."

"Providence (the bounty of the divine) never seemed so rightly named as at that time. The refugees certainly weren’t developing any great degree of tranquility, there didn’t seem to be much concern about practice, yet their lives had a foundation of faith in the Triple Gem that gave them a real strength. And one saw how it was going to be possible for them to get their half million dollars and establish their center. I felt that if we, in our hearts, could learn from those people the transforming power of faith, it would have repaid the west ten times over all the foreign aid that has ever been given; because if we don’t learn that, we will surely just wither away through lack of joy."

***

Visiting Lowell, Massachusetts

Ajahn Sucitto next went to vist the temple Maha Ghosananda had founded in Lowell, Massachusetts.

“…Venerable Karuniko and I were invited to the Wat Khmer in Lowell, where Maha Ghosananda had founded another temple for Cambodian refugees.…There are thousands of Asian refugee families in Lowell because it’s an industrial town and there are jobs to go around."

"In one of its homely suburbs stands the Wat Khmer, a large refurbished hall of little charm. Apart from samanera Dhammagutto, who had invited us and who is American, there were five bhikkhus resident there of various Asian nationalities."

"The abbot Ajahn Khan Sao, and another monk were Cambodian forest bhikkhus. Dhammaguto gave us some accounts of the horrors of the Khmer rouge…building the temple."

"Ajahn Khan Sao felt that his main practice was in helping the Cambodians to begin again. They would come to him with their problems, and sorrows and quarrels, and he would tell them to stop , forget and begin again – a very direct teaching. Dhammagutto talked about times when people would come for chanting on behalf of their dead relatives: the monks would start chanting at 6pm in the evening and finish at 3 in the morning. It put some balm on the wounds."

“Dhammagutto, the only American, had decided to become the night watchman, and walked around the Wat at night with a big stick, and through his wits and his quick tongue bluffed and challenged the people who threw rocks at the windows or tried to break in."

“So the place, like Dhammagutto himself, was battered and not very tranquil, but had the features of a good environment for practice: commitment, morality, plenty of opportunities for giving and patience, and not much chance to think about yourself. We felt a glow in the heart at being there.”

The Age of Materialism is Over

The Buddha taught that inner peace is a transformative power in the world.

Meditation has the power to solve all the problems of the world. Meditation has the power to bring personal happiness to the individual, and to achieve World Peace.

The human race is facing tremendous challenges unprecedented in the history of the world.

Young people worry about so many problems: Environmental devastation and global warming; extinction of species; population explosion; clash of civilizations with wars and genocides; globalization of militant-materialism and nihilistic hedonism; out-of-control technology; atomic weapons; fundamentalism; human trafficking and slavery. The list could go on.

We now live in the “Post-Modern” age, they say, the “New World Order.” It is the end of the world as we know it. Something new is coming. But what kind of world will the future bring?

What will be the character of the “New World Order?” Will it be the expansion and intensification of the present world order of greed, anger and hatred, and ignorance? Or will it be a time of peace, security, well being and sustainability? The choice is in our hands. If we keep going on the path we’re on, we’re going to end up where we’re headed. If we want to end up in a different place, then we have to go a different direction.

In meditation, we can have an inward transformation, an awakening, that will help us see new directions, an alternative future to the one we’re now facing. Meditators can help show the world a way to meet the challenges bearing down upon us with increasing urgency.

When the Buddha attained awakening under the Bodhi tree, he said he had a shattering realization that greed, hatred, and ignorance is the cause of all the suffering in the world, both personal and collective.

The Buddha said all the suffering of the world arises out of ignorance - not understanding the nature of reality - not seeing clearly. In our ignorance, we cultivate passions of greed and hatred. When greed and hatred are expressed in the organized social realm, greed is manifest as consumer culture. Hatred becomes manifest as militarism and war.

The more desire we have, the faster we will destroy the earth.

Globalization is the rapid and aggressive expansion and intensification of this militaristic consumer culture to every region of the globe. This process has been underway for a long time – the expansion of the “free market” of materialistic consumer culture.

Mahatma Gandhi, almost seventy years ago, pointed out the disaster that would ensue when heartless “modern civilization” was fully realized. “There is no end to the victims destroyed in the fire of civilization. Its deadly effect is that people come under its scorching flames believing it to be all good. They become utterly irreligious and, in reality, derive little advantage from [civilization]…When its full effect is realized, we shall see that religious superstition is harmless compared to that of modern civilization….”

We are living in the last days of modern materialism. But what will come next?

I heard a physicist on National Public Radio discussing Werner Heisenberg and quantum theory, and he said the real meaning of quantum theory is that “the age of materialism is over.”

The old Newtonian-scientific understanding of the world as a machine, or dead matter of natural resources available for our exploitation and consumption, is no longer workable. The earth is not a machine, it is alive. The earth, the universe, is alive and mysterious, and mind pervades the universe. There are many dimensions beyond what we can perceive with the senses.

The second lesson of quantum theory, he said, is that the human person is part of the universe; the human person is not a detached observer of the material universe. Consciousness and mind are interactive with the material phenomenal universe.

As the Buddha discovered a long time ago, “everything arises from an ocean of mind. All that we are arises from the mind. With the mind we create the world. If we think and act with unskillful mind – full of greed, hatred and ignorance – then suffering will arise in the world. If we think and act with skillful mind – generosity, compassion and understanding – then happiness will arise in the world.”

What kind of world will the future bring? It is up to us to create that world, and meditators can show the way. Inner peace is a transformative power in the world.