Maha Ghosananda

Years ago I was at a conference of Buddhist meditation teachers at Spirit Rock. (What a center! Talk about the Upper Middle Way. I was very impressed…) The event was jointly sponsored by Spirit Rock and the Dalai Lama. As things turned out it would be the first of several times I missed being able to meet him. On this occasion I had to leave the conference before the Dalai Lama arrived in order to attend a UU clergy conference.

Now that didn’t mean I didn’t get to meet some very interesting people. I made a minor fool of myself fawning over Pema Chodron. (She really is great) I got to hang out a little with special (nonBuddhist) guest Ram Das (Dr Richard Alpert of psychedelic history) who was a major favorite of the Tibetans for his work with the Seva Foundation. These are just examples. The list of Buddhist notables who attended the conference is pretty long.

However one experience really stuck out for me. I still recall vividly while we were listening to someone, if I recollect correctly, this wasn’t the vivid part, it was social justice activist/scholar Joanna Macy (whom I also admire considerably), when I noticed what had to be the ugliest Theravadan nun I’d ever seen sitting not very far from me. She was wearing some sort of turban that kept slipping off her shaven head. She was ugly, but somehow, just sitting there rearranging her turban from time to time, she also projected some sense that she was having a very good time. There was something magnetic and attractive about her.

I leaned over to David Weinstein, the Zen teacher sitting next to me, and whispered, “Who is that,” nodding in the direction of the nun.

He leaned back toward me and said, “Maha Ghosananda.”

Maha Ghoshanada had been the supreme patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, a major force for justice and peace, called the “Cambodian Gandhi” he was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Here is a website devoted to him & his work.

I’ve just learned he died this past Monday.

Click here for the New York Times obit.

The world is a little poorer for his passing.