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- I left Cambodia a year prior to the fall of the country to Khmer Rouge regime in 1975. By 1989, I made a few returns to find family members who may have survived from such mass killing. Unfortunately, no one survived, and from witnessing such tragedy, I founded a Political Party to empower women to participate more in entrepreneurship, politics, pursuing higher education, and advocacy toward social issues. The general election in Cambodia in 1998 lifted me to a higher level of understanding, the interconnected threads of the world ... moreI left Cambodia a year prior to the fall of the country to Khmer Rouge regime in 1975. By 1989, I made a few returns to find family members who may have survived from such mass killing. Unfortunately, no one survived, and from witnessing such tragedy, I founded a Political Party to empower women to participate more in entrepreneurship, politics, pursuing higher education, and advocacy toward social issues. The general election in Cambodia in 1998 lifted me to a higher level of understanding, the interconnected threads of the world we live in, and how 'we' who are the citizens of the world can find the way to restore and to repair historical injustices, and to acknowledge that 'we' whether individuals or nations, alike, are guilty as charged by our conscious.
My effort to share life experiences here is sometimes challenging, but I truly believe that one always can depict universal consciousness, the true essence of harmony in life.
It has been 2 decades since my political participation within Khmer politics, and my dissertation, too, entitled "The Influence of Theravada Buddhism on Spiritual and Social Reforms in Cambodia", published in 2009 had been delivered to individuals, institutions, organizations from public to private sectors, and as well as to business and religious establishments.
During these past twenty years, I continued to witness crises, injustices, crimes of all sorts, not just from my own country (Cambodia), but from the world as a whole, that the degradation of human values put a big impact on societies at all levels and sizes. I only hope that the journey of my post doctoral research will enlighten those who have keen interest to see a better world to live in whether as family, in a workplace, in societies, and within nations.edit
Joanna Sokhoeun Duong California Institute of Integral Studies, 2009 Rina Sircar, PhD, Committee Chair THE INFLUENCE OF THERAVADA BUDDHISM ON SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL REFORMS IN CAMBODIA ABSTRACT My personal memory of losing 30 family... more
Joanna Sokhoeun Duong California Institute of Integral Studies, 2009 Rina Sircar, PhD, Committee Chair
THE INFLUENCE OF THERAVADA BUDDHISM ON SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL REFORMS IN CAMBODIA
ABSTRACT
My personal memory of losing 30 family members to the "Killing Fields" of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, collective memory of a country devastated by holocaust, and the decline of moral and ethical conduct during Cambodia's civil war prompt me to demonstrate that Buddha's teaching can assist a people in recovery from the sphere of revenge and corrupted mind. This study re-examines early Buddhist texts to demonstrate the adaptability of ancient prescriptives to modern times, because moral and ethical values are necessary to lead a good life in general and to control the compulsive passion to dominate and possess in particular. This research project is a form of pragmatic inquiry, shining the light of knowledge on a very dark chapter in Cambodia's history with the intention of
discovering means to move the country toward a positive future.
The dissertation highlights specific Buddhist values from the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism (Tipitaka) and recommends social movement and reforms. The Tipitaka is the primary source used for discussion, emphasizing spiritual cultivation, positive ways people can establish peace from within, and a medium to extend peace beyond. In particular, the disciplines and code of conducts (Patimokkha) and the Vinaya-Samukkhamsa or Innate Principles of the disciplines of the Vinaya Pitaka are essential in the disciplinary of monks and nuns; discourses from the five Nikayas of the Sulla Pitaka are very useful for the
improvement of moral and ethical conduct and for insights into living the calm life necessary for good leaders and societies; and the seven books of the
Abhidhamma Pitaka offer teaching on a psycho-ethical system of truth and the reality of life to reach liberation from dissatisfactoriness or suffering.
The dissertation also presents an approach to balancing problems, psychological and social, present in today's world with particular attention to the writer's native Cambodia, proposing proper understanding, specific practice, and principles derived from Theravada Buddhism to enhance current spiritual and social reforms in Cambodia. Buddhism requires humankind to develop an insightful attitude toward the world at large, and to appreciate the sacredness of life itself hidden within the complexity.
THE INFLUENCE OF THERAVADA BUDDHISM ON SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL REFORMS IN CAMBODIA
ABSTRACT
My personal memory of losing 30 family members to the "Killing Fields" of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, collective memory of a country devastated by holocaust, and the decline of moral and ethical conduct during Cambodia's civil war prompt me to demonstrate that Buddha's teaching can assist a people in recovery from the sphere of revenge and corrupted mind. This study re-examines early Buddhist texts to demonstrate the adaptability of ancient prescriptives to modern times, because moral and ethical values are necessary to lead a good life in general and to control the compulsive passion to dominate and possess in particular. This research project is a form of pragmatic inquiry, shining the light of knowledge on a very dark chapter in Cambodia's history with the intention of
discovering means to move the country toward a positive future.
The dissertation highlights specific Buddhist values from the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism (Tipitaka) and recommends social movement and reforms. The Tipitaka is the primary source used for discussion, emphasizing spiritual cultivation, positive ways people can establish peace from within, and a medium to extend peace beyond. In particular, the disciplines and code of conducts (Patimokkha) and the Vinaya-Samukkhamsa or Innate Principles of the disciplines of the Vinaya Pitaka are essential in the disciplinary of monks and nuns; discourses from the five Nikayas of the Sulla Pitaka are very useful for the
improvement of moral and ethical conduct and for insights into living the calm life necessary for good leaders and societies; and the seven books of the
Abhidhamma Pitaka offer teaching on a psycho-ethical system of truth and the reality of life to reach liberation from dissatisfactoriness or suffering.
The dissertation also presents an approach to balancing problems, psychological and social, present in today's world with particular attention to the writer's native Cambodia, proposing proper understanding, specific practice, and principles derived from Theravada Buddhism to enhance current spiritual and social reforms in Cambodia. Buddhism requires humankind to develop an insightful attitude toward the world at large, and to appreciate the sacredness of life itself hidden within the complexity.
