Bhante Dharmawara
Samdach Vira Dharmawara Bellong Mahathera (February 12, 1889 – June 26, 1999), also known simply as Bhante Dharmawara, was a Cambodian-born Theravada monk and teacher who died at the age of 110.[2]
Bhante Dharmawara | |
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| Born | Bellong Mahathera February 12, 1889 |
| Died | June 26, 1999 (aged 110 years, 134 days) Stockton, California, U.S. |
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| Occupation | Monk |
| Known for | First Cambodian American Buddhist monk |
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Biography
Bellong Mahathera was born on February 12, 1889 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to a wealthy family.[1]
He returned to Cambodia to visit in 1952 and established a connection to Norodom Sihanouk, then still king. In 1955 he accompanied Sihanouk to the Bandung Conference in Indonesia.[3]
He first visited the U.S. in late 1955 and early 1956 when he was invited by the US Information Agency to attend a conference on education. In California, the yoga teacher Indra Devi introduced him to wine critic Robert Lawrence Balzer, who was already interested in Asian religions. With Dharmawara´s invitation, Balzer traveled to Cambodia and sojourned for two weeks in the temple where Dharmawara was staying, later writing about it in the book Beyond Conflict.[4][5] An extended meditation course he taught at the Asoka Mission from October 1974 to March 1975 is described in the book Leaving Lucifer.[6]
In 1989, following a shooting in which five schoolchildren were killed at a Stockton school, there was national press coverage when he went to the school to perform a ritual cleansing of the site.[7]
Death
He died on June 26, 1999, aged 110.[8]
References
- Stewart, Barbara (July 18, 1999). "Bellong Mahathera Is Dead; Cambodian Monk Was 110". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 9, 2014. Retrieved May 27, 2014.
- "Bhante". Archived from the original on 2007-08-04. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1955) Asia-Africa Speaks from Bandung. Djakarta: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia.
- Balzer, Robert Lawrence (1963) Beyond Conflict. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
- Roth, Allen (1998) Sherborne: An Experiment in Transformation. Santa Fe, NM: Bennett Books.
- Romig, Elizabeth (2016) Leaving Lucifer: Part 1, The Beginning. Bloomington, IN: Balboa Press.
- Times, Jane Gross and Special To the New York. "Stockton Journal; Where 5 Died, a Monk Gives Solace". Archived from the original on 2018-04-09. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
- "Bhante Dharmawara" (PDF) (Press release). Forest Sangha Newsletter. October 1999. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2008-09-13.