A Hundred Lotuses Blooming? - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 197

popular vipassana meditation practice as a foreign, “un-Khmer” import. 19 After his death
Bunthoeun's students bore his body to the Meditation Center in Oudong and had it em-
balmed. There it remains, displayed in a glass casket surrounded by bouquets of flowers
and yellowing pictures of the departed monk.
Religious authorities have also come down hard on monks advocating on behalf of
the Khmer Krom, the ethnic Khmer minority in southern Vietnam. In June 2007 Tep
Vong ordered the arrest and defrocking of Tim Sakhorn, a monk-activist based in Takeo
province, on the basis that he had violated Buddhist tenets by “harming Cambodi-
an-Vietnamese solidarity” and using his religious status as a cover for distributing Khmer
Krom propaganda. 20 On June 30, Sakhorn was forced into a car and driven to Vietnam,
where he was tried and jailed for a year. Shortly after his release in mid-2008 he fled to
Thailand, joining dozens of other Khmer Krom monks who had escaped crackdowns in
Cambodia. Sakhorn was eventually granted asylum in Sweden. 21
Needless to say, the stricture against monks' involvement in politics runs in just one
direction. Far from remaining politically neutral, Tep Vong frequently praises the CPP,
and has accused its opponents of “destroying the national identity.” 22 A few entrepren-
eurial monks have even cuddled up to the powerful, offering tailor-made blessings and
charms in exchange for donations to their wats , some of which have evolved into wealthy
institutions complete with satellite populations of orphans, monk novices, and students
from poor rural areas. 23 Wat Champuskaek, a pagoda on the Tonlé Bassac ten kilometers
south of Phnom Penh, is the site of much conspicuous merit-making. Set in 12 hectares
of pristine grounds, the temple offers a Disneyland version of Theravada Buddhism, all
blue skies and swooping golden eaves. Gleaming new pagoda buildings tower amid hard-
woods, mango orchards, and the funeral stupas of the departed rich.
The temple has a grisly past: under the Khmer Rouge it was used as an execution site,
and its buildings were turned into granaries and storehouses for human excrement. 24 In a
corner of the grounds a stupa filled with dusty skulls still stands as an echo of the past,
its paint peeling slowly in the shade. More recently, Wat Champuskaek has developed a
reputation as a font of good fortune. Politicians, generals, and tycoons have offered the
wat millions in charitable donations. A lavish reception hall, unveiled to a who's-who of
VIPs in 2009, contains more than 5,000 Buddha statues donated by rich merit-seekers.
There are Buddhas of every shape and size, of jade, bronze, glass, lacquered wood, and
sandstone taken from ancient Angkorian quarries. They line the walls, crowd a raised al-
tar, and stare down serenely from wall niches that light up at the flip of a switch. In the
midst of this menagerie is a large grinning Buddha image covered with $200,000 worth
of gold leaf.
Ta Ouk, a stooped 81-year-old who described himself as an assistant to the pagoda's
chief monk, said the reason for the pagoda's success was simple. “After the rich people