Sam Bunthoeun

Sam Bunthoeun (1957 - 2003) was a Cambodian Buddhist monk who was active in restoring the religious tradition of meditation known as vipassana in the 1990s until he was fatally shot on February 6, 2003. He was "one of Cambodia's most prominent teachers of vipassana meditation."

Biography Sam Bunthoeun was born close to Phnom Penh in Kandal province in 1957. He was ordained in 1980. as studied by Francois Bizot, which included esoteric teachings and master and disciple transmission, before the Khmer Rouge wiped them out. From 1976 to 1979, San Bunthoen was forcibly defrocked like almost all other monks in Cambodia.

Along with Tep Vong, he was reordained as a monk in 1979. In 1995, the annual buddhist council formally validated the importance of vipassana meditation and called Sam Bunthoeun to propagate it from Phnom Penh. The latter settled at Wat Nuntamony in 1995 and acquired land near Phnom Attaraq in Oudong to set up his meditation center. The transfer of the relics of Buddha which had been kept in front of the Royal railway station in Phnom Penh to the top of the mountain in Oudong made his new center "one of the more cosmologically central locations in the country."

On February 6, 2003, Sam Bunthoeun was fatally shot outside Wat Langka by two men on a motorcycle. He was struck by two bullets to his chest, and died two days later at Calmette Hospital at age 47.

His body was lain in state in a refrigerated glass case the center in Oudong for years.

Contribution: bringing peace both inside and outside

Vipassana: meditation as the way to inner peace Sam Bunthoeun is especially remembered in Cambodia today as one of the main promoters of the Khmer tradition of meditation known as a vipassana. He opposed ritual blessings with water (sraouch toeuk) as a mere exterior purification and suggested meditation was a better way to inner peace and purification. Sam Bunthoeun founded and headed the Buddhist Meditation Center of Oudong. By 2005, there were 300 donchees and 100 monks present at this center, making one of the largest meditation centers in Cambodia.

After his untimely death, other monks and Buddhist laymen have continued to promote vipassana. Kou Sopheap and Noem Chunny are two of the main proponents of this school of meditation.

Assassination: an outspoken defender of peace in Cambodian politics? It has been speculated that Sam Bunthoeun's assassination may have been linked to the political situation in Cambodia, Some have also argued that Sam Bunthoeun may have been too critical of Tep Vong's ban on voting in public elections for Buddhist monks. Graham Watson, a member of the European Parliament at that time, said at a press conference in Phnom Penh that the killing was “no doubt an attempt to intimidate Buddhist monks against registering for the election.” Others have said that Sam Bunthoen was not an politically outspoken figure. Instead, those argue that the killing could have been motivated either financially by the change in contractors for the building of his new center in Oudong or romantically from the jealousy of the husband of one of his female devotees.