Interactive Session with His Majesty the King and Mahatma Gandhi
60
role of women in Buddhism. And, I am sure, all of you know about her
well. She has initiated the movement of Bhikkhuni Sangha in Thailand and
she is here to share her experience and opinion on the theme what
we have today. Distinguished gatherings, please welcome Bhikkhuni
Dhammananda
Bikkhuni Dhammananda:
Desaiji, honoured guests and friends.
Let me go by both languages. I agree with Aj. Srisurang and Aj. Chutatip.
Actually as we sit here Desaiji, four of us are from Thammasat University. I
think we have kind of outweighed the Mahidol or Silpakorn. It’s a real
honor to be listening to Desaiji and to be listening to Her Excellency
Madam Ambassador and to see how she actually shared with us, not her
thoughts, but her experience and her feelings towards the commitment to
Gandhian way of life. I’m now even happier to have met Sanghamitra,
Desaiji’s daughter. Sanghamitra is Desaiji’s daughter. I commented that
Sanghamitra is the name of Buddhist Emperor Asoka’s daughter who
brought the lineage of the Bhikkhuni from India to Sri Lanka so that was
our personal connection that we had and a very joyful one.
This morning we really had a wonderful session to learn about Dr.
Seri’s involvement. He was our colleague from Thammasat University
before he left us to have a real practical experience. An eye opening
experience to come and present to us his commitment to his
understanding of self-sufficiency as well as the Sufficiency Economy and
also that I was a bit disappointed. You know I thought you would be giving
it in English because Her Excellency was here, Desaiji was here. So Desaiji
could pick up only few words to know back to the root and then Desaiji
suggested that we should go forward to the root. So that is a real
connection that we have been listening but of course as I learn that
Dr.Seri said he was requested to speak in Thai so what we try to do on
this panel. We will go back and forth between Thai and English. I was