Mae Chi Sansenee Sathirasuta, Sathira-Dhamma Sathan, Bangkok

While reading Chatsumarn Kabilsingh's book Thai Women in Buddhism, I discovered the work of an interesting Mae Chi, Sansenee. Once in Thailand, I discovered that this famous mae chi had purchased seven acres of land for a retreat center, not far from the Bangkok Post office. After meeting with Sanitsuda Ekichai, I traveled to her center. I was greeted by her secretary and translator, Joy. Joy gave me a tour of the center and introduced me to one of the Mae Chi who lives there. This particular mae chi believes that meditation is the key to liberation so she sat me down in the outdoor meeting hall and asked me to sit with her through chanting and meditation.

While I was sitting with the Mae Chi and Joy, a television crew entered into the area, along with Mae Chi Sansenee herself. I was not sure if I was going to be able to meet the Mae Chi or would just be with her assistant. I asked Joy if she could arrange at least a brief introduction.

The television crews were on her property to record a week's worth of one minute "dhamma talks," delivered by Mae Chi Sansenee every morning at 8 a.m. These brief segments were in addition to her Sunday evening television show, where she now claims a fame that seemed akin to that of Oprah Winfrey in the states. During these evening shows, Mae Chi Sansenee highlights subjects that are particularly important to women and Buddhist youth culture: from suffering to happiness, living with cancer, being the wife of a politician, how youth stars use meditation in their personal lives, domestic violence, etc.

I was able to get just a brief interview with her myself. She told me about the importance of her work to young women who are looking for role models. She asked Joy to point me to their magazine and that perhaps I might like to interview American women who have surpassed difficult odds with the help of spirituality and contribute those interviews to her magazine? She indicated that she would be in the United States later that year. After a few minutes, she was called away by the camera crews and I watched her sit gracefully amid the flora and fauna of her center as they filmed her one minute inspirational talks.

Mae Chi Sansenee is no novice to the public lime light. Her first claim to fame came as a noted Thai beauty queen who went on to become the mistress of a high Thai official. After living the high life, she decided that there had to be something more. She shaved her head and took on the white robes of the mae chi, smashing every stereotype, as mae chi are thought to be women who are not beautiful or successful, women who are somehow lacking something. Mae Chi Sansenee, however, was more similar to the Buddha himself, who had everything and gave it up, knowing that suffering still abounded.

When she gave up her life in the limelight, she purchased seven acres of barren land on the outskirts of Bangkok. She turned this land into an oasis. She had trees that were going to be uprooted in other areas brought to her land and replanted. To walk through the retreat now is to walk through a kind of jungle. No one could imagine that just a few years before the land was barren.

She uses the land as a place of spiritual retreat amid the chaos that is Bangkok. She also uses it as an educational facility for women and families with regard to issues such as parenting, etc. She provides refuge for pregnant women, trains kick boxers in the art of meditation, and speaks avidly and openly about Nuns Rights, but she is vehemently opposed to movements such as that of Samaneri Dhammananda for the ordination of women as bhikkhunis. Her magazine, Avian, contains articles that are mostly in Thai, with a few in English. For example, the magazine I was given contains an article about a young, wealthy woman who came to consciousness about the plight of women through exposure to the suffering of Afghan women. The magazine features beautiful women in high fashion, attractive business women, ads for American music by Dan Fogelburg, and recipes for Thai cuisine.

Here is an example of one of her teachings, taken from a recent edition of her magazine, Avian.

Being proud of one's race is good as long as we respect the human rights of peoples of other races. Taking pride in one's race becomes a problem when we regard other races as being inferior to ours. Such thinking will only lead to prejudice and conflict.

If you are asked what race the sun belongs to, would you say the sun is Jewish, American, or Palestinian? Or course, not! The sun is the sun. It does not feel attached to any races.

Or, if you are asked what religion the land and the river believe in, would you say they are Buddhist, Christian or Muslim? Whatever religion the land believes in, it is still the land. The same is true with the river. They are not attached to any religions.

Race and religion will never become the causes of conflicts and wars if we do not fell so severely attached to what we consider "ours" that we lose our mental freedom. Every religion teaches people to be free--free from mental suffering. If you consider yourself religious, and yet you want to see people of a different race or religion get hurt or killed, it means you have lost your mental freedom. It means you have lost peace with yourself-let alone having peace with other people. If we regard the lives of people of a different race or religion as being not as precious as ours, there can never be world peace not matter how many religions we have.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are using religion to discover Truth that leads to freedom from suffering or to create mental attachment that brings us more suffering.

Elsewhere in the magazine, Mae Chi Sansenee is quoted from an interview with Savika, with regard to women and peace:

"Women have the ability to transmute violence into constructive power." She went on to compare the task of pursuing world peace to moving a mountain. Women's power of gentility and loving-kindness, she says, "is strong enough to move the mountain forward without causing any destruction."