Southland’s Buddhist Leaders Stress Need for Understanding

Leaders in Southern California’s Asian community sought Monday to ease tensions over the slayings of six Buddhist monks and three others in a Phoenix-area temple.

“We need people to calm down and wait for the facts and be compassionate toward one another,” said Nampet Panichpant-Michelsen, interim president of the United Thai Council, a community development umbrella group based in Orange County. “A lot of violence occurs because of ignorance and cultural insensitivity.”

She said a community-wide strategy meeting will be held on Wednesday at the Wat Thai Temple in North Hollywood, which is closely allied with Wat Promkunaram near Phoenix, the site of the slayings. Memorial services will be held in Buddhist temples throughout the country during the week, and a major memorial will be held at 8 p.m. Saturday in Wat Thai Temple.

Panichpant-Michelsen and Kwanchanok Tantivejkul, secretary of the Wat Thai board of directors, discounted speculation that the killings, discovered Saturday, were gang-related.

“Peaceful, nonviolent men who practice Buddhism may be misperceived and be provocative to people who have tremendous fear of Asians coming into . . . what they consider their turf,” she said, adding that the isolation of the rural Phoenix temple and the distinctive dress of the monks could make them targets of hate crimes against Asians. The killings are unsolved.

Tantivejkul said “shock and strong reaction” over the slayings extended to Thailand, where students were expected to ask the U.S. ambassador to demand that the investigation “be done properly and not be prematurely dropped.”

Phra Pairat, the slain chief abbot of the Arizona temple, had recently completed a tour of the nation’s Buddhist temples and had just made a trip to Thailand, according to Panichpant-Michelsen.

Buddhist leaders said Thanchao Khun Wichien, the chief abbot at Wat Thai, had been scheduled to ordain a monk at the Phoenix temple next Sunday. The man was not one of the slaying victims.