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Dear Friends,
At the beginning of July I visited the island of Phuket off
the west coast of Thailand with Klaus Hebben, a German businessman
and philanthropist and a sincere Buddhist practitioner. We met two
months ago in Australia, where he attended a week-long meditation retreat
I led, and at that time he offered to build in Phuket the meditation
center I’ve had in
mind, where long-term retreats can be held on a regular basis.
Klaus has begun building a school on Phuket (kindergarten through secondary
school) called the Phuket International Academy, which will eventually
serve 700 students, about half of them expected to be international students
and about half, Thai students. The first classes will be held in the
school this September, even though all the school buildings will not
be completed until next year. About 120 students will enroll at that
time, with three classes of kindergarten and one class each for grades
one to four. Initially, six teachers will be employed.
Adjacent to this school, Klaus is building a world-class athletic center,
with a 25-meter and a 50-meter pool, a football field, tennis courts,
gymnasium, etc. These facilities will be for the students of the academy
and also host professional athletes from around the world who wish to
train in Phuket, especially during the winter months. In this way, students
in the academy will be exposed to world-class athletes and may be trained
by them as well.
Klaus has already put together a fine team of professional architects,
academics, administrators, and contractors, and the building of the school
and sports center is well underway.
Adjacent to these two institutions Klaus and I have now agreed that he
build a 40-room meditation center, which I have helped to design. We
plan on having this center finished by November 2009, and I am now planning
to hold the first 80-day meditation retreat there beginning in early
2010. Foreigners can easily obtain a 3-month tourist visa, so by holding
80-day retreats, non-Thais can spend 5 days before the retreat and five
days afterwards. If they wish to take more than one consecutive retreat,
they simply need to leave Thailand for a day (e.g., by driving to Burma
or flying to nearby Singapore), then they can re-enter Thailand and obtain
another 3-month visa. The number and variety of 80-day retreats will
be increased in accordance with the degree of interested expressed in
them.
Since these retreats are being held in Thailand, their cost will
be considerably less than if they were held in an industrially developed
nation. Although the proximity of the meditation center to the school
and sports center raises concerns about the noise level for the meditators,
we have already brainstormed about this, and I believe that the meditators
can be shielded from noise quite effectively, and air-conditioning throughout
the meditation center will make for a very comfortable environment.
Right after my meeting with Klaus, he and I met with Dr. Pinit Ratanakul,
President of the College of Religious Studies, Mahidol University, Bangkok,
with whom I’ve collaborated for some time. Pinit is very enthusiastic
to create a strong affiliation between his college and the school and
meditation center, and we are already exploring the many ways in which
his university, the school, sports center, and meditation center can
all work together for their mutual enhancement.
In short, I am very enthusiastic about these developments and believe
there will be much benefit from our work together.
With best wishes,
Alan
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