Sulak Sivaraksa

Who is Sulak Sivaraksa?

Sulak Sivaraksa is the founder and director of the Thai NGO “Sathirakoses-Nagapradeepa Foundation”, named after two authorities on Thai culture, Sathirakoses and Nagapradeepa. Besides being the initiator of a number of social, humanitarian, ecological and spiritual movements and organizations in Thailand, such as the College SEM.

Sulak Sivaraksa is known in the West as one of the fathers of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, which was established in 1989 with leading Buddhists including the 14th Dalai Lama, the Vietnamese monk and peace-activist Thich Nhat Hanh and the Theravada Bhikkhu Maha Ghosananda, as its patrons.

When Sulak Sivaraksa was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1995 he became known to a wider public in Europe and the USA. Sulak was chair of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development and has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, the University of Hawaii and Cornell.