Wat Opot Children's Community

The Banyan Tree

The Banyan tree grows in many parts of the World and wherever they are found there is usually a lot of folklore surrounding them. Here in Cambodia they are mostly found on the grounds of the Buddhist Wats. The Buddha found Enlightenment under one of these trees and so I guess it makes sense to have them growing there. Awhile ago I found some seedlings under the Banyan Tree and transplanted them in some plastic bags just to see how they would do. They developed rather rapidly into sturdy young trees and so I decided to plant some of them around the older boys dorm. They were not any to happy about this but I didn’t think much about it at the time. The trees started growing quite well… however, one day when I went to check on them, I found that they had all been removed. When I asked for an explanation, I was told that the trees are the homes of Spirits and that is why the boys did not want them growing by their dorm.

THE BANYAN PROJECT

Alfred Banze and Christine Falk, who are pictured here, came to our community for three days awhile back and produced a video with our children, entitled GHOST IN A TREE. Alfred had been here two years earlier while on a World tour with the Banyan Project. You can read about their interesting work by following this link.
Banyan Project
You can also see it on our site here: http://www.watopot.org/banyan-tree-videobanyan-tree-video/