Dr. Achahn Chuen Pangcham, right, of the Midwest Buddhist Meditation Center, led a moment of silence and spiritual reflection during the Tsunami Observance Feb. 10.

The University commemorated the lives lost in the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami in south Asia with a campus observance Feb. 10 in Olscamp Hall.

The event included reflections by two BGSU graduate students and a post-doctoral faculty fellow, all from India, and by local spiritual leaders from the Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu and Christian faiths. The observance opened and closed with the striking of the Kusuma Sari, a bronze gong from the University’s gamelan.

Dr. David Harnish, ethnomusicology, struck the gong 11 times to symbolize the 11 countries directly affected by the tsunami. The Kusuma Sari, or Inner Flower, was forged in Bali, Indonesia—one of the nations hardest hit—and is the same kind of gong found in Sumatra, Indonesia, where Aceh and North Sumatra provinces were among the areas most tragically affected.

Providing spiritual reflections were Dr. Achahn Chuen Pangcham, from the Midwest Buddhist Meditation Center in Warren, Mich.; Imam Farooq Aboelzahab, from the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo; Temple Priest Anant Dixit, from the Hindu Temple of Toledo, and the Rev. Ken Morman and Sister Mary Kuhlman, both from St. Thomas More University Parish in Bowling Green.

USG, GSS and the World Student Association sponsored the program along with the Center for International Programs, the Office of Campus Involvement and the College of Musical Arts.

Dr. David Harnish, musical arts, sounds the Kusuma Sari 11 times symbolizing the 11 countries directly affected by the tsunami.