Bhante Dam Phommasan, one of the monks who went on a 2,300-mile Walk for Peace from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., was fitted with a prosthetic leg at Mercer University on March 18 by the Mercer On Mission team. Phommasan’s leg was amputated last year after being hit by a car during the walk in Texas.
The Lao Buddhist monk carried an aura of peace as he was fitted for the prosthetic leg in the gait analysis lab in the Engineering Building on the Macon campus. Later that day, he shared his story in the Presidents Dining Room and led the standing-room-only audience of students, faculty, staff and community members in a mindfulness meditation.
Speaking through a translator, Phommasan said he felt compelled to join the Walk for Peace because peace is the ultimate goal in Buddhism. Despite his injury, Phommasan said he continues to believe in the message of the walk.
There’s “no true happiness other than when you have peace in your heart,” he said.
After Phommasan’s left leg was amputated just below the knee, his team researched prosthetic programs and found Mercer. Each summer since 2009, a Mercer On Mission team has traveled to Vietnam to fit amputees with prosthetic legs and hands developed by Dr. Ha Van Vo, Eminent Scholar and Distinguished University Professor of biomedical engineering. The program has changed the lives of more than 24,000 amputees.
Dr. Vo and Mercer alumnus Chris Scrivner, certified prosthetist orthotist and practice manager for Hope Pediatrics in Dublin, led the fitting, which was also attended by University Minister Dr. Craig McMahan, director of Mercer On Mission; Mercer alumnus Dr. Brandon Tran; and Dr. Tami Phillips, professor and chair of the Department of Physical Therapy.
Mercer was one of Phommasan’s dream schools, and he had previously wanted to study here. Dr. Tran, who participated in several Mercer On Mission trips to Vietnam, was a volunteer doctor for Walk for Peace in Washington, D.C., and helped connect Phommasan with the University. After Mercer’s offer to fit Phommasan with a prosthetic leg, the Mercer On Mission team went to see him at Wat Lao Buddha Khanti, a Lao Buddhist temple and cultural center in Snellville.
“I cannot walk without a prosthetic leg,” Phommasan said at Mercer. “When you made the prosthetic leg for me, you give me a lot of opportunities, a lot of dreams for me to walk again, to work to do everything the best in the world.”
Phommasan talked about his belief in mindfulness and how practicing the mindset in daily life can lead to big problems becoming small problems. He plans to lead a meditation workshop at Mercer next fall.
“So many of us are worried about next week’s assignment or the exam or what we’re going to do when we graduate,” he said. “And we miss the moment.”
