LOCAL SENSEI FIGHTS EXPLOITATION
OF KIDS ORPHANED BY DISASTER

"I want to go to Thailand to help prevent the further traumatization of children disoriented by the tsunami, by predators seeking to exploit them for their own gain," said M.J. Hughes, sensei of the National Meditation Center for World Peace.

In addition to serving as the executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Humanitarian Aid, Hughes has an undergraduate degree in criminology and a master's degree in technology management from The University of Texas at Tyler, and is rated as a master instructor in jujitsu. He wants to put his expertise and understanding of Buddhist culture and perspective to work in helping meet the needs of those in the tsunami-devastated area.

"Targeting predators taking advantage of the chaos of the destruction, profiling them and preventing them from getting in close contact with recently orphaned children is so vital just now," said Hughes, who has tracked child slavery issues through U.N. task forces for the last seven years. "The child-exploitation gangs are already there - have been for years - and now they're going to take advantage of overwhelmed relief agencies in southeast Asia. Moving quickly is critical, so another horrible tragedy is not laid on top of an already horrible event."

Hughes said his close contact with Buddhist culture brings something to the relief effort that most American aid agencies don't have. To work effectively in Thailand, the world's largest Buddhist nation, an appreciation of the religion's perspective and approach to life is critical, he said.

"If you don't know the culture, a lot of what you're going to try to help with won't be accepted in the end," he said. "Time and money will be wasted, and worse, fewer children will be helped. We can't - we shouldn't - let that happen."

For 18 years, Hughes said, the Zen Buddhist meditation center has worked to help troubled youth through discipline, meditation and martial-arts training, "making them aware of themselves as individuals." The center is incorporated under the same guidelines and federal requirements as a church.

Gov. Rick Perry recognized Hughes in 2002 for "remarkable volunteer service to the Lone Star State." State Rep. Chuck Hopson, D-Jacksonville, gave him a commendation in 2004 "for rural and community development and work with community leadership."

Hughes wants to use his lifetime skills to help the small Asian agencies struggling to stop child exploitation.

"Project management - helping define and design the work - is critical," he said. "Another area is critical-incident training. Children that have been kidnapped, traumatized and forced into prostitution desperately need people who can help them through it."

Hughes said this type of training was part of his criminology studies. He serves on the center's critical-response team with Dr. Val Finnell, a Tyler physician specializing in medical pathology, and his wife Amie, who has a bachelor's degree in allied health and speaks three languages.

"Critical-incident training is not counseling," he said. "That comes later, but it's part of the more complicated discipline and understanding of intervention."

Intervention training itself is necessary as the situation in Asia continues to develop rapidly, he said.

"You can be a kind-hearted person trying to do some good there and find yourself in a very complicated situation if you don't have proper training," he said. "Intervention can be dangerous because it often involves dealing with criminals and potentially corrupt officials. There are many variables to consider."

Hughes, whose wife is Filipino, was first exposed to the reality of child exploitation while on the island of Cebu in the Philippines.

"I saw the kids who were illegally engaged in strip clubs. I even talked to the pedophiles themselves," he said. "It was simply awful what was happening there, and still is."

Hughes said that experience made him determined to expand the center's work with youth to include those lost in an area of the world people seldom see.

"It was a disgusting and perverted sight to see, and I've been tracking this problem ever since, looking for solutions," he said. "Sometimes the media gets a hold of it, but mostly these shameful practices happen in secret, and we rarely hear about it here."

As a Buddhist, Hughes said he views God as compassionate, loving and caring.

"Some people say as a Buddhist, you shouldn't get involved with community or world affairs," he said. "That's not how I am about it - that's not the take I have.

"If you, as a Buddhist, are constantly trying to perfect yourself to get off the wheel of life, then it becomes selfish. In Zen, you want to free yourself of selfish desires, even that one. As a Zen Buddhist, I'm here to help."

Those Hughes has helped include Noreen Nartia, 15, who said she was a "tough chick" before she came to the center, and her 21-year-old brother Joey, who said he was "involved in drugs and alcohol and being cool." Meditation center assistant Jon Hanson, 34, a businessman who said his identity was consumed with "being successful and making money," came for the martial arts and stayed for the Zen.

They say they have found a stability and discipline at the center that have inspired them.

"Master Hughes asked me questions and let me figure out the answers for myself," Miss Nartia said. "He never told me an answer."

The most penetrating question he asked, they all agreed, was "Who are you?"

"That really threw me," Joey Nartia said. "I thought I was the cool guy, and when he asked that, I didn't know what to say. It made me look harder. I knew I didn't have it right, but I didn't know what the right answer was," he said, shaking his head. "I guess what I said sounded pretty dumb."

"People think we worship stone statues of little fat guys," said Miss Nartia, referring to statues of Siddhartha Gautama, the son of a regional chief near Nepal, who founded Buddhism in 566 B.C. The word "Buddha" means "awakened one."

"That's the furthest thing from the truth. We meditate on the wisdom that (was handed down) and think on that," she said."

Hughes said his two decades of community service with area leaders and troubled youth, along with the center's parent counseling, has prepared him to work with children caught in the slave trade.

"Kids, wherever they are, need help," he said. "That's my heart, here and now, especially in southeast Asia. The world is our neighbor today, and we can't ignore them."

Patrick Butler covers religion. email: religion@tylerpaper.com