The Birthday Fund comes to Pyay!
We are continuing to share the wealth from the birthday fund that a very kind and generous donor provided to Better Burma, with the instructions that this was to feed monks and nuns in need across the country. Instead of receiving any birthday gifts, this man instructed his friends to donate to a fund which would then be used to purchase rice for those monastics in need. Our local team has now made it to Pyay and we share their report below.
For those who have not visited, Pyay is centrally located in the Bago Region, and sits on the Ayeyarwady River, about halfway between Yangon and Mandalay. It is best known for the Shwesandaw Pagoda, a major Buddhist pilgrimage site. The town of Pyay is a cool and relaxed place, and home to a number of interesting temples and pagodas, as well as some beautiful riverfront scenery. The Shwesandaw Pagoda is the most popular attraction in Pyay. This massive Buddhist temple is said to contain a hair of the Buddha, and is thus a major pilgrimage site for Buddhists from all over Myanmar. The pagoda is beautiful, and the views from the top are stunning.
“We contributed to two nunneries in Pyay. Pyay is a well-known city both for Myanmar Buddhist pilgrims and international meditators due to its ancient monasteries where the famous revered monks, arhats and Vipassanā teachers such as Pyay Nibbinda Sayadaw resided and taught Vipassanā meditation to the lay-people and monks.
One of the two nunneries to which we contributed alms-rice, look after, feed, accommodate and educate about 100 young girls that are mostly orphans from different ethnic minority groups from remote ethnic areas in Shan State. They allow most of them as lay girls who do not wish to get ordained as nuns. According to one of the head nuns of this nunnery, the nunnery mostly used to receive the local contributions regularly as monthly or weekly. However, the prices of the things in Myanmar are now rising extremely and the local sponsors cannot support the nunnery and its girls regularly now. Another nunnery in Pyay reported that there are about 50 nuns residing and studying there. The head nuns of these nunneries compassionately brought the girls and young nuns from the armed combat zones to save and educate them.
We thank the donor again for supporting these nuns with his birthday. I hope that he may realize he is not giving out of pity for a poor people, but doing so from a shared humanity of interconnectedness where we all of us, no matter what our station, aim for the noble human values of generosity of spirit to any living beings we may encounter, offering whatever we may have with a pure volition. May our kindness spread to make our lives better as we know we are not alone. By caring, we are cared for.”