A visit to a Pyin Oo Lwin monastery
As the situation continues to be spiraling downwards in Myanmar, there are so many elements of Burmese society which are suffering and struggling to survive in their own way. With villages being laid to ruin and daily accounts of torture and rape, one barely has time to dig deeper into other sectors of society and the challenges they are facing. With this in mind, our platform has tried as best as we can to tell the story of how monks, nuns, novices, and monastic supporters are faring, and bring their lives into focus. As this is something seldom covered by other outlets, we hope these reports can inform the wider practitioner community around the world of how dire things really are for monastics, especially as such information is rarely being reported.
Making matters even more challenging, our local team has been under great duress lately, and so getting access to their eyewitness accounts and reporting has become increasingly challenging. Not only does this limit what we are able to tell our audience, but it has also had the damaging effect of beginning to severely limit the donations coming in, likely a result of being unable to keep up regular posts as before. So we express an urgent plea to donors that funds are still in dire need, and our decreased posting is not a reflection of inactivity on our part and certainly not due to an improvement overall in Myanmar… but it is rather an indication of the inability of our team members to safely send their writing on to us.
The following report from Pyin Oo Lwin is the first update we’ve had in weeks, given the present circumstances they are facing. Even just a small donation will make a big difference in the lives of these monks and nuns we are trying to support. And please keep in mind, if our reports become infrequent, these days it should not be seen as a sign the need is any less urgent, but that things have become so dark we cannot even get information out.
Recently, we had a visit to a monastery in Pyin Oo Lwin on the full moon day to offer an alms breakfast. Having a talk to the head lecturer monk, he took us around the monastery compound. We have witnessed that there is an obvious increase of the resident monks and novices in the monastery. The monk explained to us that there were only 100 monks and novices in the regular times but there are 186 resident monastics now. He said that the monastics migrated from different areas and moved from the big monasteries in the cities. He stated the first reason that the monastics moved from the crowded and populated famous monasteries in Mandalay when the COVID outbreak started. Another reason which caused an increase of residents is that the monastics from the unstable areas such as Sagaing Region, have moved from there to Pyin Oo Lwin. Since the monastery where we went, is a branch of the famous [Redacted] Monastery branch. Likewise, for the monks in the famous monasteries in Monywa, we have witnessed the monastics moved from there to their branches in Pyin Oo Lwin. The monk described himself as he is also from Myinmu, a town in the famous Sagaing Region. He made a melancholic joke, “We moved here to escape from the heat, and also from the war.”
When we arrived at the kitchen, the monk showed us a storage room where some sacks of rice are kept, saying that they are now very concerned about the food due to the increase of the resident monastics. Since most of the monasteries are located in the suburbs of Pyin Oo Lwin, the head monks of the monasteries where there is a high population of the monastics, need to manage to cook for the alms-breakfast of the residents just in the monastery by themselves and instruct the monks not to go to a single village but to go alms-round in separate groups to different villages for their lunch.
The Sayadaw finally mentioned that there has been a shortage of food at various Buddhist monasteries in different areas of the country due to the current political turmoil and pandemic situation in Myanmar. He said that many monks realize that they can no longer ask for support from the local lay residents as they do so usually, as these laypeople have no more means for collecting income themselves. Because of this, the monks realize they must make due with limited rations as best as they can. But the Sayadaw indicated he does not know how much longer they can manage, especially in some areas where there is very scarce rations left.