Practicing Buddhānussati: Trying to Feed the Nuns
Our team leader has been researching the impact of the military coup on the lives of Buddhist nuns throughout the country. As part of this research, he stopped by one nunnery in his home town to better understand the hardships that nuns are currently facing. As many readers may already know, even in normal times, nuns in Myanmar face increased challenges because lay people believe they gain more merit by giving to monks. As a result, nuns often have to work harder to ensure they have sufficient food, which cuts into their time for study and meditation. For this reason, we are organizing a fundraising campaign for female monastic communities throughout the country, at this time when scant resources are available otherwise. Please consider a donation to support our efforts!
“This morning, I talked to a nun who is in charge of an ‘orphanage charity nunnery’ in our community. For many years, even before the coup, her nunnery had offered accommodation, food and education to young girls of diverse ethnicities from the remote hilly areas in combat zones. These young orphan girls are cared for tenderly by the nuns as they grow up, after which they may choose to graduate from a university, marry, or remain in robes. The head and founder of the nunnery is in her 90s now, so the nunnery is managed by an executive committee of nuns.
It's really not a small responsibility, especially during this time of crisis! One senior nun told me during my visit, ‘Because of inflation, all of the prices are increasing rapidly now, so it’s not easy to take care of over 100 girls. To be honest with you, we are struggling quite hard.’
The value of the Myanmar kyat has been steadily dropping while the price of everything else skyrockets. What is more, the military junta recently printed 400 billion kyat in banknotes, of which 330 billion was distributed to chief ministers of different regions! So even during a time like this, the corrupt keep getting richer as the rest of us, even vulnerable people like these nuns, are just trying to survive.
She added that elder nuns feel they should not push too hard with their lay supporters to advocate for themselves and the younger nuns in their care, as they realize that their sponsors are experiencing many hardships, too. She mentioned that before the coup, it was customary for donors to reserve specific dates when they would promise to give food for the entire nunnery. So with this system, sometimes every day in the month was covered! Because those donors undertook this responsibility in advance, the nuns didn’t need to spend time trying to secure enough food and could focus on study and monastic discipline, like monks. She told me that several months ago, local donors who could offer a small teacup worth of alms-rice every 15 days can now only offer a rice scoop, and those who used to offer a rice scoop can now only offer a tablespoon.
Unfortunately, there are in fact few local supporters left who can afford donations like before, so it is very hard for them to keep their nuns properly fed and provided for. I’m sure this is just one example of what nunneries across the country are now facing.
All the nuns I spoke to described how they are working hard just the same for those in their care. One confided in me (with a wan smile) that they are so worried, that many of them now do a lot of Buddhānussati meditation, in the hopes of achieving stronger mental powers that might help them find a solution.
She said that finding enough food has become so all-encompassing that they cannot even think of providing for their other needs, such as proper education, health care, robes and products for feminine hygiene. The urgency is to find a way to find enough food so these nuns can have their daily meals.
All in all, I understood that she was trying to communicate that they are just trying to survive now, and only after that can they try to grow in Dhamma. One thing at a time…”