Giving in the Time of Conflict
Our monastic team leader has been in charge of overseeing those donations which are earmarked towards monastic causes. He describes his effort to reach some remote monasteries that have not benefited from support in years, and how grateful the monks and novices were to receive these basic needs. We thank those foreign meditators who wished to support these monastics in this critical time!
The first monastery I want to tell you about functions as both a Pariyatti monastery where about 130 monks are residing and studying Buddhist monastic literatures, and a meditation center in Taunggyi city in Southern Shan State. We remotely purchased some rice sacks in the same city and sent to the monastery. The Abbot of the monastery informed us that he would cook and offer the donated rice to the candidate monks who would take the township-wide monastic examinations a few weeks later. He told us that the monastery led to organize the township-wide monastic exams in the last four years. He usually tried to offer the meals for the candidate monastics every year because most of them came from the rural areas of the township and they did not afford to purchase their own food by themselves. He told us that this rice sack donation helped him to fulfill his wish that he could never neglect to let these rural candidate monks find their own food. This donation would truly ease the concerns of the candidate monastics from the rural areas about food. He emphasized that it would truly help all of them to focus on their studies for the exam because he would announce publicly that he had received the first donation of rice sacks and he would offer the meals for them this year again.
This next monastery is actually located in Mogok. There are over 200 monastics residing in the monastery. The monastery is a reputed Pariyatti monastery in Mogok and famous around Myanmar. In 2019, the State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited the monastery for the opening ceremony of a 1,000 Novices Dharma Hall where a thousand of young boys were ordained as novices. The late and current abbots of the monastery are the members of the State’s Sangha Mahā Nāyaka Committee (the government-appointed body of the high ranking monks that oversees and regulates the society of monks in the country). The monastery also organizes the Htāvara Saddhammā Lankāra – Samane-kyaw Examinations in Mogok township. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 1,000 monastic candidates from the township and different areas across the country came and took the examination which was conducted in the monastery. They were accommodated and fed meals during the examinations, then. The abbot of this monastery informed us that the donated rice would be specifically used for the residing monastics in the monastery, including 15 monastic candidates who went back from the examinations in Yangon.
We had challenges to send and donate the rice sacks to this monastery in Myinmu Township, Sagaing Region. At first, we arranged to transport the rice sacks from Mandalay to Myinmu by a ‘line-car’ bus in late January. There were not many buses that went from Monywa to Mandalay. We finally found a bus and the driver informed us that they do not run bus every day and not in a regular schedule. They just run once a week after enquiring and making sure about the road security. This issue of ensuring that donations get through even at a time of conflict has made normal donation activities far more challenging than we are used to, in times of peace. Anyway, we try and we do our best to facilitate the wishes of those kind hearted donors. So, at first, the abbot told us that he would go to Mandalay and transport the rice sacks back to Myinmu three days later. However, when the day came, he could not go because of the road insecurities and armed encounters on the Mandalay-Monywa road. We waited again until next two weeks due to the news and warning which was announced by the local resistance forces suggested that the road would be blocked for some days and people would not travel those days until they would announce again. That is why we later contacted the first driver and we learned that the bus owner already sold out the truck (i.e., the bus). Fortunately, he gave us a contact of another bus driver that went from Monywa to Mandalay. We could finally arrange to send the sacks of alms rice to the monastery.
Now I want to tell you about a monastery in the south of Innwa in Mandalay Region. Although we planned to travel and donate the rice sacks to the monastery in person, we finally arranged just to transport the rice sacks by bus because it is located on the way to Myothar-Taungthar-Myingyan road where the armed encounters frequently took place. The monastery itself conducts the monastic examinations annually and it hosted the exam this year again for 3,000 monastic candidates as well. It also had to send its monastic candidates to the examinations in the lower part of the country. The monastery is really famous for its late founder monk who strictly obeyed monastic disciplines and people believed him to be an arhat. All the residing monks in this monastery also obeyed the monastic disciplines strictly. The venerable founder Sayadaw passed away in August, 2021. He was also awarded the Honorary Degree (doctorate) by a former Cambodian Education Minister, the Rector of Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia, in 2020.
The final place I’d like to share with you is the famous Pa-auk Taw Ya Monastery. We went to the Pariyatti campus (the original compound) of the Pa-auk Taw Ya monastery and donated the rice sacks to the monastery. Since it was close to the exam time, the Lecturer Monk we met said that there were no classes and the novices and monks were studying. The Lecturer Monk said that raw rice is always the basic need for them and especially for their breakfast, while they go alms round every morning for the lunch.