Protecting Burmese Buddhism

Foreign meditators and Dhamma practitioners following the events in Myanmar from afar have been directing a steady stream of questions concerning how a Buddhist country can be caught up in a turmoil that seems to violate even the basic tenants of the Buddha.

This is a profound question and will require an even more thought-provoking response, and there are many academic papers left to be written on the topic. From prophecy to superstition, from striving to become a world monarch like the Bamar kings of old to a major pagoda project that has been underway in Nay Pyi Daw, and from black magic to spells that reverse karma to a belief in numerology, there is a lot there to explore here.

So I don’t want to go into the question of “how can so-called Buddhist leaders behave like this?”, but rather the angle I want to explore is, “how is the military representing and broadcasting their relationship to Buddhism to the Burmese people?

As unpleasant as the answer may be, this is an important topic for the foreign practitioner to have some understanding of, because it at least gets into some of the thinking and mindset that for many is still a mystery. Also, because this messaging is in Burmese language, to a Burmese audience, and referencing a Burmese religious and cultural background, many outside the country have little chance of understanding how it is being framed.

To explain this rationale, I’ll turn to my interview with Aye Min Thant, who made the following comment: “There's been decades of propaganda by the military, with them saying, ‘We are the ones who are protecting Buddhism from collapse from outside influences, from invasion, in the case of especially Muslim minorities and other religious minorities here in Myanmar.’”

To expand on this, the military is suggesting that they are "saving" Buddhism from not only the Muslims, but also from the materialistic West, from the rebellious and disrespectful youth, and from the imperialistic ambition of foreign countries.

There are of course numerous examples proving the very opposite. Aside from preventing the Dhamma teachings of great monks from even leaving the country in previous decades and the outright killing of monks during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, let’s review just the last month alone: setting fake monks to attack residents at night, arresting Burmese monks with progressive leanings, shooting monks in the open, stealing pagoda funds, and the photo on this very post— riddling a Buddha image with bullets. For anyone who has witnessed the reverence which devout Burmese Buddhists treat these statues, this offense is about as shocking as they come.

But the thing is, narratives take hold within a person’s psyche. It’s easy to stand back as an outsider and point to one hypocrisy after another, and to show how the military is actually degrading Buddhism time and again, and how it is putting it at risk far more than any imagined aggressor. So while their words and actions may fail to line up, it is really quite hard to remove the momentum of so many years of propaganda.

Today, this is of course changing before our eyes, as the terror and insidiousness of the military is becoming more apparent, and very little of what they claim is being taken seriously by the people at large. But this is not the case within many monasteries, where monks unfamiliar with worldly complexities are said to be buying into the idea that the military really is some kind of protector. Or as one Twitter user illustrated in a series of fascinating conversations with one monk, many monastics are more concerned with a society’s stability than greater questions of “right and wrong.”

Yet even as this narrative may be established to some degree, I still think it is imperative that we continue to document and share how this regime is threatening the very survival of the Sasana. Because even when faced with such obvious hypocrisy as a Buddha image riddled with bullets, it is still hard to disassociate with long held beliefs, especially those that have an emotional backing. To us as Western yogis this may be appear quite obvious and non-controversial, but it is seen very different by some in the country.

But let me reverse course yet again, because things are still not as straight-forward as they appear! For it would be unfair to suggest that only some traditional Burmese are susceptible to this claim, as it has also been picked up by several foreign yogis. As quoted (and proven false) in a recent article, one meditator made the following spurious assertion: “Buddhism was founded, grew and thrived under the governments of emperors and kings who were much much more autocratic than the current military rulers of Myanmar. Therefore, as far as Buddhism is concerned, I do not see any problem whether Myanmar is governed by the Tatmadaw [military] or the NLD [National League for Democracy]. Members of the Myanmar military are themselves Buddhists. The coup has nothing to do with suppressing Buddhism. Buddhism is not in any way threatened in Myanmar. There is no suppression of Buddhism or any religious freedom there.”

Additionally, I spoke to a Western monk last month, and when I asked him about monastic culture prior to the 2012 reforms, he surprised me by bypassing the obvious lack of freedoms that characterized that time and instead focused on his appreciation of what he saw as a more ‘traditional’ culture and the advantages of less opportunity:

“When you say how the country changed, and what we saw in in the monastery, one of the things we saw was a less traditional way of behaving... just the internet did that job. It was very rare to see the young boys with jeans a few years ago, and it has changed a lot and that comes into the monasteries and in the attitude. Now for example, having phones in the monasteries, and everybody having internet access definitely will be more distraction than before.

So then you start seeing that some of the parts that were keeping all that tapestry in the sense of the tradition… And although the people is better with the economy, some things have been lost and the respect is part of the culture, the appreciation to the Sangha, and then that slowly starts translating on to less support. I have seen alarmingly, the monastic community decreasing from local monks in Burma, either because the kids, if now they have a phone, I will say before traditionally they were just having the classes and their studies, there will be less possibility for lobha to arise. But then if you have a phone in your pocket, you need to be very careful and watchful that the mind doesn't get distracted with so many possibilities.”

I’m also reminded of an interaction I had with another Western monk many years ago, who was similarly dismayed by a creeping modernizing influence after 2012, particularly that increasing numbers of his Burmese supporters were starting to own cars. Although he had grown up privileged in Europe in having access to easy transportation, he felt that more Burmese having greater access to automobiles was degrading this same traditional culture he had once cherished— while not taking the time to consider how this car would benefit a Burmese family’s health, education, and job prospects.

As Westerners, this brings up a fascinating consideration. The stifling lack of freedoms that existed before 2012 kept Burmese Buddhism in an artificially stunted state. And with so few opportunities available elsewhere, and so few of the modern distractions to boot, there was simply little else to do than spend time at the local monastery. And as Aye Min Thant pointed out in our talk, the recent modernization that has created a more comfortable life also means that the decision to renounce and become a monk is harder than ever, because there is more from the world to have to give up and renounce than ever before!

So where does this leave us as Western practitioners who have long been drawn to the Dhamma of this special country? To me, it seems unfair at best and cruel at worst to take on the attitudes of these two foreign monks quoted above, who would perhaps choose to limit an entire people’s freedom in order to maintain this “traditional” image that they hold dear. This almost appears as a kind of passive acknowledgement of the very same justification the military likes to make to affirm its mission. And to me, it also reeks of Orientalism, in which foreigners would prefer to hold an Asian population within some exotic and conditioned imagery than to engage with them as real people with real needs, like any other human population today.

No, to me the answer to both the generals as well as the Orientialist-leaning practitioners is that the Burmese people require the same rights, liberties, and freedoms as the rest of the world. And as greater opportunities and perhaps even worldly allurements start to seep in as a result, the way to preserve Buddhism is not to enforce some state of artificial paralysis which fears and avoids everything from outside, but rather to look at how the timeless teachings of the Buddha can yet again be adapted for the real lives and circumstances of a people and a culture. After all, the Buddha never taught resisting or avoiding the world we live in, he taught the freedom that comes from detaching and restraining one’s senses.

The good news is that the need to adapt and find updated methods of incorporating these teachings is certainly not a new skill within Myanmar by any stretch of the imagination! Burmese Buddhist history is chalk full of great masters continuing to break the mold and apply the Buddha’s teachings in new and innovative ways. From Ledi Sayadaw to Mahasi Sayadaw in former times, and from Sayadaw U Tejaniya to Thabarwa Sayadaw today, just to name a few, the reinvention of these teachings of liberation continues to find its way to relevance in a modern age.