The Tatmadaw's Buddhism

With many independent news outlets being banned in Myanmar and reporters being targeted, it has become increasingly difficult to get accurate information about the crisis, especially concerning matters within the regime. This is compounded by the propaganda being spread through the various state media organs, which are routinely decried as being fake news. However, once in a great while, there is some truth to be found in these reports, as illustrated in the following story.

First, the facts—or at least as close as we can get from reading state media sources, such as this article on senior monks meeting last week in Nay Pyi Daw, or this one on the General and his wife offering them a meal. These articles detail how for the past several years, General Min Aung Hlaing has overseen the construction of a massive, marble seated Buddha image in Nay Pyi Daw’s Dakhinathiri Township. The image depicts the Buddha in the “Bhumi Phassa Mudra”, which symbolizes the moment just after the Buddha’s awakening when he requested the earth to bear witness to his great accomplishment. Four objectives were established for the construction project: “showing the flourishing Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar to the world, ensuring national peace and stability, attracting local and foreign pilgrims to the Buddha Image thereby contributing to regional development, and ensuring national development.”

State media boasts that this would be the biggest marble Buddha statue in the world. The Angelo Mining company donated the marble to the Shwe Foundation, which then carved it out according to recommendations from Shwe Thuwin Sayadaw and Sitagu Sayadaw, who also visited the site last year to personally survey the progress.

The transport of the statue from the quarry to its final site alone took months of careful planning, as one article describes: “From the marble mountain in Madaya Township to Myaung River, the marble rock was conveyed after digging a canal with a volume of 92,507 pits and uploaded to a barge. In the first stage, it was carried from there to Hsimeegon Port in Myingyan Township along the Ayeyawady River. After reduction in weight at the port, it was conveyed to Nay Pyi Taw by modular trailer along Mandalay-Yangon Expressway. So far, there have been five times of conveyance to Nay Pyi Taw and two more times are left. A total of 7,632 tons have to be carried.”

Even more construction is planned surrounding the Buddha image. Rest houses, museums, water fountains, Dhamma halls, and more will be incorporated into the complex. The total cost for the project is estimated to be over 9 million dollars, for which they are inviting Buddhists to contribute.

A formal ceremony related to the statue project took place on March 26th, one day before Armed Forces Day, and senior monks from the Maha Saṅgha Nikayas were in attendance. Surprisingly, Bamaw Sayadaw was one of the guests. Several weeks ago he was reported to have been detained by the military after giving a speech that subtly denounced the coup. The story continues to be unconfirmed, and there is no explanation as to why he was present there. State media reported that the Sayadaw “called for ensuring the Buddha image is firm and revered as it will become the biggest.”

That day, the General and his wife were granted religious titles in the compound of the Uppatasanti Pagoda. Then, a ceremony began with a three-time recitation of Namo Tasso, with senior monks leading generals and other attendees in taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha. State media reported that “the congregation led by the Senior General and wife received Five Precepts,” following which “religious verses” were recited and Dhamma talks were delivered.

The following excerpt gives some description of the talks: “Thanlyin Minkyaung Sayadaw said it was a perfect and detailed explanation and stressed the need for the face of the image to be revered so that pilgrims can pay homage to it respectfully. He said this was pointed out because it is a more meritorious deed to see the revered face though paying homage is directed towards the attributes of Lord Buddha. On behalf of the title-recipient Sayadaws, Bago Myoma Monastery Sayadaw Bhaddanta Gandama said the arrangements are perfect but it is necessary to make the image firmest and most durable. He then gave advice on efforts for the propagation of charity and the Sasana.”

Then, food was served in emerald bowls, which was offered personally by the General and his wife, with fresh fruit and flowers laid on the tables.

These are the facts of the event as reported by state media. And if you’ve managed to get through this section without retching, then you’re already ahead of me. But let’s take a minute to examine the significance of this Buddha image and the ceremony commemorating it.

Before we go any further, let’s get the obvious out of the way: the detailed description of the above ceremonies comes off as so bizarre that it literally feels like an alternative, Twilight Zone reality. Obvious to any good Buddhist or meditator, the typical, familiar themes are all there: serving monastics, listening to Dhamma discourses, pledging to follow the precepts, planning a pilgrimage site, etc. The jarring disconnect comes when one realizes that this is all taking place when hundreds of innocents are being murdered throughout Myanmar—on the streets and in their own homes—some even very near to where this reception took place. What is more, many of the participants in this ceremony are directly responsible for this carnage! So in this context, precept-taking appears absurd, as is the expectation that those Burmese Buddhists now being terrorized will want to visit this future pilgrimage site (let alone offer a donation). And how does one make sense of the reported discussion about “the need for the face of the image to be revered so that pilgrims can pay homage to it respectfully”? Frankly, all this is just so farcical and freakish one doesn’t even know where to begin to make sense of the cognitive dissonance.

Yet as hard as it may be, it is certainly advantageous to try to understand how one’s opponent perceives reality. Regardless of how vile we may sometimes find the words and deeds of others, it is always helpful to take the time to examine how they resonate within their own space, on their own terms. In this case, this approach dovetails with answering one of the most common questions that the foreign practitioner community often asks about the situation in Myanmar, some version of, “How can a Buddhist leader who believes in karma, and accepts hell as a very real thing, go on to commit these atrocities?” So as easy as it would be simply to demonize the perpetuators, let us instead try to understand their thinking.

At the core of this belief system is an assumption that karma can be cleverly manipulated, especially by those who, because of past paramis, have managed to acquire great power in this life. In this belief, one is able to engage in all manner of immoral activities so long as one lives long enough to eventually counterbalance that with acts of enormous merit—which, of course, the supremely powerful are often able to pull off. Among many other examples in Burma-related literature, this was a core plot device in George Orwell’s Burmese Days, in which the corrupt Burmese official, U Po Kyin, justified his bad behavior to his devout wife by assuring her that he would build a score of pagodas in Bagan in his old age. Spoiler alert to a book written last century: the ironic twist at the end of the book is that U Po Kyin dies prematurely, after which Orwell reveals that he has descended to the Buddhist Hell Realm. Back to the present day, we see this same mentality in the example of this giant marble Buddha image. Now, however, the counter-action is not carried out after unwholesome actions have been performed. Instead, it is carried out while atrocities are being perpetrated on the community.

U Sarana notes that while bad results accruing from unskillful actions can never be erased, he affirms that the above perspective is accepted as conventional thinking by many Buddhists in Myanmar, particularly those in the military. The creative interpretation comes from an oft-repeated metaphor (from the Anguttara Nikaya 3.100) in which one is asked to picture mixing a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water, and then tossing another tablespoon of salt in the Ganges. With water representing meritorious deeds, we see how the same amount of salt ruins a glass of water, but cannot taint the Ganges. While U Sarana points to other suttas that warn against this view of counteracting bad karma (e.g., Majima Nikaya 135), he acknowledges that this former interpretation is predominant in Myanmar today, where one pays less attention to the salt (or unskillful actions) and more attention to living long enough and being powerful enough to drop the salt in ever larger bodies of water (e.g. the skillful actions).

U Sarana further notes that the Buddha was very clear that merit does not accrue by dint of the size of the offering being given, but rather by the volition with which it was offered, as well as the proportion of that offering in relation to a person’s wealth. He referenced as an example the famous tale of the milk pudding offered to the Buddha just after his enlightenment. This is why poor villagers offering even just a flower at a shrine, or a spoonful of rice, are making substantial merit.

And it’s an open question just how meritorious it really is by definition to build large, lavish pagodas and Buddha images, especially as a “make merit quick” scheme. This kind of “fast merit” thinking (or as one Burmese friend called it, “Karma as metaphysical wealth”) is out of step with traditional interpretations of the Pāḷi canon.

We can more accurately understand the actions of the military leaders—commanding heinous violence to control the country while at the same time performing what they believe to be enormously meritorious actions—as trying to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, even if their merit-making project doesn’t erase their ongoing sins, they count on the fact that it can at least counterbalance them.

This also explains how General Min Aung Hlaing is able to conceptualize and portray himself as a generous, humble, devout Buddhist donor even as he lights the match that burns the country down around him, destroying thousands of lives and ensuring a bleak future for his people. Only in this way can he so openly and confidently gloat over the proposed marble Buddha project—like Trump might over a new golf course—giddy that he has all the bases covered.

This fusion of prophecy, superstition, and carefully curated textual interpretations combines to provide, in real time, the rationale for counterbalancing karma, which allows leaders guilty of innumerable cruelties an “out” as well as the promise of personal spiritual salvation.

One may rightly wonder: what role do monks play in this mad thinking? Truth be told, an enormous amount of journalism and historical scholarship would be needed to properly answer this question. One can certainly wonder how Sitagu Sayadaw’s many-year involvement with this statue (and its associated meritorious benefits) might affect his current view on the coup, just as one can wonder why Bamaw Sayadaw (if it is true) would be supportive of such a statue after having initially condemned the coup.

In the end, rather than try to offset their heinous acts with gaudy projects, perhaps the General and his minions should take a step back to ponder the truth in this saying, and start acting accordingly: “Although a fool associates with a wise man throughout his whole life, he does not understand the Dhamma, just as a ladle does not know the taste of soup.”