A Thabarwa Whistleblower comes forward
The following essay submission was sent anonymously by a former volunteer at Thabarwa’s center.
“I am a Buddhist myself but I could never fall for him. People were too obsessed over him. I tried to listen to his sermons, I fell asleep every time. He was on his phone constantly, totally disrespectful... talking about attachments.”
As a former volunteer of Thabarwa, Ashin Otthamasara is a shady guy and I have never respected him. He's a cult leader. I was volunteering as a nurse at Thabarwa. It was a bit odd to take care of patients' health while in the same room, monks and nuns would tell with a microphone how ok it is to just let go and die! That you have a mouth tumour because you deserve it. And so on. Whenever Otthamasara visited the village, people would treat him like God. Lots of money were collected. Looooots of money. And food. Clean food. Please remember this. I am a Buddhist myself but I could never fall for him. People were too obsessed over him. I tried to listen to his sermons, I fell asleep every time. He was on his phone constantly, totally disrespectful... talking about attachments. Hungry people queueing with buckets used for floor washing to get them filled with food. While for Otthamasara and the monks around him, the food was served straight from metal pots to their own clean metal pots.
They all stayed at the top floor of a compound called White Hospital. The cleanest space of the whole Thabarwa. Call them stupid. We (and the patients even more) were exposed to everything. We didn't know we were visiting tuberculosis patients, sometimes showered them too. No precautions besides gloves. Nowadays in my home country whenever I go to a new workplace as a nurse, I need to do a follow up x scan to see whether t-bacteria has grown in my lungs, since I had to mention I was in contact with such patients abroad.
Now, I understand everything is free there but they live still very, very miserably. There were people living in concrete huts, a bit further from the hospital, where "living" is not REALLY the right word. Once a man took me and my friend to an elderly, demented woman. She "lived" in a concrete hub which has no furniture at all. Not even a mattress. No belongings, nothing. She pooped in a corner. Had rabies, wounds everywhere, flies and maggots. The space was about 1x2 metres square.
And the monks come to tell her she must accept her situation and meditate? They could take her totally to proper hospital for treatment with the money they have. The whole situation pissed me off so much.
Also I would like to mention how distorted their view on religion is, so much it puts into danger everyone around them. A volunteer had mentioned he had staphylococcus infection in his leg. Had yellow eyes, so probably hepatitis too. And guess what. Treat it with Burmese herbs, it goes away! The nun he was following had given him an unguent which claimed cured his staph infection, along with meditation of course. He was known for drinking his own urine and showering in it, washing his eyes with it. The dormitory had at some point bottles with his own urine laying around. So they really didn't care about anybody's wellbeing. Nor about this guy's mental health I guess either because he really needed proper assistance.
I am aware this sounds straight up like a rant about this place. Of course there was something good too. The normal, everyday people who really wanted to do good deeds and help the others instead of letting them live in misery. Some volunteers were true gold. And a few villagers also joined the volunteers, offering physical help, taking us around and teaching us Burmese, translating between us and the patients. All of this was of course good. But it just couldn't get any further than that. There was no step forward, for example even the simplest thing of putting a door to the hospital (which was removed) was not understood. The multitude of stray, ill dogs climbing the stairs up and peeing around could have been kept away by just having a door with a handle.
This is my tribute to Otthamasara's dreamy place which is actually a health hazards filled place that meditation can't cure alone.