The Buddha and Albert Einstein

The latest cartoon by the Burmese artist JMP is especially critical, perhaps passing the boundaries transgressed of even his past images. The translation:

Albert Einstein: "I have come here by time machine, please come to Myanmar and teach the Dhamma."

The Buddha: "Enough! I am about to enter parinibbana. You will have to invite some other phayar, dayaka gyi."

["monks who are hiding"] is written in the far right side.

Some more context: "Dayaka gyi" refers to a lay supporter, or the words that a monk speaks when addressing a lay person in Burmese.

"Parinibbana" is the passing away of the Buddha, when he enters nibbana.

"Phayar" is harder to translate, which is why we have left the original wording. It can refer to a monk, the Buddha, a Sayadaw, a pagoda, and more.

In a country where past recent depictions of the Buddha has run afoul of religious laws and and landed people with jail time and hefty fines, this is quite a daring image indeed. And it is a hard image to parse exactly what the artist means, although he certainly seems to be pointing at a criticism that contemporary monks in Burma are either not qualified, or not interested, in bringing the real Dhamma of the Buddha.

And this is an opinion that in its literal sense is most certainly untrue, as many can attest to monks of great wisdom and humility throughout the country. But if we remove the literal sense of interpreting this cartoon, we find that JMP is expressing his dissatisfaction that monks today are not living up to the standard set by the Buddha, which is a theme we see in much of his overall work, and which is coming to be expressed more by Buddhists across Myanmar in the wake of the coup.