Episode 22: Zaw Win Htet, Part 2
This is the second part of our interview with Zaw Win Htet: part historian, part educator, part tour guide, part Dhamma practitioner. If you were able to hear the first part, you know that he brings a wide-ranging knowledge—in large part through his grandmother’s eyes—across a variety of fascinating topics about the area around Chaung Oo and its history, which includes some of the most revered Dhamma teachers of 20th century Burma. Zaw begins this episode talking about Mohnyin Sayadaw, the most prominent disciple of Ledi Sayadaw, who also hailed from that area.
Following his master’s advice, this renowned monk sat alone in Mohnyin forest in the 1920s undertaking ten austere practices. In those days, the forest was inhabited by a variety of dangerous animals and believed to be haunted, and to work in such difficult conditions, he practiced intensive mettā. A famous story relates how an angry ox once charged him, only to suddenly stop short right before crashing into him, stilled by the monk’s loving kindness. Later, Mohnyin Sayadaw built what is now one of the most famous pagodas in the country, Thanboddhay, near Chaung Oo. Thanboddhay is a structure containing over 500,000 Buddha images, and one of the early prototypes for a lay meditation center. This site is replete with many background stories and subtle details that the normal tourist misses, and Zaw shares some of them; one concerns two oxen who wandered out of nowhere during construction, and ended up “volunteering” to mix cement, apparently wishing to gain merit by providing Dhamma service, and now memorialized as statues. Yet the site was not spared the violence of World War II. Bullet holes still pockmark the older buildings, and a bomb once landed directly on a building that Mohnyin Sayadaw was inside at the time! Terrified and panicked, supporters rushed over the ruins, and to their shock found the Sayadaw calmly walking away from the rubble, unharmed and dusting himself off.
Zaw then switches gears, and describes historic Hpo Win Daung Caves, where Burmese kings have commissioned Buddha statues and murals for centuries. These caves are also where Saya Thet Gyi applied the meditation instructions he received from Ledi Sayadaw. Zaw suggests that Saya Thet may have chosen this place because it was known as a “land of victory” by the weikza (occult) practitioners who had previously lived there. A “land of victory” is an important concept in Burmese Buddhist culture which Zaw explains in detail. He also talks about a tribe of aggressive monkeys currently residing there!
We end by returning to the personal. Currently, one of Zaw’s biggest missions is the development of Nat Taing Monastic school, and he gives an overview of the site’s recent, fascinating history. Not long ago, the village where the school is housed was a wild and notorious place for drinking, fishing, and other precept-breaking behaviors. Education was little-valued and seldom available. On the village monastery grounds, a powerful spirit was said to live, who could make any but the most spiritually resolute on the path of Dhamma go insane. So all in all, not the kind of place you would expect education to take hold! At one point, a local monk invited a monastic scholar to visit in order to give Dhamma sermons and recitations. But once there, and seeing the state of affairs, the scholar made the firm and selfless decision to end his own studies and remain there to serve the local community. The Sayadaw was not chased away either by the malevolent spirit or the town’s poor circumstances. In his own inspiring words, the monk noted that there was no use to fill a vessel that is already full, but rather you should put water in an empty pot. His inner strength and spiritual effort impressed the local population, and he was able to promote education there by establishing the monastic school and teaching the local children for free. Eventually a state official visited and formally recognized the school, and Zaw himself has been instrumental to its continued success.
Well-versed in social media and fluent in English, Zaw has attracted a small stream of dedicated foreigners who have volunteered as well as provided donation to this school, and he in turn teaches these visitors about local history as well as the Buddha’s teachings. This sensitivity and compassion towards foreigners runs in the family; Zaw relates how during the country’s “dark times” prior to its recent opening, bus drivers would refuse to pick up foreign travelers for fear of coming to the government’s attention. But his father and brother, both drivers, refused to give into this fear, instead going out of their way to allow foreign strangers to board and then not charging them any fare to boot. These days, his parents are trustees of Ledi Mu monastery, the organization charged with preserving the teachings of Ledi Sayadaw in the country, and the family is always ready to lend a hand to any visiting foreign yogis in the area. Just as Zaw wishes to help foreigners understand his culture and his faith, so too does he want the rural, poor population to receive a better education, and he’s managed to find a way to accomplish both at once.
Book reference: Journey into Burmese Silence by Marie Byles