Episode 9, Myanmar Dhamma Diaries: A Sobering Experience in Ingyinbin
Up until now, our podcasts have been long-form, sit-down interviews with a single guest, in which we explore their personal life, spiritual practice, and overall experience in Burma. Often during the course of an interview, a personal anecdote relevant to something shared by the guest comes to our mind, but it would take away time and focus from the guest to go into it. Because we feel that these anecdotes would also have interest for our listeners, we’ve decided to try something different by building whole installments around the sharing of these personal stories. We are calling these new podcasts the “Myanmar Dhamma Diaries.”
While each podcast episode is produced as stand-alone content, we feel there is also much value to be gained in exploring their commonalities. We hope that after hearing these new Dhamma Diaries, listeners familiar with the previous guest-focused podcasts may be moved to reflect on some of the shared threads and themes from those earlier shows, and we will certainly be sure to identify them where appropriate.
And with that, let’s get to the crux of this particular story, which begins when a European businessman checks into an Airbnb room that Joah was managing at his Yangon condo. Because the rules Joah set had required guests to follow the five precepts and his meditation background was described in the profile, most of those who stayed there had self-selected to be in this specific environment. But not this one!
After a brief morning check-in, he left, and returned at night, intoxicated beyond belief: soaked from head to feet, belligerently arguing with a taxi driver, leering at Joah’s partner, until he finally stepped into a trashcan and fell onto his bed, passed out. Needless to say, they were shocked, appalled, and unsure what to do. The next day, a foreign monk happened to be visiting, and Joah left to give the two time to talk together. At this time, the guest tentatively admitted to the monk that he knew he was on his last legs in battling addiction and alcoholism, and because of the slant of Joah’s Airbnb description, had especially chosen to stay there as a kind of last cry for help. Learning this, Joah arranged for another monk (who happened to be Zach, at that time in robes) to come over the following day, and introduce Dhamma to someone so obviously in need.
The guest was interested, and expressed a desire to learn more about Buddhist practice. After an in-depth discussion, it was decided the best place for him to start would be the very small village of Ingyinbin in northern Myanmar, at Webu Sayadaw monastery, where Ashin Mandala resided. However, they didn’t know whether this venerable monk, accustomed to welcoming only very serious foreign meditators whose ethical practice and overall comportment were of the highest standard, would open the monastery to care for a raging alcoholic with no Buddhist or meditative training. But when they contacted Ashin Mandala, his answer turned out to be, absolutely!
With plans thus made, the concern was managing to keep the guest “on the wagon” until they could get him to that small village, as he was scarcely able to go 24 hours without succumbing to drink. A plan was hatched where there would be no opportunity for him to fall off: They sent him by bus to Mandalay, and U Mandala sent a car to meet him there. Already that was extremely generous of U Mandala, as Mandalay is four hours from Ingyinbin, and meditators who reach there normally go from Mandalay by another bus to one of two smaller but much closer towns. Once at the monastery, U Mandala cared lovingly for this complete stranger in need. His first “meditation” instructions were simply to wake up at 4 a.m. and sweep the monastery. This led to being asked to casually begin awareness of the breath while sweeping, then to short sittings lasting a few minutes, and eventually in formal sitting meditation, practicing ānāpāna.
The guest came back to Yangon knowing for the first time that there was, in fact, a way out of his suffering. His intimate friendship with U Mandala continues to this day, and he regards Ingyinbin as a refuge he can return to when he needs time to catch—and observe—his breath.
Following the story, Zach and Joah spend some time discussing the lessons of this story. There are many! They contrast this anecdote to the experience of Dhamma in the West, where firmer lines are drawn between “non-meditators”, “meditators”, and “serious meditators,” and organizations often only serve a very small subset of the population. They marvel at the opportunities the Golden Land affords in being able to provide a diverse range of spiritual experiences that can meet the practitioner where he or she is at, as opposed to the more general and rigid one-size-fits-all model of the West. They also observe how in the West, senior teachers often function as “gatekeepers,” determining which students are qualified for different spiritual experiences and courses, whereas there is greater spiritual independence and maturity possible with the dhammic buffet available in Myanmar.