Episode #58: Whatever It Takes
Thaw Htet is juggling a lot these days. He’s got an active donation platform. He’s established two free medical clinics, no easy task as the military targets doctors and tries to prevent access to any health care. He’s overseen the supplies to several shield teams, the protesters who stand on the front lines of the crackdowns. And he’s created two Facebook pages that have gone viral in the Burmese online community, in which he counters government propaganda and helps reinforce the Burmese people’s morale.
What is all the more remarkable is that Thaw Htet, now playing a critical role in supporting the movement, was once barely able to even take care of himself. He admits to suffering various forms of mental duress, and his depression became so severe that he twice attempted to take his own life. Another time, when he believed he had contracted HIV, he slipped into a dark state, eventually starting up a meditation practice in hopes of finding greater mental stability. Fortunately, practicing with this fear in mind resulted in real insights. He notes: “I was holding too much onto myself, like onto my body, and on the privileges and happiness that I gained from doing something. Because all those are temporary. The true happiness is not peaceful, but it’s being mindful. At those times, I was really happy, even though I was staying in a place of HIV positive patients. But I was okay with that.”
That Htet balanced his spiritual Buddhist practice with self-help, business-related advice from Western writers, in particular from Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Thaw Htet was especially inspired by Covey’s paradigm of evaluating life decisions as either falling in a “Circle of Influence” or a “Circle of Concern;” Covey advises that one should only take action when events fall within the former. Thaw Htet dedicated himself to this advice even before the coup, following it as he worked his way through business school, found employment as a digital marketer, and set up his own marketing agency. These days, combining this no-nonsense American business advice with the Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness and ethics have certainly given him a broad palate to draw on when deciding on his plan of action since the coup.
Thaw Htet does not see himself as belonging to an organized religion. “I prefer to identify or define myself as a person, who will take any kind of good ways of teaching from any kind of religions.” Towards these ends, he’s found great value in the act of confession that Catholics take part in, and the respect and commitment to rules that he sees among Muslims.
He did not always hold such a progressive attitude, however, and vulnerably recalls the superiority with which he once held Buddhism—a view that was encouraged and reinforced by the military regime, which actively sought to rule by sowing distrust and creating divisions between the different ethnic and religious groups. Towards these ends, Thaw Htet has come to recognize his inherent privilege in being a Bamar Buddhist male, and his eyes and heart have opened to the suffering and biases that the minority communities in his country have faced for decades. For him, now is very much the time to strike out towards a new future. “For the first time in Myanmar history, all of us are united. Like Kayin, Kachin, like all the ethnic groups! We are talking to each other right now,” he comments.
This question of unity is a central one for Thaw Htet as he wonders whether the nonviolent movement can be sustained. On one hand, he feels that a nonviolent strategy can only be maintained if peoples from all backgrounds are completely committed. Personally, as an adherent of the Buddha’s teachings, he does recognize the role that fear of karma plays in this evaluation, and on an individual level does not feel he can himself engage in any violence. At the same time, he also feels that the people have an inherent right to organize in self-defense, and wonders aloud if committing to taking human life could be the only way to stop the threat of fascism. He knows there are no easy answers, and either option will have grave consequences.
Like many other Burmese, much of his recent attention has gone towards guarding against spies infiltrating local communities, who inform on neighbors, which result in the destruction of property, arrest warrants, imprisonment, torture, and even death. He notes that the presence of spies in Thilon village brought about a full-blown siege of the small community, causing the 3,000 inhabitants to flee into the forest. This news has been especially distressing to meditators, as this is the home of Thilon monastery, the site where the 19th century meditation master, Thilon Sayadaw, became one of the forerunners of the mindfulness movement, creating the lineage that was eventually handed down to Mahasi Sayadaw.