Episode #145: Meditation on Revolution
“Who am I?” Valerie remembers asking herself this question while sitting in a meditation hall at Aung Lan Monastery late one evening. “Why are we seeking and loving so much about having this attraction and attachments? What is going on? And so, that's how I started out.”
Born in Myanmar to a Chinese Muslim family, Valerie converted to Buddhism, deeply moved by the concept of karma and the possibility of breaking free from endless life cycles. After becoming a Buddhist, her initial practice was with rosary beads, but she was intrigued to learn meditation. Now living in California, she had a chance meeting with Shwe Taung Gone Sayadaw from Panditarma, who encouraged her to focus on the rising and falling of her stomach. Later on, she met with teachers at the local Pa Auk branch who taught her breath meditation. But neither method stuck. Eventually, on a trip back to Myanmar, she visited the monastery of Aung Lan Sayadaw, who teaches in the Thae Ingu tradition. He told her something that immediately impacted her, saying, “I can teach you how to die, how to peacefully die in your mind.”
However, as in many cases with spiritual journeys, Valerie’s path was far from linear. As appealing as this offer was to her, she passed up taking a course at that time. “I came back to the United States, and I totally forgot about it! I'm doing my own thing, and I'm having fun.” In her case, “fun” meant returning to the beauty pageant circuit, where she had already won 12 titles in the US and two internationally. While also modeling, she was employed as manager of a commercial lending bank. Valerie’s life was more than full. But when an acquaintance she was due to meet suddenly died, her life priorities were shaken, and her earlier conversation with Aung Lan Sayadaw came to mind. So she immediately made contact with one of his disciples, and being promised acceptance to an upcoming 30-day course, flew back to Myanmar in 2018.
It was excruciating! From back pain to intense heat, she didn’t know how she would manage. Additionally, she came to know why the Thae Ingu method has a reputation as one of the most austere meditation traditions in Myanmar. Sitting with 600 other yogis and receiving instructions not to move a muscle for the duration of the sitting, the pain was unbearable, with sittings stretching up to five hours, and in lotus posture, no less. Moreover, each prohibited movement brought an admonition from a nun who, holding a loudspeaker, would call Valerie out by name in the middle of the sitting, and remind her not to budge. In some cases, they would even tie the meditator’s crossed legs together so that any movement was impossible. The pain became so severe she began to fear death was imminently approaching. Still, she stayed determined to finish the course— yogis who drop out are blacklisted and prohibited from re-applying to any Thae Ingu course.
And through the teacher’s guidance, she was eventually able to detach from her pain, and watch it as an observer. Her mind sharpened, she delighted in the subtle detail that only a penetrative mind is able to reach. She began to sit for longer and longer periods, examining the origin of suffering and the identification with body, and was soon skipping meals altogether, as she could also apply this newly honed awareness on the experience of hunger. At times being the only yogi remaining in the meditation hall, she gradually experienced a greater detachment and eventual dissolution of self. This led to an examination of the four elements, or mahābhūta.
After several days of ānāpāna meditation, she was taught “sleeping meditation” (Hlyaung Kamahtan, လျှောင်းကမ္မဠန်း) which is the basis for the practice of death contemplation, where one reflects on how one’s body will appear as a corpse.
The course had a profound effect on Valerie, as she discovered when she returned home. “Before going into meditation, I loved to put on makeup. I liked to put in fake lashes everyday,” she recalls. But it wasn't just mere aesthetics that were affected, it was also daily cleaning activities, such as brushing teeth or taking showers, as Valerie was contemplating the inevitable decay and repulsiveness of the body and its functions; in other words, why spend precious time cleaning something that is bound to decay anyway? “This is not your body. This is not you,” she remembers thinking. “So it was really strange that after I came from the meditation, I stopped modeling, I stopped going to the beauty pageant, and I found out that there is no meaning for me.” This sudden change also resulted in interventions from management at her bank, who reminded her she needed to show up to work presentable and professional.
Her friends also became alarmed at what they misunderstood as an unhealthy and unbalanced disengagement from the world, and wanted to find a way to help her reconnect with what they felt were the joys that life has to offer. They picked a place they were sure could accomplish this: a male strip club. But even though Valerie found the dancers handsome, and couldn’t say that she didn’t feel desire, she noted how sati, or mindfulness, kicked in. As a result, she could not see past the bones, blood, sinews, mucous, and other basic features of the entertainers dancing before her. “I couldn't see them as a beauty,” she remembers thinking. So powerful was her Thae Ingu practice that even if a woman had “beautiful curves, I now see everyone as a skeleton. That's what I'm seeing.”
Fortunately, Valerie’s husband supported her spiritual growth, and even had the opportunity to learn meditation course from Aung Lan Sayadaw when he came to host a course in the US. Because there is no English translation available for this technique, Valerie served as translator.
Her life now finding a greater meaning through Dhamma, a new twist came to her path: the military coup. Valerie had harbored no illusions about the cruelty and inhumanity of her country’s military. In 1988, she took part in the democracy uprising, and barely escaped with her life. Walking among thousands of peaceful demonstrators in downtown Yangon on Anawrahta Road one day, she recalls how soldiers opened fire with a machine gun, and dozens of bodies began dropping into a pit off the side of the road. Although not hit, Valerie fell with them, hiding among the corpses as soldiers continued to kill anyone still living. Six hours later, she emerged, covered in blood.
Of course, while Valerie could not condone the actions of the military, she was able to apply her deep spiritual values to her relationship with those horrors. “If you ask me, ‘Do I really hate military dictators?,’ I have no hate. I don’t hate them. But I disagree with what they’re doing,” she says, noting how their actions have kept the country stuck in decades-long economic collapse and ethnic strife.
That said, as dedicated a meditator as she had become, and as deep as her spiritual journey had taken her, Valerie found herself unable to sit at all following the coup. “Revolution is related to meditation,” she says. “With my experience, I tried to meditate every single night since February 2021. I couldn't do it, because my mind is just scattered around. After about 15 to 30 minutes my body becomes solidified. I can’t move it, because my mind is just moving everywhere. ‘Oh my God, what's going to be happening now? Oh my God, how many people die now?’ And do you think will you be able to peacefully meditate? I don't think so!”
Valerie began speaking out around the Bay Area about the situation in Myanmar. She went to school boards, met local politicians, organized protests, and attended political conferences. Through contacts, she even reached out to people in high levels in the US military, and attended a Zoom meeting that included President Biden, who noted with sadness that Burmese children now in harm’s wage are the age of his granddaughter.
Through her increasing involvement with the democracy movement, Valerie had to face, yet again, the tension between the spiritual and the worldly, this time from the other direction. In other words, while before she learned to conform her worldly life to her spiritual frame, now it was the opposite. “Isn't meditation about the truth? So what is the truth happening in my country regarding the revolution?” she asks. “The truth happening right now is the fascist military dictator is actually trying to control the country and create a miserable environment to live in.” While fully aware that the ultimate cause of suffering is inside, Valerie also feels strongly that seeking out a peaceful inner life is not possible in the wake of the excruciating harm and brutality the military is inflicting on the Burmese people, which is causing so much palpable suffering.
In fact, while Valerie emphasizes the importance of sati in all aspects of life, in the present, challenging circumstances she feels compelled to choose between prioritizing spiritual or worldly liberation; she herself has “chosen revolution.” Valerie continues, “I want to do what the right thing for my people. But again, I'm aware of myself, what I'm doing.” Her reasoning is that the singular cause of so much intense suffering on the outside needs to be taken care of in the short term before conditions can again arise that support widespread meditation practice in the future, when peace eventually does return to the Golden Land. But for now, anyway, it is simply not possible for her and many others to meditate knowing that much turmoil and anguish are happening outside, knowing what the military is inflicting on her country.
For now, her present pathway is clear. “We will try to support those people who are inside the country and fighting for the people, who are fighting for fairness, and fighting for the truth.”