Thabarwa Monastery: A Product of Freedom
“The former military government would not allow the writers to write about the trouble of the people in their country. So because of the free press, people had a chance to know the truth about their country and people.”
To what extent is Burmese Buddhist affected by who happens to be ruling the country at the moment? An erroneous claim that some Western meditators have expressed is that this is a question that doesn’t really matter to the practitioner, as Buddhism will flourish regardless. Yet this spiritual bypassing is far from true. This month alone, we’ve already seen countless examples of alarming indications already in progress.
While we’ve explored these examples in other posts, I want to take a moment and go back to the very first interview we ever released, with Thabarwa Sayadaw. Recalling the history of this center is a vivid reminder of just how greatly a monastery is influenced by the outside world.
In telling his story, Thabarwa Sayadaw describes how his center became not just a place for yogis to practice formal meditation, but also a site where thousands of people living on the margins of society could also come and be safe. Yogis were taught how to practice in the real world in a detached way, and would spend part of their days caring for these residents. Today, Thabarwa is modernizing the Buddha’s teachings in his country, and around the world, by making them relevant and inclusive in a way that no other Buddhist teacher has ever attempted. And this dynamic growth has only been possible due to the relative freedoms that began emerging, as Sayadaw shares.
Indeed, before the country opened up and when the military was still in control, the center’s very existence was at risk, as Thabarwa Sayadaw describes:
”A government officer reported that the Thabarwa center is opening illegally and making construction without permit. It was really dangerous, because many people were staying at the center. And yet because of that report, the government decided to close the center. So they came to the center, many officers from different environments: the police and other authorized persons, from townships and also the authorized monks.”
Sayadaw goes on to describe that they were able to just barely able to avoid the center being condemned, but they had to operate discreetly and were worried that any day might be their last. This was all to change, however, when the country did eventually open up. This extended excerpt illustrates how the center’s growth is tied directly to the freedoms and personal liberties of the country:
Interviewer: You had mentioned something very interesting, that when the country started to open up sometime around 2012, the availability of freedoms in the press helped your center to survive. So can you say more about that? How did the free press help you?
Thabarwa Sayadaw: Before the free press, there was no news about Thabarwa center. Although there was a Thabarwa in Than Lyin, the local authorities cannot report to the government because if they report, we cannot survive. But they understood me, they knew what we are doing there was really good for the people in need. That's why they just allowed us to do by ourselves.
Interviewer: You mentioned that when the country started to open up, newspapers had more control over what they wrote. That was a major transformation in your center’s activity. I think you said 2012 was when they started to open up, and in 2014 you actually felt safe and some kind of stability.
Thabarwa Sayadaw: In the beginning of these articles about the Thabarwa Center, the message was wrong, because they had no idea about this kind of meditation center. That's why they cannot understand very well and they are writing about us like the other meditation centers, and they wrote the same about us as other traditional meditation centers. But time after time, more and more journalists came to the center and came to know more about Thabarwa, and they can write effectively. So in 2014, a famous journalist wrote about Thabarwa center, but he wrote on behalf of the people who are staying here. He was writing on behalf of the people who take refuge in the center. So it was really effective and reached many people. Then because of that article, some other journalists and TV stations reported about the center, continuing one after another and more and more people then came to learn about us and support us.
The former military government would not allow the writers to write about the trouble of the people in their country. So because of the free press, people had a chance to know the truth about their country and people.
Interviewer: So as the country opened up, we know about the effect this had on businesses, imports, technology, education, and some of these other things. But this is very interesting, because you're saying that the effect that the country opening up had on the monasteries was also very profound! And that your monastery was actually doing good works before the country opened up, but no one was able to know about it. And support was very difficult. And you were in a very stressful situation of not knowing if you could last another day! But once that opening happened, it allowed actual factual reporting of what was happening. And once people started to learn about it and know about it, they also wanted to support it and that the society becoming freer was of great help for you in the survival and stability of the monastery.