A Monk Educates the Military
It is challenging to describe just how extraordinary the recent talk was from Kyun Pin Sayadaw U Jatila. A meditation master who had to endure two days of constant assaults from both the Myanmar ground forces and air force, he did not run away when the soldiers eventually came shooting and burning onto his center grounds; rather, he directly approached the soldiers to confront their bad actions. Here is one excerpt in which the Sayadaw describes his encounters with the army officers. As Sayadaw is now helping to organize a monastic response to the humanitarian disaster unfolding across his country, please consider a donation to help with his efforts.
“In such ways you behave like this, entering the meditation center, carrying the weapons. Two days of firing at the air, in this meditation center, you only offer fear.”
“At that time, I was staying in my kūti [ed. meditation hut]. When I opened my doors, the soldier was sitting in front of my kūti; he was there ready to shoot. So, I asked him, ‘Why are you coming here?’ He said they would like to clean in this area.
‘What do you mean you want to clean this area?’ They said because of their order from the higher official. So they would like to clean.
I told him, ‘This is a meditation center; we don't have any weapons or any unwholesomeness [ed. actually said ‘evil,’ likely from pāpakammam] toward the Myanmar military. We are just doing saddhamma [ed. means ‘Dhamma best practice’] work, doing the meditation. We have 40 yogis, Myanmar yogis. So, I asked him, ‘What do you want to do?’
He said he would like to search for the democratic fighters in every kūti. I said, ‘No, we don't have any democratic fighters, you will not find any person or any weapon here.’ So, then he talked to the higher official. The higher official then came to my kūti.
I told him, ‘In such ways you behave like this, entering the meditation center, carrying the weapons. Two days of firing at the air, in this meditation center, you only offer fear. So you cannot do like this; you have to understand, this is a meditation center, even though you are looking for the democratic fighters.’ I told him that the Myanmar army needs to have more education on how to handle this kind of problem.
Of course, there are democratic fighters against the Myanmar military, but in my village there are 120 families living there. Some people are over 90, 94, 95; some are over 80, 85, 87. Some are over 70; some very, very young children, one year old, six months, two years old; so, you cannot do like this. Many people are innocent; they are just doing their farmer work. They don't do any anything against the Myanmar military. So, if you do like this, it’s such a waste of your army, and you will not be successful with your mission. So, that's why the Myanmar military has to be more educated, understanding how to handle these kinds of problems. If you do not understand how to handle this kind of problem, then the problem will be growing more, and you will have more problems. Until you have that, you cannot solve those kinds of problems.”