Transcript: Episode 6: Ashin Sarana
Following is the full transcript for the interview with Ashin Sarana, which appeared on March 28, 2020. This transcript was made possible by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and has not been checked by any human reader. Because of this, many of the words may not be accurate in this text. This is particularly true of speakers who have a stronger accent, as AI will make more mistakes interpreting and transcribing their words. For that reason, this transcript should not be cited in any article or document without checking the timestamp to confirm the exact words that the guest has really said.
Ashin Sarana 00:02
My perception as a 12 years old boy was that there is a monk and he is peaceful, that he is protecting others and he is peaceful, even though he is attacked by bad people, and I was so inspired by that, and when I was 12, I remember that the thought came to me, I also want to be a monk like that. And then later, when I was 15, I, I started to read books about magic, and from them about psychic powers especially, and from them I learned about Buddhism. So I learned that Buddhist monks attained the highest psychic powers. And for me, this idea that I would have these powers was a kind of like security, you know, like, this will make me safe in my life. You know, if I have the psychic powers. Only later as I studied Buddhism, I found out that there are Even more, even like higher nobler purposes of meditations such as getting free from all mental defilements getting free from Reaper. Considering how impossible that is, the Buddha then such as an even rare it is to be born as a human to get this opportunity to attain enlightenment. And I thought, aha, so, I better do something. I felt that in Myanmar, I will find such monk and I did I did find so many so many exclusive persons in Myanmar, not just monks, but also nuns, and laypeople. And so I came to Myanmar, I met those people. at the current time, I'm basically maintaining what I have experienced in the past because now I'm dedicating more to others. I'm teaching meditation and teaching the world teachings, sharing what I know in several languages and trying to make the Buddha's teachings more accessible to all others so that they are inspired on their path towards meditation toward enlightenment. Ay,
02:41
ay, ay ay. ay. Ay ay. Ay ay. ay.
02:48
ay.
02:50
ay. Ay ay.
02:54
Ay Ay Lisa.
Host 03:15
I first started thinking about this podcast project about a year ago, but until only recently I never imagined that I would be able to actually get it off the ground. The resources were simply not there. However, that all changed when a surprise donation arrived several months back enough to at least fund a short run of episodes. There were suddenly a lot of important questions to consider what recording equipment to use, what kind of radio persona best suited me and what overall format and structure we wanted. And of course, what guest to invite. For the latter question. several names came up right away as obvious must have choices. One of them being Husqvarna. But while many more names came to mind in the days and weeks that followed, he was always near the top of that list. And why wouldn't he be a monk from the Czech Republic who said his site on full ordination in Myanmar from the time he met a Burmese forest monk in Sri Lanka After three years of study at a top Buddhist University there, and he so admired this monastics comportment that husar has only desired destination at the completion of his studies was the golden land husana and I go way back. I was one of the first people to meet him after he arrived here about eight years ago. Although I'd had nearly twice as much Burmese language study as him. Even then our language ability was about equal. But now it's not even a question he gives Dhamma discourses lasting hours to Burmese audiences and oversees his own meditation retreats. husana and I worked closely together for several years on the meditators guide book project. And I can safely say that the information provided in those pages would have taken on a much different shape and certainly much less depth without his involvement. I have rarely met anyone so ravenous for information and so meticulous and categorizing even the smallest details in a comprehensive manner. So the question was not if we should approach to sarena, nor even house Soon to bring him on because the obvious answers were yes and immediately. Rather, the question was how to best use our time together, fully aware that we would be within the breadth and depth of his knowledge in almost any demo related topic, and in whatever direction that conversation would take us. For this reason, I decided I would ask him to come more than once, and felt the best use of time in this initial interview was to learn about what had brought him to the golden land. In our subsequent interviews, we hope to explore pertinent topics related to the passion of practice monasticism, and other contemporary issues relating to Burmese Buddhism. Once grounded in this base of understanding how and why husana ended up here, his later answer should be all the more relevant and impactful, although Sarna has by now become something of a celebrity in Burmese culture. He remains resolute to return to the forest for secluded meditation after the completion of the many projects he's currently working on. His mastery of the Burmese language combined with his expert use of new technologies and Social media and its comprehensive study of the Abbe Dhamma. And especially revered text in Myanmar has elevated him to a unique place not only in contemporary times, but really in all a Burmese Buddhist history. Because when else has a foreigner come from so far away to integrate himself so thoroughly, and not only the local culture and society, but also local religion and monasticism. And since the country has opened to the outside world after many decades of restrictions and challenges, a new chapter in the development of Burmese Buddhism is unfolding. And it's a chapter in which you Sarna will surely be included. It was great to take this chance to sit down and hear what he's been up to until now. Get ready because a lot of good stuff is coming your way. Okay, yeah, great. So I think we we met What year was it? 2012?
Ashin Sarana 06:49
Certainly not 2012, possibly 2013 or 14 2012. I just came to Myanmar.
Host 06:56
Okay, I think I met you pretty soon after you came. I'm not exactly sure how long it was. But so it could have been 2012 2013 13. Sounds about right, actually, actual human. So you when you first came to me, Mr. You were a toy human Initially, I think.
Ashin Sarana 07:10
Yes, I came to Myanmar and right away to show my toy.
Host 07:14
Right. Yeah. And then we you were you were actually human for a while I met you very soon after you came after. And then not long after that started on this guidebook project for meditators and you were instrumental in helping out for the research on that both in terms of books and people and translations and research trips. So we we work together extensively on that.
Ashin Sarana 07:36
Yeah, thank you very much for giving me that great opportunity.
Host 07:39
Yeah, well, your help raised it up a level for sure. meditators who benefited from that definitely can feel grateful for you. And I'm trying to think when was the last time we saw each other you remember?
Ashin Sarana 07:52
I don't
Host 07:54
few years ago anyway, it's good to me now. It was a good excuse to be back in touch. So definitely check has happened in both our lives since then. One of the things I'm curious about to start with is just your your background. You're from Czech Republic Are you from a small town, big city.
Ashin Sarana 08:09
I am from Czech Republic. And I'm from a relatively big city and not from a very big city, but it's certainly not a small city, not a small town, not a village for sure. It's Pilsen. It's in the west of Czech Republic famous for beer, right? And for Skoda
Host 08:29
cars. Okay. Two things. Right. And can you tell us a little bit about your family and upbringing?
Ashin Sarana 08:36
Yes, I, I was born to, to, to a family. I have a younger brother and an older brother, but they have a different a different father. We have the same mother different father, our mom passed away when I was five. And then since then, Even before that, we were separated in one way or another. So before that I was with my younger brother and my older brother was with his father somewhere else. And after our mum passed away, I stayed with, I stayed alone. And my younger brother and older brother both stayed with their father. They had the same father, and I have a different father. So I stayed with that and with him, and then when I was around 12 years actually, I met my brothers again, after like seven years of not meeting them at all right? And it actually, there's so many funny, funny stories. We met in an underground passage, you know, underground or like stores, whatever. And we met there, and I didn't recognize them. Elder Brother, like stopped me and he said, Hey, you are our brother, aren't you? And I say, I don't know you. What should I say? So he recognized you by your official. They recognized me. I didn't match them at all. I thought there are some strangers. So that way we met again and then I studied at a Catholic High School since my age of 1112. So you came from a Catholic background, and not really Catholic, not devoted for sure. My dad believes that there is a God creator, but that's pretty much all of his Christianity. My mother's belief, beliefs are not are not known to me. And when I studied Catholic High School, I learned a lot about Christianity. I tried to I had to like try it out to be Christian. I visited the, the, how would you call it the like, temple room. And there I like dedicated myself to the devotion, but I didn't get any feedback. I didn't get any feedback from from up. And so then I put it aside because there's like the Nothing giving me you know, energy nothing encouraging me. So then I put it aside. And then later when I was 15 I, I started to read books about magic, and from them about psychic powers especially, and from them I learned about Buddhism. So I learned that Buddhist monks attain the highest psychic powers. And thanks to that, I started to learn about Buddhism and I found this teaching on karma once deeds and consequences of deeds, or anata, not self very resonating with me. I felt like wow, this is it like this is the truth. It must be like this and then I knew that this is what I want to follow. So then with these great answers to to my huge questions, which I had already since my age of five, I was so enthusiastic to learn more, but I didn't have any buddies friend at all. Like zero, the most Buddhist friend that I had was somebody who like would lit a candle in front of a Buddha. It was all what was his Buddhism. So then when I was 18, I by email, I emailed a Zen monastery in Czech Republic. And they forwarded that email to their friend who was a Theravada monk, who was originally from Czech Republic. And he forwarded my email that I want to become a monk, to his students who previously were monks, but now they teach meditation in Czech Republic. So then I visited them and I learned meditation from them. And that's how I got to meditation too.
Host 12:37
So So it sounds like your early interest wasn't just even initially in Buddhist meditation or studied but right away wanting to be a monk. Sounds like that was that was very early on. That's true. That's unusual. So for other practitioners, foreign practitioners that are on the path, often there is an early interest in meditation or Buddhism and then eventually that grows into monastics On but for you, it sounds like from the very beginning, initially, the interest in monasticism was always there,
Ashin Sarana 13:06
I wanted to get the psychic powers of like flying in the air, you know, disappearing and appearing and knowing minds of others, and knowing everything that I want to know, that was just so saturated, a, you know, fantastic idea that I will be able to fly and disappear, you know, and do whatever I want. I can multiply myself you know, and know anything I want. This was so good. You know, from the standpoint of somebody who has nothing, you know, who has no wisdom who has no religion and who doesn't know, what is the purpose of life for somebody who has just a dad who goes to work and me, you know, going to school and what's next, you know, no, real dedicated future or purpose. And for me, this idea that I would have these powers was a kind of like security, you know, Like this will make me safe in my life you know if I if I have these psychic powers. So this was one of the main purposes why I wanted to be a monk because the book said that the monks have these psychic powers. So then of course, I need to become a monk to get them only later as I studied Buddhism, I found out that there are even more even like higher nobler purposes of meditation such as getting free from all mental defilements getting free from rebirth. I read quite a number of books and comparing different sources of learning magic, I found out that the Buddhist and the Buddhist monks attain the most powerful psychic powers. That was, of course, my my own conclusion, but that's how it happened.
Host 14:46
Right? And earlier you said that in reading about a Nietzsche not to Duca that that resonated with you right away. What about that message resonated with you?
Ashin Sarana 14:55
For me, not necessarily Onitsha resonated with me, I couldn't understand it. Like when I read a book about Buddhism where they would have asked the monks, so monks, do you think that this body is permanent or impermanent? And then I thought, well, I don't know the answer. And there's the answer. They're impermanent, sir. I thought, ah, I didn't know that. And I thought like, how did they know? Yeah,
Host 15:20
you know, this was a very new concept.
Ashin Sarana 15:22
Yes. And then then, like the Buddha says, well, then if this body is impermanent, it is pleasant or unpleasant. And I thought, Wow, I didn't know this was the answer. And they say, it is unpleasant. Ah, is it really unpleasant? I didn't know that. So I didn't know anything about uninsured. Okay. And with and the idea that it could inspire me or not, is very beyond the, the level of my thinking at that time because I if I couldn't even answer the, like, answer those questions. I couldn't even understand it. Like why why is this body printed? And why wouldn't it be permanent? Why is it like I can understand that it's like impermanent that it needs the one needs to die. so obvious, but like, why would they answer immediately that it's like impermanent? Couldn't there be like some other answer, like partially permanent, permanent or maybe permanent this way permanent, you know, and there was nothing like that. And then I thought, like, what, why would this body be suffering? You know, isn't there so much pleasure? Like when I eat tasty food, and when I enjoy sensual pleasures, why wouldn't it? Why would it be just outright suffering, you know, without any thinking? So I couldn't understand it. So because I couldn't understand it, of course, couldn't inspire me, in any way, addressed me. However, the idea of not self was very important because I was always thinking like, Who am I like, what's this mean? You know, why am I here? You know, when I was five, I was thinking like, maybe somebody sent me from space, you know, and I and I have a purpose here to do something, but I didn't know it's the purpose. So then the idea of not self was like so clear, yes, my body is changing, my mind is changing, my corrector is changing, everything's changing. So not self is the answer. And I liked it so much and for gamma for usually it's known as karma. But in and Bali language, the language which we believe the Buddha spoke, it's known as gamma. And I like the idea that there is a sense behind things, you know, like, why are people poor? Or why are people? Why are people clever? Why are people successful? Why are some No, not successful? Our family was not very rich, like we had food, like we had places everything's fine, but we were not very rich, you know, like, we had car but somebody crashed the car, so we didn't have a car, and so on. And so, so we were not like, like fairytale rage, but we did have what we needed and I was thinking like, there are people at School, you know, who have their car and I mean, whose parents have their car and they have their computer and they play games, and they do these things and those things and they can afford this kind of clothes and those that kind of things. And I cannot afford all those things. And I felt like wow, we are not as rigid as others, you know, comparing answers answer for you. And I was thinking like, why, and then later, I was thinking, like, Why are some people more happy? Some people are not so happy, why do people die earlier? And why do people die later? And this idea of karma makes so much of sense to the world. Now, of course, it doesn't mean that world needs to have sense as many people suggest, like, why should world need to have sense? But so far, everything else makes sense? Like, hey, this hand is attached to the body, it's not attached to the wall, you know, the eye is in in the eye socket, you know, it's not on the nose. So, other things make sense. So why shouldn't other things Make sense? Why shouldn't these things make sense? So I like to live in a in a life, you know, which makes sense. It gives me a direction it gives me hope.
Host 19:08
Great. And you would reference that your initial interest in Dhamma and practice was developing these psychic powers. Is that still a driving force and motivator for your time in robes? No, it certainly is.
Ashin Sarana 19:22
Isn't, is a desirable factor. But it's not the only factor. So if I like, learned that there is a practice, which I will practice, and then like Tomorrow, I will become fully enlightened, but I will have no psychic powers, then I would like it, then I would go for it. Right. So but I don't know, that kind of practice. I need to work hard to get fully enlightened. And it seems that it's the other way It seems that I first need to get get mastered in the concentration in order to have the higher levels of enlightened meant easier available. So, there are four levels of enlightenment. The stream mentor wants return or non returner and our hand our hand is the highest. Now stream mentor wants return need to be perfected in their morality in their ethics. Now for non return for the third level, it is better to practice chance it is better to practice strong concentration because non returner as is explained in a very important meditation guidebook known as the manga. The manga I need to add this explains how monks attained our handheld at that time, you know, in in the third, second first century after Christ,
Host 20:43
okay and Can you remind listeners when the Buddha lived
Ashin Sarana 20:46
that would have left fifth five centuries before Christ and this and we do not have any better guidebook I like this one is so detailed, it explains this. I handed this this so this was
Host 20:57
a guidebook about a meditation guidebook. six to seven centuries after the Buddha's life.
Ashin Sarana 21:01
Yes, yes, about our hands, you know about our hands of that time. So how did our hands of the first second third century after Christ become our hands? And the guidebook gives such fantastic detail that it is certainly worth it, you know, like, I would like to be an arrowhead of that time, you know, and so I liked it so much that I studied it. And of course, there I learned, of course, there I learned that for the third level of enlightenment, it's really good to have a strong concentration because the third level in life enlightenment is characterized by mastery and concentration. The the fourth level of enlightenment is characterized by mastery of wisdom. So, I believe that it is better to practice concentration, if we want to attain the higher attainments.
Host 21:54
So is that your current practice now concentration practices
Ashin Sarana 21:58
at the current time, I'm Basically maintaining what I have experienced in the past because now I'm dedicating more to others. I'm teaching meditation and teaching the Buddha's teachings, sharing what I know in several languages and trying to make the Buddhist teachings more accessible to all others so that they are inspired on their path toward meditation toward enlightenment.
Host 22:24
Right, right. So it's not uncommon for many Westerners to develop some kind of passing interest in Buddhism or meditation. But you've actually gone far beyond this. You've structured your whole life around it. So I'm wondering what was the turning point that made you want to commit to this level of dedication?
Ashin Sarana 22:41
The first point, yeah, one very important point was the Buddha's simile about the one eyed tortoise. So the Buddha teaches that, there is that there, that like as a simile, he such as, like monks, Suppose that there would be a one eyed tortoise at the bottom of the ocean. And there would be a yoke, you know, like the thing that you apply on oxen when you're going to plow. So there would be a yoke thrown over the war. And the yoke would be floating on the surface of the ocean, and there's the wind from the north, south east west. And the one eyed tortoise would, would come up once every hundred years. So, how often will it happen? That this one I tortoise will stick its head through the yoke. And considering how impossible that is, the Buddha then such as an even a rare it is to be born as a human to get this opportunity to attain enlightenment. And I thought, aha, so I better do something.
Host 23:56
So that simile was instrumental and Your decision for to take on the role and the dedication that you have now.
Ashin Sarana 24:05
Absolutely.
Host 24:06
Right. Right. I see. The vocation of being a monastic, it's little understood a little practice in contemporary Western society. So I'm wondering if you can recall the first time that you even heard about the concept of ordination?
Ashin Sarana 24:21
Yes, there was when I was 12. When I was 12, I watched the entire movie, the 36th chamber. It's a Shaolin movie. And at that time, I didn't know anything about Buddhism, I just saw there among fighting and there was all and the 36th chamber at that time when I saw it as a 12 year old boy, I couldn't maybe understand maybe like 20% of it because it's very deep. For me, I believe that there is a deeper sense in it rather than just a boy from a village who's going to protect his family. And but what I saw there, my perception as a 12 years old boy was that there is a monk and he is peaceful, that he is protecting others and he is peaceful, even though he is attacked by bad people. And I was so inspired by that. And when I was 12, I remember that the thought came to me, I also want to be a monk like that. And I just totally gave up. I just like, totally threw it away, like now is not the time finished, and I didn't think about it. Then, just recently, like several years ago, when I was like thinking, when when did this all started? I realized, hey, yeah, actually, when I was 12, I saw this movie, a Hollywood movie or a Chinese movie. It's a Chinese mood, right?
Host 25:50
Yeah. So that was your first impetus on the path. So you can think the director and writer of that film. Yeah. And then and so then you saw this movie when did you I understand and seeing the movie, you were inspired by the character and the storyline. When I was a kid, I was inspired by Luke Skywalker and I wanted to be a Jedi I think like a lot of other people, but, but then you have those kind of childhood, you know, fantasies or inspiration and then time moves on. So this obviously had an impact on you. But then when did you first really seriously contemplate the possibility that renunciation, ordination was possible?
Ashin Sarana 26:27
immediately as I read the book about white magic? It's actually I think it's called white magic but I don't remember it's a it's a very deep book. You shouldn't think of a child book No, no, absolutely. It's a very deep book. It has like 300 pages and I couldn't understand from it almost anything at all. So I was just reading it in order to have it read with fiction or nonfiction. No, it is. It is an it's a book I suppose written. by a follower of new age of New Age movement, which is a combination of Buddhism with other traditions, and there was the mentioned that the Buddhist monks have the psychic powers. And just as I read it, I knew I will be a Buddhist monk. And old were you at the time 15 Hmm. And then, immediately as I finished reading of the book, I decided to be a vegetarian is like the first step on becoming a Buddhist monk. And I was vegetarian since then until today.
Host 27:33
until two Did you eat meat today?
Ashin Sarana 27:35
I was vegetarian. I have. Sorry. I have been attached. It's difficult English, but it's okay. I have been vegetarian since that day until today, right. So I never ate any fish. And I didn't
Host 27:47
know if you had some morning surprise. meat dish. But, you know, so you mean you've been? You've been vegetarian that day forward? Yes. for 17 years now.
Ashin Sarana 27:59
Right? Right. Right and our most Buddhist monks vegetarian, not most, but many, many Tera vaada Buddhist monks are vegetarians in Myanmar also in Myanmar also not again, not most, but many. So there would be like, I believe, like 10 thousands of 10s of thousands of monks would be vegetarians, for sure.
Host 28:17
And what do you think is the relationship with being vegetarian and on a spiritual path or wearing robes?
Ashin Sarana 28:25
So, being a vegetarian is a kind of letting go, it's part of letting go. So letting go of meat or fish is really helpful. I don't say that it's essential, but it is certainly helpful on the path. We need to let go of a lot of things. Because it is possible to let go of it without dying! And the more we can let go, the better. So of course we can let go of everything, and then just live on water and bread. But we gradually learn to let go more and more, and letting go of meat and fish is helpful, because there is a kind of lightness-- that is my feeling, that letting go of meat and fish is a little bit lighter! Also, because we know those who don't eat meat or fish certainly have that understanding that the less people who eat meat and fish, the less animals and fish will be killed. So with that addition to this lightness, and to this letting go, and to this health, which I gained through being vegetarian... it is really helpful. I would like to note here that the greatest top master in Myanmar, in the monastic education field, who has memorized 20 books of the Tipitika. The Tipitika has 40, and he has memorized 20. And that's itself known like as if he memorized all because that's the most important part. And he also is a vegetarian! And when people ask him, 'why are you a vegetarian?' he says, 'for health.' Yaw Sayadaw. He has become a vegetarian and when people ask him 'so why did you become a vegetarian?' And he says, 'No, this is not because of vinaya or because of the Buddha's teachings, it is because of health!' And I heard that many of the health problems that Yaw Sayadaw had, when he ate meat and fish disappeared shortly after he became a vegetarian.
Host 30:51
And what do you find are Burmese attitudes towards vegetarianism
Ashin Sarana 30:54
diverse? Okay People think all kinds of things in Myanmar. The cultural shock from the West is making such a great diversity in the Asian mind. They have this culture and they have the Western culture. And now how to reply on it, like, the culture in Myanmar is just, believe everything what Sayadaw, what the teacher says, and don't say a word, because if you don't like it, it means you didn't understand it. And now the Western culture says no, it's the other way you need to ask, because if you if you don't ask if you don't understand it, then it means you. Yeah, you need to get more help from the teacher. So it's a totally different attitude. And the Burmese people are very confused about that.
Host 31:48
Right. Interesting. So getting back to your path on the roads and as a monastic when you were 15 was when you said you you read this book and you knew that you absolutely wanted to be a Buddhist monk. So when did it happen and how did it happen from there?
Ashin Sarana 32:05
Yeah, it happened in during one evening, as I was sitting on a chair in front of a computer. I had this book and I didn't read it from computer. I read it from a book. And then I finished the book and I thought, yes, this is what I want. You know, I want to be a monk. I want to get the psychic powers. From now on. I'm a vegetarian. So I think I went to the kitchen and I told my granny, I stayed with my granny and my father. And I said, so now I'm, I'm a vegetarian. I'm not going to eat any meat or fish. And then my father agreed, my father was very happy about it. My granny disagreed she didn't like it at all. And so anyway, and gradually, I proved that I'm serious. And then from then on, I read more books about Buddhism and also books about magic. I still wanted to know more and understand more Especially with strength, you know, like many people fake many people are fake. You know, they say that they do magic but they don't like there are people who are doing this parlor parlor magic. But I'm now talking about those like real fake like they fake it in such a way that you really believe it and that's what they intend then you search for it right? And unfortunately we find that even in, in Asia, even in serious, serious places, like monasteries and other places and that is very, very distressing. So for me, if I have to dedicate my life to something then of course I don't want to dedicate myself to something fake or to something untrue. So I wanted to study more and more and understand what is behind magic. And then the science you know, is another pressure you know, like science says the science is there no magic says this magic says that. Satan says you cannot make rain. Magic says yes you can make rain science says you can levitate magic says you can. So how to how to reconcile this. So this is such an interesting topic for me and I'm always open to learn more and to, to investigate more. Until now I don't know how to look at hate or how to disappear. So, until now, even though I already have memorized the techniques, I have learned the techniques how to achieve these things and how do they happen and how exactly this is practiced. Still, I am open For more answers and for more explanation,
Host 34:34
right, so you mentioned at the age of 15 becoming resolute you want to become a vegetarian and be on a Buddhist path. As you said that I couldn't help but laugh because I'm a vegetarian as well. And I remember my difficulties in Czech Republic, I'm sure it's easier when you know the language and culture. I didn't really know either and I ended up with you know, 15 different types of potato dishes every day. So, but I'm sure that that when you know your way around, you can get a well balanced vegetation. meal. But I'm also curious, when you said this to your parents, you know, kids get a lot of ideas of what they want to do and what they want to be. And, you know, around that age, it's not uncommon for a kid to go to the parent and say, I've decided I want to do this right now I want to be this and, you know, the parent or grandparent might lovingly say, Okay, dear, you know, go Go ahead. Good luck to you. And we'll see how you feel next week or next month. In this case, this resolution that you had when you were 15 and formed your whole life in front of you and I'm wondering about your parents reaction, how they if you know anything about how they took it at the time, how much they they believed in a 15 year olds, assertion of this life vision that was so unusual and how their their attitude changed through your process.
Ashin Sarana 35:45
I was fortunate for parents who who were open, especially from my dad, who who encouraged me on this path. He saw this as, as like an additional bonus parenting, you know, that I will basically learn to be a good person, not just from my dad, but also from the books. And my dad had this great Wish you know that I will be a good person. And he tried to like show me the right path and I'm very thankful to my dad for so very supportive for so many things that he taught me and how he led me and how he was always careful. The other people around him and me Of course, were criticizing his style because he was very, very strict. For everything just talking, just saying a sentence are no you shouldn't say the sentence like this, you know, you should use different words and different sound or whatever. And so my dad was very, very strict, but at that time, although it was a lot of suffering now, thanks to his help, I believe that I can express myself better and I and other people can resonate more with that what I try to share with them and So, thanks to my dad's intentions, I was able to know to experience a lot of success and a lot of progress in on the path to be a good person. And I studied a lot about ethics and about, about being a good person and ethically living person from books. And my dad always supported me, supported me with this new one important factor here is that my dad when he was somewhere around my age, also practiced magic, not Buddhist magic at all. Not Buddhist magic at all my dad practice more of a kind of mind work. I don't my dad never shared with me exactly what he did. But he told me that he had apparently there was a group of friends and they would like learn how to use the mind to do things. Beyond physics like metaphysics, and my dad said that he went all the way to, to the state stage when he could know what will happen next three minutes, without knowing it without anybody telling you. And he also told me that he had a very important state where he was able to, like, purify himself from all his deeds in the past, something like the moment before you die. Some people when before they die, they can see all of their deeds in the past, and they can like learn what was wrong, what was right. It's a kind of, like judgment preparation. If we take it a little bit from the Christian, a Christian view, and so my dad believes that he that this was like his enlightenment, but he doesn't. When I started to speak to him about Buddhism, he wasn't able to like resonate with it. It was able to agree but he said, but I never read anything like this in the books. And my dad is is could you would you say adamant, you know, he really loves philosophy. So when he saw me studying philosophy when he saw me studying Buddhism, when we, when he saw me meditating he he was so happy. What he was not happy was my strictness. But maybe that's what I learned from him actually, that I would like meditate, okay, meditating 30 minutes, and nobody will disturb me. So whatever he would do, or whatever anybody would do, I would not move until the time was up. So that was one thing he he little bit feared about, then I'm too strict about the rules. Otherwise, he appreciated all what I did. So I had full out support.
Host 39:49
Right. So when you were 15 years old, you'd stated your life intention living in the Czech Republic was that you now want to be a Buddhist monk. Where did you go from there? How did you figure out what to do next?
Ashin Sarana 40:00
I didn't I was there like a blind man, you know, knowing what knowing nothing. So I didn't have any friend, I was quite desperate. For three years, I didn't have any Buddhist friend. Then when I was 18, I searched online, I thought, like, now I need to go to Monster like this has been enough, you know, like, of course before the leaving school examination. And so I felt like I need to get rid of all this school, you know, I don't want to sit for examination. I don't want to learn anything. So, so then I searched online and I found about I found out about this Zen Zen monasteries and Buddhist monastery in Czech Republic. And I thought, yes, this is the place to go. So I sent to them an email that I'd like to go there and be a monk there. And somehow they sensed that I am not so much enthusiastic about Zen. And they found out that I like more Tera vaada. So then they say well, no In that in this case, please do not come to our monastery, we know a Tera vaada monk in Sri Lanka and he certainly can help you. So they forwarded my email to him. And then he said, Well, you need first to finish your school and then we can discuss about this. So I said, aha, okay. And then he said to me, that the contact to his 10 students who were already in Czech Republic, as laypeople as student teaching meditation, and then they then responded to me that I can visit them and discuss with them about trauma. And then they taught me how to meditate and we discussed Long, long about, about whatever is the monk life and Buddhism and whatever were my questions, they answered them very well. And, and they are actually teachers in meditation retreats in Czech Republic, so thanks to them I learned about meditation retreats in Czech Republic, and then I attended the meditation retreats and there I got more and more Buddhist friends. From there, I learned about Sri Lanka about Myanmar. At that time, Myanmar still had some conflicts. So I decided for Sri Lanka. And that's, that was the main that was the core of my progress on the path. Because if, if the Zen monastery said, okay, you want to be a monk, welcome here, then maybe I would be a Zen monk now. Right?
Host 42:23
Yeah. It's funny where life takes us. Yeah. So you finished your schooling in Czech Republic. And then from there, you went to Sri Lanka.
Ashin Sarana 42:30
I finished studying at at the Catholic High School. And I met with a beautiful girl, and I fell fell in love with that beautiful girl. And we made plans for life has usually disrupted your spiritual plans at that point. So I'm not sure whether it disrupted it certainly. I can't even say it enhanced the spiritual life if I look at it now, back Word. So with her, we moved to a different place and we had our apartment which I rented. I was extremely successful in business, I sold cable TV, how to say that cable TV connections. So I was a house to house contract contract to say that agent, and I was immensely successful. And I got a huge amount of money for working just a little bit every day. And that was after I finished at the school. So I after I left Catholic High School, I immediately started studying English at the business English course, which was my dad's wish, before I started studying at the business English School Business English course. So one year course, my dad, my dad spoke with me about this my idea about becoming a monk. And I said, well, so I'm now going to finish this school. I want to become a monk and he says, well, please stay one year more. Stay one year more. When you are here. When you study a school I get more money from the government and so I can pay a debt for an apartment. And then when I pay a debt for a new apartment, we can sell the old apartment and then I will give you enough money for everything you need. And then if you still want to become a monk, you can so we had like an agreement with my dad, I totally forgot it you know, after like six months, but anyway, we had this agreement and my dad actually fulfilled the agreement you know, even though we forgot it, forgot about it. Anyway, after that, one year at the business English school, I I had this and this, how to say that this great income from from my from the business at the UPC UPC company. It's a European cable TV company. And with that money, I thought, Okay, so now I have a girlfriend, but even with a girlfriend, I will get married. And when I'm married, I will work hard, I will take care of my wife, I will take care of my child or children. And then I will work hard and hard and I will try to make them happy. And then I will die. And then the idea came to me like now if I become a monk, then I will work hard and hard and I make it the psychic powers, and I make it and I may attain the Ultimate Bliss of Nibbana. So I thought, well, then the second option is better. So I felt like okay, so maybe, maybe I should become a monk. But I didn't know how to do it because my girlfriend loved me, you know, and we had a very nice relationship, and I had so much money in my mind. I have loved her and her mom loved me, you know, I'm like, we had very good relationships, everything was just perfect, like a dream life. And then I thought, so how am I going to do it? I need to ask God's for help. So, as I was in a block of flats, you know, outside the flats somewhere, you know, in the in the corridor, I thought, okay, Gods I want to become a monk helped me. But may nobody suffer any physical suffering because of this. My decision to or because of your help. I didn't see any anybody I never spoke with Gods they never spoke with me. I don't know whether whether they are around me or somewhere else. I never saw them, you know, apart from pictures, and I never had a direct contact with Gods. But I thought well, why not like I will ask them for help and in the worst case, they will not help me No. So then then after maybe a month, we were still like gradually getting things for our apartment, like buying new beds, buying new new furniture and so on. And we also ordered a beautiful bed from a company, but somehow we forgot about it. And before it would come, we ordered an air air bed, do you cold air bed? No, like you blow air into it, and then your mattress, air mattress. And that is very cheap, you know, and it's very nice. And so you're sleeping on that. And one night, it happened that it ruptured. And when it ruptured, my girlfriend was not happy, and she was not happy. And then I was not happy that she's not happy and we hit a conflict. And then because of that conflict, because of that conflict, it resulted and that she left to her to her My mother's place. And I sent her a message. That if if that she can come back and take her things away. And I thought, yes, this is my time. So I immediately called my friend who has a land in Sri Lanka. And I said, Hey, I want to go to Sri Lankan falling with you, you know, this December, you know, like, Let's go together and when do you go exactly and help me to get the flight ticket and I started to arrange everything. And then I got the answer from my girlfriend. I don't want to leave you I love it. So I had like the, the travel was arranged, and the girlfriend was there. So then I like secretly continued arranging the trip, as I was with with a girlfriend but I had my excuse, you know? And then after like a month she overheard my talking with with my friend and she was Literally stupefied. Like, no, you must be joking. Like, what are you going to do? Yeah. And I told her Okay, so, I will go to Sri Lanka for three months. And if I don't like it there during the three months, I will come back to you. And if I like it there, I will not come back. So, because obviously I cannot know like how do I know whether I can like resist the the Asian weather and certain case really hard, right? How do I know whether I get a virus there or, or a sickness or problem or social problem? I don't know. I don't know anything. So I wanted to like, like, let it open, you know, like ready to come back. And so she also like was okay that maybe I may come back. So it was easier for her to like survive that. And during the next three months during the it was three months to get ready and three months as like the testing period. So during the three months of getting ready, I closed up everything All our insurances and everything, whatever it was the payment for electricity and other things. I like changed it to her and paid everything for the next three months including the, the rent and everything so that she can for three months, she doesn't need any money and she has everything that she needs. And I gave her everything, you know, like we bought new fridge and new, new whatever microphone, whatever we bought, everything was her where everything was for her. And even before I left, I still bought her new things and whatever she needed. And because again, I had a lot of money. And my dad supported me with another large amount of money for the travel. Right. So then I left to Sri Lanka and as soon as I came there, I knew that I'm not coming back. And so I sent her email, we kept little bit in contact for the first three months. For three months. She knew for sure that I'm not coming back. She found a new boyfriend. I think now she's happily married. And then I continued in Sri Lanka. So then that's how my dad now back to your Christian, my dad actually had a problem with me becoming a monk. He didn't wish that when I was going to go to Sri Lanka, when I needed just the last permission for my dad to become a monk, because if you want to become a monkey with permission from your parents, I told my dad, dad, I need your permission, otherwise I cannot become a monk. And he says, but you first need to study at a university. I say, Well, I can study University in Sri Lanka as a monk. He says, Well, I can pay for you Cambridge or Oxford. We have enough money for that. And I say, well, but I cannot study there as a monk without touching money. It's easier to study in Sri Lanka, right? And he says, well, so do you want me to allow you to jump from a bridge? And I say yes, please allow me to jump from a bridge. And then then he says, Well Then what to do. So, I said I need to get your written permission. So how should I write it and my father dictated to me you know what to write in, in the note. So I have the note with me until today and there is written like, I allow my son to, to work hard on his path to become a good person, that was what he dictated. And then I added, which means to become a monk for undetermined period. And then my dad subscribed, like assigned,
Host 52:33
right, right and that's how you got to Sri Lanka. So then did you ordained in Sri Lanka,
Ashin Sarana 52:38
I ordained as a novice. Now to ordain you can ordained as a novice you can get higher ordination. In in most cases, the the adept first ordained as a novice as sort of like a trial period where the novice follows just 10 precepts. Most importantly, doesn't eat afternoon doesn't enjoy multimedia entertainment doesn't touch money. It's more complicated, but this is most prominent, most, let's say most difficult out of it. And, and of course, it doesn't engage in any sexual intercourse in any in any sexual activity. And then after a certain period, according to the teachers decision, the the novice can obtain the higher ordination. And when I was in Sri Lanka, I was ordained as a novice and I stayed there as a novice for four years. I could get higher ordination much earlier but when I learned about Myanmar, I thought I need to get higher ordination in Myanmar, so that I have more freedom to travel and to speak with monks as like the Burmese monk because so starting there,
Host 53:48
so you were a novice for your four years in Sri Lanka and then full Bhiku when you came to me and Mar and what I didn't quite understand your your point Why you didn't want to seek full ordination in Sri Lanka Why? Why did you want to wait to Myanmar to do that?
Ashin Sarana 54:06
Yes, in Sri Lanka, the the idea of higher ordination is more of a reward rather than have a duty. in Myanmar, it's the other way in Myanmar, if you're over 20, you need to get higher ordination. Right? So, in Sri Lanka, you're basically tested. The novice hood is more of a test period. But the problem here is that I was one year as a novice only around six months with my master. And this was not a sufficient period for him to decide in Srilanka. Usually you wait one year or two years, or even longer to become to get the permission or to get the ordination. So after six months, according to my promise to my dad, I went to the University and as I studied at the University, I was somewhere else so not with my teacher. My teacher could not test me. So all of this idea that he could give me her ordination is invalid because I'm not with him, he can attest me. So somewhere else and all the monks that I met in the university area, were not monks who I would desire to be my preceptors for life. So, then, even though I was suggested that I get higher ordination from from elder monks, at that time, I learned that there is Myanmar and that there might be fully enlightened monks in Myanmar, in Asia, when, or let's say for Sri Lanka, Myanmar where I'm sure in Sri Lanka and in Myanmar, when you get ordained, you basically become somewhat their national is you basically become part of them because even in our scriptures is suggested that the monk who ordained See you, your preceptor is like your father. And are they are let's say like Your mother and the other monk who instructs you, other things, whatever it would be the secondary teachers would be like your father's to have like your mother and father, your parents in the, in the monastic family. And so in that perspective, we can say that the monk is born. The monk is born in 2006 on the national identity there. That would be the Edit added, added feature, that if there sir Lankan monks are ordaining me, then I would be somewhat Sri Lankan. If Burmese ordain me the name somewhat versus so like I ordained as a novice in Sri Lanka. So I'm somewhat Sri Lankan then I go to higher ordination in Myanmar. So I am somewhat Burmese and I thought this is great because if I can wait until I go to Myanmar and get ordained in Myanmar, then I will have more freedom because they will take me as their monk as the Burmese monk.
Host 56:58
And why did you decide that you wanted to come to me and more and be a monk at all. Why not stay in Sri Lanka after the university and just continue on as a bhikkhu there
Ashin Sarana 57:07
in Sri Lanka, I didn't find a monk who I would totally trust and this again is dependent on my perception of course. And I felt that in Myanmar, I will find such monk and I did I did find so many so many exquisite persons in Myanmar, not just monks, but also nuns, and laypeople. And so I came to Myanmar, I met those people. I was ordained I was ordained very soon after, came to Myanmar, and you came as a novice or as a layperson, I came as a novice and I ordained I got the higher ordination right from the novice
Host 57:44
novice stage. And you seem to really have a knack with languages you put together dictionaries with single yeas and Burmese you I think you became fluent in single ease there. You reference give one time giving a talk to was televised to 10 million people is that correct?
Ashin Sarana 57:59
10 million.
Host 58:00
Yeah. And then in Myanmar, you've also learned fluent Burmese, and you give discourses and meditation instructions to local.
Ashin Sarana 58:07
I stayed with Burmese monks in the synchronous monastery and I still learned Burmese when I was still in Sri Lanka. And they helped me if I didn't know something, I was not a type who would follow a course with one teacher. But if I had a question, I would go and ask, right. And so they helped me to understand pronunciation. Again, because I didn't have a teacher you know, who would teach me Burmese on a regular basis. It was so distressing sometimes because I would learn a word with a pronunciation. And I would then repeat it for myself, let's say 10,000 times 1000 times. And then when I came to Myanmar, nobody would understand with difficulties I would find out that throughout the time if I pronounced it wrong, I see. So this happened for So many words. So this is a big disadvantage learning without a teacher or without a proper pronunciation, you know, learning method. So I already learned Burmese when I was in Sri Lanka to a good extent. I went through the seaside Edu course I went through a Burmese by ear john arcos course. I went through a software I don't remember how I don't remember exactly how it's known how it's called. But it's, it's like 105 small, less short lessons. Each lesson teaches you like six new sentences, six new words. So that I went through and then I created a Facebook account my first official my first real Facebook account. Until that time, I never had a Facebook account, only one secret so I can use a script. All right, so my first official Facebook account was opened so that I make Burmese friends as we put them in Burmese Hmm. And that worked incredibly This was right when the technological revolution was coming to me and more because this has been a closed country for a long time Wi Fi, internet smartphones. None of that was here until just recently so I guess you're
Host 1:00:15
you're making your own account on Facebook coincided with actually Facebook coming to me and more in mass to everyone at the same time.
Ashin Sarana 1:00:23
I see. It could be like 2011 when I made the the account,
Host 1:00:27
right, you're actually probably ahead of the curve then.
Ashin Sarana 1:00:29
So then there I immediately got many, many Burmese friends. And with them I wouldn't know by messenger I would talk with them about about Burmese you know, hello, how do you do? And my system is through diary in the beginning, I wouldn't make a diary in that foreign language. So I tried to make like a diary. First I started like, I woke up at this time, then I went to sleep at this time. So is this right? They would correct the mistakes I would write it again for Next day, and then if it is correct, I go a little bit more exact. I woke up at this time I hadn't been at this time I went to sleep at this time, and then a little bit more and more exact until I like explain and make stories. You know, like, what exactly happened with whom did a talk and what did I talk about? And what was the problem what today results are getting steadily more complicated in your expressions? Yeah, yeah. And this way I learned Sinhalese. This feeling I learned Burmese and then when when I see that the diary is like starts to have less and less mistakes. Then I switch to books. So then I would like start to read books in Facebook. I would still not go to books. I was reading the posts. So the Burmese posts it's I think it's really good to learn a language from Facebook because people are open and the language is so rich you get there the written the spoken, the vulgar, the the official, the ethical, you know, the teaching, everything is there every part so so learning language from Facebook for me was, was so good because I could like really learn real Burmese.
Host 1:02:04
Right. And it was probably also helpful because with Burmese specifically, there's quite a difference between normal written Burmese and normal spoken Burmese, there's a much greater difference than other languages. In other words, you can't pick up a normal book or newspaper and read that to understand how people speak in the world because actually, there's completely different grammatical structures that are only written and not spoken. But with something like Facebook post probably follow that there are books that that follow an oral, the oral spoken form, but they're they're few and not many newspapers tend to not but Facebook posts I would imagine in Burmese tend to follow much more than spoken because it's a casual forum. So that was kind of a rare technological advance that allowed you to learn that part of the language. And so, that's an interesting way to develop, you know, using Facebook and diaries to just express yourself a little more, a little more and a little more, because it has To be said, Now you write, you have an email newsletter, you you answer questions on Facebook as well people ask you, I've seen many of these, they ask you anything, they ask you something about some part of the VCT maga or the Buddhist scriptures or a meditation question or something happening in contemporary Myanmar that they want to know about, or some recent, you know, historical incident or, or or anything and you you give these comprehensive you know, these are all in Myanmar language, the question and the answers which you're writing yourself and you give these comprehensive answers to whatever it is they ask, and then you've started doing Dhamma discourses as well. Some of these Dhamma discourses Are you know, the number of times they're shared. They're like they're commented on, you're looking at hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of 3 million, 3 million. Yep. So so you're looking at millions of times. So you've gotten in a very short time from just learning how to express yourself by saying, well, I got up at nine o'clock and I and then I will eat breakfast. Oh, no, no, no. Then you ate breakfast. Oh, okay. Right. Then I ate breakfast and just just getting that level of, of sufficient sophistication and meaning to suddenly giving a formal Dhamma discourse at the, you know, with a topic that you really have to have a solid understanding of both in terms of the content as well as in terms of how you're expressing it. This is very, these are the highest stakes really, that you could have in terms of being correct in your language and usage. And and now these are you're you're becoming something of a celebrity here with your the number of times it's being viewed and shared. So that's a very short jump.
Ashin Sarana 1:04:36
Yeah, I go on a road you know, I go somewhere and people stop me and say, Yeah, I know you from Facebook. Listen to my you know, right. We are visiting the Prime Minister now because we are building a new monastery of Myanmar, a prime minister, not the Prime Minister of Myanmar Prime Minister of the Yangon Yangon division. in Myanmar, each division has a prime minister Dawson so he would be a counselor, not a prime minister. per se. And so we visited a prime minister, the Prime Minister for Yangon division and we were waiting until he comes and his office workers you know, were coming to see me and one by one came and said, Yeah, I know you from Facebook. Yeah, I'm listening to your download Yeah, I know you from internet you know, like people who are coming and yeah,
Host 1:05:22
Facebook face and here in Myanmar Facebook has become such the means of communication more than anything else. So once once you tap into a communication or or a messaging on Facebook, then that is the way to definitely definitely take off whether you're starting a new business or giving Dhamma discourse. So that's, that's the medium No.
Ashin Sarana 1:05:44
I wouldn't like the audience to think like that. I want to become famous. Sure. My intention is to share a demo with those who are interested in it. And if the people are interested and they want to listen to me, then I don't see a reason why Should I stop them? What is interesting factor here that the more people know you the more carefully you need to be. Every time you say I'm doing, have you had Have you had issues where that's come up or you've realized that you haven't been as careful as you should have been? You didn't quite realize the stature and the reach that your words had at this point. There was one case and it is slightly distressing that one time you're not exact, you know, and that is the time which makes you really famous. So great master in Myanmar, my most the master who I appreciated most for for his knowledge of the of the books. He taught me that monks who touch money are not monks, that was his words, and he was in Burmese. He doesn't wish after this problem he does appear to be ever mentioned by some
Host 1:06:57
anonymous monk who taught you
Ashin Sarana 1:06:59
Yeah. And he the end. So he told this to me and I feel like this is great like this is the way how I need to explain everybody that monks shouldn't touch monks. Monks shouldn't touch
Host 1:07:10
one. I think actually before going into the story, probably you should give some background to people who might not know about monasticism or the Buddhist teaching. So if you could back up just a few steps, maybe discuss what the Buddha had to say about monks touching money and what the contemporary reality here in Myanmar is, before getting into your recent news about it.
Ashin Sarana 1:07:28
Yeah, in, in the Buddhist teachings, monks should not touch money. The Buddha and the Buddha when he learned that a monk touched money, he he admonished him that, that He's useless, that he's a useless person. So we know from the Buddhist teachings that really monks are not supposed to touch money and they are not supposed to buy things with money. They're not supposed to own anything that they bought with their money. And monks should follow their rules. If monks break their rules and they do not confess they purify themselves through confessing to another month, if they do not purify themselves before death, then the belief is that they will not be able to, to be born as a as a being in a pleasurable state or even to attain enlightenment. And that is, that is a very serious problem. So, my idea is that monks if they shouldn't touch money, and if this is such a serious thing, they should stop and every month should help every month to follow the rules. Sure. So, just to back up a moment. So then the Buddha had an injunction that monastics in his order should not touch money or gold or jewels, things of value in the sense for people who've never been to me and Morrow, how is that rule interpreted or followed in present day Myanmar, it's interpreted in the same way. It's just that the monks say we cannot follow it and they just don't follow. But they will say yes, we should not touch money, but we cannot follow it. It's not possible to live without, right.
Host 1:08:59
So most monks in Myanmar today do touch money in your estimation.
Ashin Sarana 1:09:03
Yes, I could say my estimation is 98%. But it seems officially estimation is 80%.
Host 1:09:10
So somewhere between 80 and 98%. I've heard 99.9%. Somewhere upwards of 80% of monks in Myanmar are touching money.
Ashin Sarana 1:09:20
Yes, that's right. The problem is not just touching money. The problem is as soon as you touch money and you buy something with the money, which is what is expected from you, from a monk, if he touches money, that's what money is for. That's why they why they are given to the monk, then all of that is also inappropriate. So using that every moment using it is another offence and that needs to be confessed, and no other monk is allowed to use it. So like if a monk touches money and he buys a land, he buys a building, then all that building and all that land is inaccessible to every other monk who follows rules, right? And the Myanmar country is basically set rated by that kind of monster.
Host 1:10:01
So that would put a monk who very much wanted to follow the rule of not touching money, even if he was living that very ethical life. If he by no fault of his own were to accept food or visit monastery land spend the night that was
Ashin Sarana 1:10:17
acquired by another man. Right, then he's an offense. Yeah, it's just not right. Yeah. And that basically destroys you know, the purity of the Buddha's, whereas community, and so it's a very, very serious issue, okay. And the minute you touch money, they do not realize how serious it is. So I started to, like teach about, that monks should not touch money that lay people should not give money to monks, monk and have a steward and a lay person can accept money for monks. And then if a monk needs something, then he asked the steward what he needs. So you could say, isn't that the same thing as accepting money? Well, it's not in terms of enjoying sensual pleasures. So if a steward is the one who touches who accepts the money, then of course, a monk will not go to the steward and say, Hey, buy me, you know, a bottle of whiskey, you know, because the steward will not do that. Or the monk will be shy to ask for it. Or the monk will not go to a Stuart and say, Hey, can you organize for me a prostitute for tonight? You know, so but if the monk is having the money himself, then there is nothing to say, Well, those
Host 1:11:27
those are to kind of push back against that those are kind of extreme examples. What about what would be the difference of monk saying, Well, I have this money and I, I need to get a drink because I'm hot or it's raining, I need to buy an umbrella. So because I'm holding this money I'm or I need to buy rice from my monastery. So I'm using it for that what would be the difference between that and a monk physically never touching the money but his steward, holding it for him and turning to the steward and saying, this money which was given in my name, please buy this. Watch. Please buy this umbrella please buy this rice from my monastery. So he's making ethical purchases. But what would be the difference between him directing the steward to do that and him actually holding it and doing himself.
Ashin Sarana 1:12:10
A monk is not allowed actually to ask a steward in this way, like buy things from me that the monk needs to be very careful and demand cannot ask this year more than six times. If the store doesn't do anything, even after six sixth time saying I need a row or I need food, then the mag is not allowed to ask the steward anymore. He needs to go to the donor and tell the donor that the donation of the donor didn't bring any benefit to the monk. Actually, if the monk doesn't then informed the previous donor, the money donor, then it's enough hence so a monk needs to inform the donor. And now the thing is that the monk who needs to ask a steward, well ask less if the monk has holds the money, then the monk will certainly use them anymore and collect them more and be more afraid of them like where is he putting the money, what's happening with the money, he would need to have a treasure and you know, have a key and that kind of thing and be afraid of thieves. Whereas if it's skipped capital with a steward, then the steward is responsible for that. And either the steward will bring what the monk needs or the Manchus tells to the donor and the monk doesn't, you know, doesn't is not allowed, you know, to care about where does the steward keep that money. So this helps the monk to really dedicate the monk to the letting go and to be to be satisfied with what we hear and what he gets.
Host 1:13:44
So it helps him fulfill his monastic obligation of renunciation and only accepting what's given. So this catches us up to the Buddhist background and the Myanmar background. And you had mentioned that unwittingly you somehow found yourself in the of this, not realizing maybe what your statute was and how far your words travel. So now that the audience is up to speed on understanding the Buddhist injunctions as well as Myanmar culture, maybe you can tell us where your involvement with this fit in.
Ashin Sarana 1:14:16
Yeah, so I started to teach that monster didn't touch money and that lay people should not give money to man's hands that they should, that if they want to donate something, then only to a steward. And this seemed to be okay. This seemed to be okay for a long, long, long time. And then I made a post in Facebook, where I because I wanted to get more knowledge there was no offense intended, I intended. I wanted to get a list of monasteries in Myanmar, where monks learn scriptures without touching money great because the main argument against not touching money Was that you? That to me? You did not study, you know, education in an educational center in Myanmar, sir, you cannot understand that they always need to touch money. And my answer to this would be, well, there are centers of education, you know, of monastic education in Myanmar, where no monk touches money. So that's my answer. And now I need a list of those centers and centers, so that anybody who would like to follow the Buddha's teachings just know where to go Sure. If you know if they want to be monastic and learn, so I made a post like, hey, people, I know only a few monasteries where they don't touch money. Are there any more please let me know in the comments.
Host 1:15:45
And it should be said this is not an unusual tactic for you when you want to find information. I know this from working together on our book that when about any bits of information, we want to know where there's a certain kind of curry dish and we're not exactly Sure the origins of that dish, something very, very minute like that. And we I've seen you put questions on a Does anyone know about the origins of this curry dish, or there's some village we're writing about where some arhaan came from. And we, we have three different origin stories of that village, and we want to be able to trace it back and you you have so many followers and people that are helping you that you just kind of put these questions out there, hey, we're kind of exploring this idea. Can anyone get back to me and give some feedback? So it sounds like it was in that similar manner? That you you weren't really looking to, to? To unsettle anything? You just Hey, this is this is the question I have. Now let me throw this out to my followers see what comes back. But you sounds like this time you got something very different back then. In other cases,
Ashin Sarana 1:16:40
yeah. I would never imagine that. So many people like lay people, they were just giving me the addresses, you know, address, address, address, address, address, you know, monastery, monastery monastery, and you get one comment with the monastery address. You know, here no monk is touching money, all of them following a very The next comment, it is not possible to live without touching money. This is not an another comment, you know some other person, hey, there is another monastery, they don't touch money at all look at here, you know, this is the address this isn't the name. And then another comment from monk in no way like without money How can they ever fall? It
Host 1:17:18
sounds like there were two different versions of reality being presented simultaneously. It sounds like they weren't even in this day of kind of fake news and you know, the own reality, whatever whatever reality you want to promote being the one you can it sounds like they're not even having an argument about a certain strain of logic or this monastery doesn't No, no, no, I was there and I experienced this, but it sounds like it was just two completely different parallel strands of logic that were being that were being pushed out there at the same time. Yeah, this was very rare that somebody would recommend a monastery for the least and the people who would say no, it's not. No they don't follow the veneer. It was more like
Ashin Sarana 1:17:59
a It seemed as if those monks who touch who touch money didn't at all listen to to the list that there are monasteries which touch which follow the rules and delay people who knew the monastery in the monasteries where they followed the rules. They absolutely don't care that other monks are not able, you know, to to live with our own. And I my conclusion from that is totally different. And that's very How to say that black very dark conclusion. And that is that this creates a bit this kind of list creates a big problem for the monastery. Sure. They don't follow the rules. Yeah, because I basically advertise these monasteries which fall over here, right and direct all the laypeople all the public, to these monasteries, and from all other monasteries. Yeah. And that's what they didn't like. And I would never have the idea that this that somebody would not like this, I would never have. I would never thought that the monks who have a monastery where they touch money that they would not allow I like making this kind of list. Because, of course, I totally accept that I'm very naive and very optimistic. And my idea was, well, if you want to be in the list, just stop using money, and I'll add you there. And it didn't really go that way. And it absolutely didn't.
Host 1:19:17
So then when this kind of blew up, what what was the reaction when
Ashin Sarana 1:19:23
yet the problem didn't arise from the list? The problem arise arose from my reaction to the reaction of this month and what was your reaction? Well, I just explained that and my reaction was that I that I deleted the introduction to the list. And instead I said, you know, like to, like totally curb all of the all of the dissatisfaction. I said, Man who touches money is not a monk, monk who touches money is not the boathouse son. You know, it's not like the Buddhist fire follower. And monk who touches money is useless. And that's a strong word. Yeah, and then I would add like that this is what the board has said. And this was the core of all of this problem, like the list would not be a problem by itself like this would after some time, it was silent
Host 1:20:12
commentary about the list. Yes. And those are pretty strong things to say. So you got quite a reaction from
Ashin Sarana 1:20:18
Yeah. Now the problem is that the Buddha didn't say that the man who touches money right among the Buddha says, The problem is that this is an understanding of, of laypeople from the Buddha's time who heard the Buddha's words. So you could say that indirectly, it's, it's the Buddha's word because that's how Pali how people who spoke in the Buddhist language understood the Buddha's words, but it is not exact, and that's where they could take me for a word, and that's what they did. So I of course, have shown that this what I have wrong or written number one, I learned from among whom memorized, like three and five eight books of the tipitaka. So very, very important one, this is from whom I heard it, so it's not my invention. And second, it is actually in a book from a great Rumi said that monks who don't follow all the rules are not monks exactly in that wording. And so I could like substantiate that what I said is right, but it's late. So at that time when I wrote it too short, everybody could take me for a word and all the the subsequent explanations which I gave in the other posts, they were no way as famous. So the monks then but again, looking at it more as a darker problem from the darker standpoint, it seems that the monks do not like to be spoken off as as wrong if they touch money. So they simply like remove all all my all my credibility by saying this monk says that monks who touch money are not monks which is not in accordance with the Scriptures. He Nothing, we know it he's wrong we are right. And that way they like to remove my credibility and can continue in whatever they do. So, they basically misuse this my shortening which is okay like I do not need to add scriptural reference when I ask somebody please don't kill, I do not need to say in which book and which pages that written I do not need to say hey, please stop stealing they would have said that we should not steal, but I do not need to add you know reference and which page which book you know and when did he say so, in the same way I do not need to say you know that monks who touch money on noble monks in this case I said they are not monks, but the but this is exactly the answer to your question, whether I was misunderstood in Myanmar you know, in Myanmar, we need to understand that people have certain meanings apply to certain expressions. And monk who touches money is not monk actually means that he's a layperson. Right. And it actually means that they committed the heinous crime of Baraka No, such as killing, stealing, and that was never what she meant. And that was never, ever what I meant. I meant, like, hey, the Buddha said that if Mung touches money, he's not a monk, therefore, please stop touching money. So you are a monk.
Host 1:23:16
In other words, a defining characteristic of being a monastic is that you have
Ashin Sarana 1:23:20
to have enough money but that is what the Buddha actually said. The Buddha said, a monk doesn't touch money. And he said it in different in different synonyms, you know, so it's like really clear, a monk doesn't touch money. If he is a monk, he doesn't touch money. So what I said would be basically correct, but in this exact wording, it was easily twisted around and used against me so much to touch money can say that no, this session serrana he knows nothing. We do it right.
Host 1:23:53
Right. And we should say this was a really big deal when it happened. casually when I was talking to two My friends, many people knew about it, it was something that many people were were talking about, and that was known and that was debating was what you had written and how it was being interpreted and how people were responding to it and how it was going to be resolved. And it was, although there's no such thing as kind of a monastic newspaper or a monastic, you know, journal that everyone kind of reads the dailies. That's kind of what Facebook has become. And in that sense, there were a lot of people that had never met you or had no contact with you that were just kind of following the day to day to see what was going on and how it was being resolved. And I know you know, people your your, your friends were definitely concerned for you and that that, that you were the focus of something that obviously you probably wasn't very comfortable to be in that position.
Ashin Sarana 1:24:42
Yet the what followed, actually, was that a monk decided to submit me to a monastic court so that I'm like, sued for this. Because I said some more things as I was explaining, I added some stuff more ideas such as that monster touch money are worse than ever data and they were at that was the man who tried to kill the good ha, that's a pretty extreme thing to say yes. And I said that monks who touch money and destroyed the Buddha's teachings and that was actually approved as correct essays. And monks who taught that there is no more danger for for the Woodhouse for the for the community of the students, and for the teachings then touching my money, which was also approved later by by educated monks. And then I also said that monks who Dutch money are actually Mahayana so I basically tried to find the weak spots, you know, of the monks and shoot there. And so a monk took these five things, and he submitted me at a monastic court for these five things. Now he's not at all knowledgeable in the in the things and that's why he was admonished during the court meeting. For his idea for what did he submit me for? Anyway, he also twisted my words for the first thing man who touches money is not a monk in brackets, he says, He is a fake monk and that I never said and again that gives a very different meaning for fake monk and not monk are totally two different things right in in the if we say like legal or legal wording. So he added that he was admonished for that as well. And before I attended the monastic court meeting, it is literally meeting so it didn't have any intention and it could not have that level because it was just at the township, township level. It wouldn't have any power to stop me from teaching or to start to curb my teaching in any way. But it had the power to admonish me to say hey, don't do this. Don't do that. And before I'm came to that court, I wrote a book, I wrote a book will I explained these five things with all the references from Burmese settlers from Pali scriptures. And when I brought the book there, we basically read the answers from the book. So we were very well prepared. I was, I was so lucky also to know these five things for which we learned from somewhere around and around. And so I was able to get very well prepared. And when the monks who who were, were examining me when they saw this book, they couldn't believe that it's written that it was written by me. And I was also a little bit lucky for being a framer. So I was allowed to have an interpreter. And as an interpreter, I chose a great Vinay master from a monastery where they follow all the rules. So he was basically speaking for me and in Burmese, he's Burmese. So I was so lucky to have you know, this fantastic support. Nobody else in the court would be allowed to have an interpreter or anybody, you know, to follow with them. So I had, you know, This is such a stressful factor of being alone, examined by seven, seven months. So I was lucky to have their very good friend knowledgeable friend who was totally on my side. And so he explained to them that all what I said all the five things are correct, and they accepted them as correct. And then the problem was that if they are not explained, they lead to misunderstanding. So rather than understanding that my intention is just that the monks stop using money, the monks in Myanmar, many monks understood it as that I'm basically explaining that they are not monks that they should just dedicate themselves to life. And that's a totally different thing. Totally different interpretation. So, the the monks and the leading monks, the leading monks of the township, I think seven months or six months, they made like a decision for me and like it's a it's written as a as like a contract or decision. Official decision. Where, now I'm prohibited to say these five things, but it's not even mentioned these five things. So nobody can say what I'm actually prohibited from saying things. Because it just says those things which I shouldn't sarena said, He will not say them again in Facebook or YouTube, and he will explain them in Facebook and YouTube. So not only that, not only that, I would be maybe prohibited from saying these five things, but nobody knows whether these five or one or two, so anything and but it's attached to the, to the main paper, which accuses me, you know, so everybody would actually find out that it's about these five things and nothing else in the maximum, you know, so I wouldn't I'm not allowed to say these five things alone, because that can lead to a misunderstanding as was the main decision of the main marks there. And I am it Signed, that I will explain these five things. So not only that, I was also encouraged to continue teaching them to continue teaching meditation to continue teaching that monks should not touch money. I was encouraged by the leading township monks, you know, so, and I signed it and they signed it, you know, so like, nobody can ever say that when I explain why monks shouldn't touch money. Why monks who touch money are not monks, why monks who touch money are worse than ever, that whenever I explain it, I just follow what I signed up, I just followed the decision of the masters. So now the table is like totally turned, you know, I can now teach anything at all if it is, and according to scriptures, just I need to be careful that if I say these five things, I need to always add explanation.
Host 1:30:50
So I hope you haven't said anything incriminating in our last 30 minutes of podcast. You're safe. You're safe in this conversation.
Ashin Sarana 1:30:58
Well, I did say all of The photonics actually, but I didn't. But I explained then I explained my attention. So I just followed what was decided by the great marks.
Host 1:31:08
Okay, so as long as you're following the letter of your contract and incriminated yourself, I am
Ashin Sarana 1:31:13
perfectly fine.
Host 1:31:14
You're in, you're in good position. So do you have any? I think, you know, the interesting thing about this moment was that, you know, actually, I wasn't intending to get here and talk about it at this time. But it came naturally because we were discussing your Burmese language came from your Burmese language. It came from joining Facebook to be able to experiment with just describing what you did to the day. And then when we were working together, I recall how you would use it to just gather information from people who knew and then you used it in the same way to learn about monasteries that were that were following a certain aspect of any on this thing kind of kind of exploded and went into that issue in detail that just happened. Looking back on it now. Do you have any regrets? Are things you would have done differently about how you handled it.
Ashin Sarana 1:32:04
Yes, yes, I should have written it more accurately. I shouldn't have written like that the Buddha said that monks who touch money or not monks, I should have said that the Buddha said that monk is the one who doesn't touch money. If I wrote this, all of this story would be totally different. Right? So does this inform you or teach you anything going forward? Now that you kind of know the platform you have you kind of take something to blow up to realize how far your reach is and what the impact is, does this will this change or modify your approach going forward? It did a lot like I'm now much more careful to read commentary, sub commentaries for everything before I say something new, you know, then that I am not hundred percent sure that I have well studied with all the details. And I add much more references and much more quotations than before, right?
Host 1:32:54
Do you think that now that you've kind of brought this maybe unwittingly or unintentionally but you really brought This subject into the form of Burmese Buddhist society. It was something everyone was talking about just a month ago. Do you think that this could have any effect of changing the way that this rule is being followed or not followed? Have you seen anything that would suggest that?
Ashin Sarana 1:33:13
For me, there is a big change because thanks to this problem, I learned about monks who don't touch money. I learned about thousands and thousands of monks who don't touch money I could. I got in touch with fantastic monks who follow all the rules and know all the rules and follow them without any difficulty without any exception was great. So I learned about like whole communities of this month, I have all their full out support. They've absolutely support everything when I said, they absolutely support me with all of what I said they're absolutely disagreeing with all that court meeting and with all that disagreement and whatever the monks try to twist my words and this is I believe this is worth it. I think this is worth it, of course. And there will be more careful to add more references and quotations, citations. But this time this one time this was worth it because I got such a fantastic support that I cannot dream off if any other way.
Host 1:34:18
Sure. And you mentioned that you did make contact with many monks and communities you didn't know existed that are really carefully following this. Do you plan to do anything with that connection to build anything with that relationship or that knowledge?
Ashin Sarana 1:34:31
Yeah, basically, we are basically partnering. I at this moment is more of a one sided partnering but there is a possibility from our side to to help because they're only but yet they are only education, monks, most of those who I know. So, from our side, we can provide them with meditation, with a place where they can meditate following all of the rules. And it's more free, you know, without any particular special rules. And we are good friends, you know, we are like on the same on the same tune. And that's much better. You there would be like two main committee communities in Myanmar who follow all rules mahavihara and powerg. And mahavihara and park are slightly different, and the way how I live the way of my understanding of the rules, it's more in tune of the mahavihara style.
Host 1:35:30
Pahokee is more of a teaching monastery, more of a meditation monastery
Ashin Sarana 1:35:33
and Maha vihara is the educate education, right? Yes, but we also have and it has education centers, and education possibilities though. Now the thing is that there are slight differences which are sometimes taken a little bit maybe too much seriously. So because I'm more in tune with mahavihara then it's easier for us to support mahavihara amongst How big is the mahavihara network I think now 5000 I think three to 5000 for sure.
Host 1:36:05
And outside of that network Did you also make contact with monks and communities that
Ashin Sarana 1:36:09
of course POW number one pile with a lot of power monks I learned, I got the opportunity to meet with a lot of very good pal monks thanks to this, thanks to this problem. And I met many monks who are not affiliated neither to mahavihara nor powerg. Great. A How to say that old senior senior seattles Senior masters and I've got so much of fantastic support, mental support, psychic support. And the the interesting thing here is that I thanks to the support from mahavihara. Not only that, I got this vinyasa master to support me during the monastic court meeting. He is actually one of the main veneer teachers in in the mahavihara school but at I also now can do all these official things, which is string and everything. And if I want to ask about building buildings and following rules, which I didn't memorize yet, I can always ask for their help. And if I don't know something, they can always support me and I can be totally sure that we understand each other.
Host 1:37:19
Right? So it's kind of interesting because you never really meant to start a movement or make a collection or collaboration of people. You were just kind of going about your daily business of Dhamma discourses Question and Answer newsletters, Facebook posts, and somehow this happened and through this happening you it led to you inadvertently making this connection with kind of a collaboration community of, of monastics some of which are in these two big networks of mahavihara and power and some of which are smaller communities outside but you now, through this, this happening accidentally, you can say you now have this this collection in contact with a number of these, these peoples going forward. So does that are Are you thinking about further collaboration?
Ashin Sarana 1:38:02
Yeah, actually, the veneer master has given quite a number of talks which are recorded as a video. So my idea was that I could promote them. Now, I meant the, the level of where I can actually promote somebody else, which is very, very nice, nice feeling. And we have a whole group of young men who are who are well trained to do subtitles for videos. And when a video has subtitles, it works much better in Myanmar because Burmese is so sloppy in pronunciation that subtitles always help for any Burmese notice for me, so these are Burmese videos with Burmese subtitles. We make the subtitles for their Burmese videos. And then I can promote those videos anywhere I want. I we can make books with these things. Because the boys I actually trained them in making subtitles for for videos. They're making them especially for my my demo videos, of course, but we can make them for others and we've done that already. We've done quite a few quite a video slyke that with subtitles, and then to just the subtitles and made them into a book. So the book can be published, the video can be promoted. And that's, that's very good. So that's how much we can help them. We can also help them by teaching English but that still didn't start during that still in just plant and we can also help them teach meditation or provide them with a place for meditation that also hasn't started yet. On the other hand, they can they help us they already help us with all these law things and all these official things. So let's say if your geese come to my new monastery, not this one where I'm right now, because that is under a head under a different month. But the new monastery is entirely dedicated for me only and my students will the students that will be close by to the one where is where I stay now. It's in Lego, so a couple hours north of England. Yes to one and a half, maybe even one hour for for me, it's closer to anger. Sure, sure. Right. So this has become quite a mission for you. And I guess I'd be curious to know of all the different aspects of your own monastic experience in Myanmar, your knowledge of the way Burmese Buddhism is practiced. It sounds like this particular thing has been a real sticking point and important thing to follow through on and to, to, to look at making some changes why why this issue is, I guess what I'm curious about, of all the things out there, why is this something that you find so, so important and critical? If monks buy something, nobody else can use it? And if monks buy monasteries and lands, then nobody can enter? No, and no one can enter the monastery. And then how do you want to call this, you know, Buddhist community, you know, like, they basically split and that's why that's why I said that they're worse than dividend because they're there. Gotta split the community. He said like, these are my monks. And he played himself as a Buddha. And it to me, it seems like that, you know, because these monks basically by buying their things, they split the Sangha, you know, they split the community, into the monks who touch money and buy things and the monks who don't touch money and who follow the rules. And having that to to communities like this, it's very difficult because they do not cooperate. You know, like the monks who follow the rules. They do not want to do their association of rules with the others, they do not go. And they don't want to go for donations for offerings with the other monks. They went. I went with a monk, you know, from our tradition around a monastery where monks touch money and you're just like 200 meters, far from it, you know, like we never visited, they never told us anything. And the man just says, These marks, they touch money. That's so bad isn't like what they didn't do anything. So you can see how much they're splitted. And that's so, so distressing that should not happen, you know, in the Buddhist teachings. So, this is a big problem, monks, unfortunately, both of the of the both groups look the same way and behave pretty much the same way. They wear the same clothes.
Host 1:42:27
They share the same hairstyle. Yeah.
Ashin Sarana 1:42:29
So, so then people when they see these monks who touch money, you know, as they're waiting on busstation and collecting money for their monastery into their, into their hands and asking people you need to give us money otherwise this is not right. And monks who are renting their monastery or who buy a land and then they rent it for shops and monks who enjoy with ladies, you know, who have babies and so on. Then when people know about these, they think Aha, monks are like this. They don't think like monks who touch money are like this. No, they never think like that. They think monks are like this. And then they lose faith, then they do not study and the Buddhist teachings, they do not meditate, they do not work on their path. And in Myanmar, if you're not Buddhist, and then it's, you're basically empty, you know, because you don't have any reaction. It's like me, you know, before I learned what is
Host 1:43:21
right, right. So you find it's degrading the whole possibility of the teachings of the Buddhist teachings on the promise of liberation. That's right. That's right.
Ashin Sarana 1:43:29
So I would like to, to like, make it clear that monks who are doing this are not doing it right, and that laypeople can support them in this if the lay people don't give any money into the hands of the monks, they will not have them. So we can. So there is a way how laypeople can support this and that's why this can be well supported in Facebook. Where is the audience complete? So my first I didn't know that monks will be so much interested in my teaching. I thought like monk certainly don't care because I'm a foreigner. I haven't been here as a monk for longer than like eight years. So certainly they will never care. But it turned out that they do care a lot. So So mainly my teaching was for laypeople I totally people, Haley, people do not offer Mung money into the man's hands, wait until he has copy if he doesn't have a copier. If he doesn't have a steward, Assistant, then you need to get a phone number of his donor and speak with his donor, but never give money to his
Host 1:44:32
so this is a kind of awareness that you're trying to encourage and bring these people in Burmese donors. And yeah, I've had the experience you know, we've been in downtown Yangon. Obviously, I'm not a monk. I don't look much different than normal backpackers or expats that are living here and I've had the and so there's there's nothing about me that would look like I would know anything more or less about Buddhists and monks than than the normal tourist here. So with that background, I've had the experience of being in downtown Yangon or in some kind of A tourist spot like in the lake, and having Burmese novices come to me with their begging bowl saying Money, Money Money, thinking that
Ashin Sarana 1:45:09
you didn't know. Yeah,
Host 1:45:10
right. Right. And And boy, are they in for a surprise because when that happens, I just unleashed a torrent of Burmese of saying, you know, you think just because I look like this and that I don't know these rules that that you're breaking your precepts and that you're acting in a way that you know, is not fitting of the robes that you're wearing. And they just can't run away fast enough. But the thing is, is I'm, you know, the foreigners, they come and talk to I'm one in a million that would be able to speak the language and know the rules and give them that kind of admonishment. When I do that there's often a number of Burmese around I've told that story to others and they say, well, boy, how do the other Burmese relate to this foreigner kind of, you know, admonishing this, this young monk and kind of setting them running away and the answer is they love it. They absolutely love it. They love this kind of moral and ethical response to Keeping someone in line, but then the question comes, why does this keep happening why, in in a society that's so devoutly Buddhist where the the monk code is so privileged and people are so are so devout and you know, every morning the monks alms rounds goes in poor villages where people are giving, you know, the best of the foods they have. And this is the the esteem they hold them in. Why, why has this been such a problem to keep under wraps that you have, you know, not novices that are representing the religion to foreigners that have never seen a monk before and don't realize that it's normal for them to beg for money directly to go into their begging bowl or that that that there's so many monks in Myanmar, whatever the number is, whether it's 80% or higher, that it's such a high percentage that are unwilling or unable to follow such a basic rule. So I think the question for someone who doesn't live here is interested in the practice is why is this so hard? To follow Why is it so, so hard to rein in? And because the people
Ashin Sarana 1:47:04
have these five immeasurables, on and on and on. And these five measurables are very, very much followed here. They are the Buddha, the Buddha's teachings that would ask community, the parents and teachers. So these five are measurable. So they're like always right.
Host 1:47:28
Right. So it doesn't leave room for the critical thought or examination or, or change. Right. I remember another incident, I was going to a Buddhist site somewhere in the country, I won't say which one. And before I walked in, there were two monks sitting at a table and they said, this is the charge for money and stuck their hand out, and I was shocked. It's one thing for meditator for a foreign meditator to have to pay their money to enter a site of devotion that itself is painful enough. But it's another thing when you are forced to hand that money to a monk who's demanding it into his hands to be able to walk in. So you're basically paying, you're you're walking, you're going to the site for your own devotion and practice. And you have to, because of the color of your skin and the flag on your passport, you have to pay money to access it. But then, if that's not bad enough, you have to help a monk break his precept and break his vineya as well in order to access it. And I explained to them in Burmese, I said, I'm very uncomfortable doing this because I understand the injunction against monks touching money. And by access, I very much want to access the site and to show my reverence, but I don't want to help you break your video and they said, don't worry about that. They said, That's nothing for you to worry about. We're monks and we, we know, we know the rules and they're not rules for you to have to worry about and I said, but I am worried about this because I have foreign friends that are monastics, and I see how They follow the rules and I see how I as a lay person can support or not support another monastic following the rules. And as much as I want to see the site, I don't want to take an action, which is helping you break those rules. And I know that monks can't touch money. And their response again, was that it's not my place to wonder about these things. And that because they were throbs, they, they they know, they know what, what's allowed and what's not. And if they say it's allowed, then it's allowed and so I didn't see the site,
Ashin Sarana 1:49:29
yeah, there is a place like this in Shan state, and beautiful large caves, where monks who collect money you know, in or as as the entrance fee, like I totally understand that entrance fee needs to be collected. So that the place so the site, you know, can be repaired and supported and prepared for new visitors and cleaned and so on. And I think that this is a great way how somebody can support the site, you know, and it Burmese people are not ready to do that, then the foreigners can appreciate the fact that this site is also open for the foreigners, and they can support it like, I believe that this is very good, but as soon as is the monk who is in charge of this, that is seriously disgusting. So, I have, I have experienced this kind of thing. And this was particularly unpleasant but at that time I didn't have that much of knowledge that I have now. So, now, the thing what you can say is that if a monk touches money, then then the monk is not able to attain Nibbana and this is the Buddha's teachings. So I am not going to hinder your path toward Nibbana you know, and a monk is not allowed to touch money. me as a monk. I am actually allowed to come and tear do you say that T Tear Tear All those collected money from those marks I can tear them and destroy them. I'm entirely allowed to do that you done that? I have never done it. Would you do that? I think I don't have enough stony hard for that. But if you got I was thinking about it so many times I cannot count, but you got a lot of attention for that Facebook post. I can only imagine how viral videos of uteri, another month's money would go. Yeah, but again, I don't do Facebook to become famous or Sure, sure, sure. So I do not consider things whether they would become viral or not as much as possible. I consider them whether they would be inspirational or not. Right. So hey, if I if I tear money, then what will the people think about me as the teacher of loving kindness, you know, my teacher teaches feasts, you know, and even though it is absolutely like specifically allowed in our rules. It's a commentarial explanation because There was a case when a monk you know about a heart from mud, he baked mud. And the Buddha saw it and he said, but during baking mud, there are so many animals dead and die and dying, you know. So he ordered his, the monks, the other monks to break the hut. And then the commentary says if a monk has something that's not allowed, then another monk who understands the rules, and I'm absolutely sure that I am and I was actually also certified as one who knows the rules by my own preceptor. Then that monk who knows the rules is allowed to destroy that thing which is not allowed to the monk such as money and so I would absolutely be allowed and it would be very easy to provide all the citation page number and everything but again, you know, like people will not be interested in explanations people will see a monk with tearing money you know, surely will think hey, what is happening to our dear Myanmar, you know, like monks now are destroying things of other monks. And that's beautiful. It looks more like an apokolips rather than as attempt to make everybody peaceful, so although it is allowed, I would certainly not do it and I would, and if I ever happened to do it, then I would never like it, you know, to become famous because people would never understand, you know, even with 1000 expressions, this doesn't work, right? We need to be careful. So, the only thing that I, that I could theoretically do is that I would explain to the monks that they are breaking the rules, and that they shouldn't do this. And that's basically everything I can do. You know, like, unless I would know, the, the chief of the place and the Chief of the place. If, if the place would let's say that the chief of the place would be a lay person, and I would know that person and that person would be My devotee. Then I would say, okay, you cannot do this to the monsoon say, yo, yes, venerable sir. He would kick them off immediately. That's very easy. But if I don't know the the chief of the place and if he's not My devotee, it doesn't work. Then what happened was that we actually, I don't remember whether it was I think it was actually free for me because I'm monk anyway, I don't remember the details. And but there were some people following with me some lay people. And they, of course had to pay and I really, really didn't like this. And so then we were waiting for the monk who is like, he's a novice, who is responsible for all the place. There are some stories of gods and so on related to the stories to the to the cave, and the novice, the novice, apparently met with the guards in the cave, who stayed there. And they didn't wish that the novice meditates in that cave. So it's a huge, huge complex of cancer. Yes, it's in Shan state. It's in the south Shan state. I don't remember the name. And then the novice is therefore very famous because he met with Those guards there. And then the novice like appointed a different place for the guards. And that is totally closed up and nobody so this is a story we tell them the guidebook i think
Host 1:55:10
i think this was the research trip you took for that exposes that we wrote that is possible. Yes, I remember that.
Ashin Sarana 1:55:15
Yeah. And, and we wanted to speak with the novice button. he happened to be meditating and meditating and meditating. And we, of course, would not disturb the novice in meditation that would go against all of my principle, you know, principles. So we are waiting and waiting there for him and you're trying to call other authorities regarding to place we couldn't call them up. He didn't open the door, you know. And so he just left and it was all useless. But I don't think that this is the way to resolve a problem anyway. Now, suppose that the novice would find out about this, I would explain to him that this is wrong, he would kick them off and he would apply laypeople and then that's it. You know, there's nothing special, you know, like this. Nobody would care. Okay, so To the remarks, of course, they shouldn't be there. There should be late people, everybody would agree No, but I would say a word. And it's immediately silence because nobody, nobody cares. This is not the way to resolve it. My solution is different. My solution is that from the government, there should be a decision that all that all educational centers, all monasteries, should prohibit touching money, and those who don't touch money touching money, will not be officially recognized as an educational center for monks, that will entirely change all all that
Host 1:56:30
the role of a lay government or of senior Sangha members, this is the role often of the lay government. Why would that be the role of a lay government as opposed to the senior members in the Sancho who traditionally it's their job to police their own, their own monastic organization which falls out of lay structures, I mean, in Myanmar history, there's been a number of precedents where the lay authorities have gotten a little too enthusiastic and monastic details whether it's purification of the Sangha or monastic education or Some some part of any regulation and often there's a pushback from within the Sangha that hey, you know, you you run your body we run ours. So why would you suggest in this context? Why would you suggest that you would actually like to see the leis taking greater charge of Sangha matters then within the song itself?
Ashin Sarana 1:57:16
Yeah, it starts from the lace. Of course, it must be made by the monks will be those who would brave it touching the monks in the money anyway.
Host 1:57:24
There's there's monks who don't touch money, why would it have to come from the leis? Why not from within the Sangha from top to bottom or bottom to top? Why couldn't it be handled directly there because there is this there has been this historic concern that when ladies start to become too interested in a body that they're not part of, that the Sangha loses its independence, which is which is believed to go back to the Buddha the primary teacher himself, there
Ashin Sarana 1:57:47
is a very, to say very shameful problem and that is that the leading monks till highest and most leading monks in Myanmar also touch Money. So it can go only from the government, which knows that monks should follow the rules. There are some monks from the leading from the leading level who don't touch money, though. And then I know hundred percent. And I know them personally, some of them. But the problem is that if the government makes the push to the sleeting, monks that they should bribe it, then these leading monks can do it. If the government doesn't make the push, then these leading monks will say, Hey, I'm a leading monk, so I can touch money, which is absolutely wrong. And they would just not make any such decision. So the government is responsible for registrations. So the government is responsible for registration of, of these monasteries as a monastery as a monastic position of the land as the monastic Land of the monks who stay there then when the government is responsible for recognizing monasteries as more or less and one sex They do not, you know, like collect tax and so on from them. And whatever you do as a registration of monastery it always now because I'm going to have a more new monastery, I know all these things. So if the government doesn't like it if the ministry doesn't like it, which is all run by laypeople, you can do nothing, there is no monastery possible. But if the monks don't like it, it doesn't matter. If the government if the ministry likes it, and the monk doesn't like it, it doesn't matter. If the monk like I said, but the government and ministry doesn't like it, you can do nothing. So in Myanmar, really for for monasteries to be registered as monasteries, it always goes through the secular secular portion. And if the secular portion will say we cannot register your monastery, or we cannot keep your monastery registered, if you do not officially prohibit touching money to both monks and novices in so like every monastery would have to have a sign that no touching money is allowed tomorrow. Another says here. So if every meditation center, if every educational center, it's especially for educational centers, because meditation centers do not have this problem that much, they just follow the rules usually, then if this is done, then it's so much easier because the novices you know, are taught are taught to touch money, like the novice will never have the idea to touch more. So, if the government decides that all This decision must be there, otherwise, it cannot be understood officially as a terrible I don't want to stay, then this would be a big blow and they would have to change right?
Host 2:00:35
Great. Let's take a break. They're
2:00:55
busy, busier.
2:00:57
yada, yada, yada,
2:00:58
yada yada.
Host 2:01:07
I'm especially excited to bring you the guests that we have coming up. But before doing so, I want to offer sincere gratitude for those listeners who have supported our effort. Thank you. Without your generous contribution, we would not be able to do what we're doing now. And if you have not yet donated we'd like to take a moment to remind everyone that our work is 100% listener supported. In fact, no team member receive full renumeration for their work. Some volunteer all of their time, while others offer a massive discount for their professional services. But even so, every episode we produce has a cost. Any contribution of any amount that you make towards Insight Myanmar will allow us to continue our work and pump out more content for meditators related to the Dhamma in the golden land. If you find the Dhamma interviews, we are sharing a value and would like to support our mission. We welcome your contribution You may give via patreon@www.patreon.com slash Insight Myanmar as well as via paypal@www.paypal.me slash Insight Myanmar. In both cases, that's Insight Myanmar one word AI, N, si, gh, t, m, and Mar. If you are in Myanmar and would like to give a cash donation, please feel free to get in touch with us. You may want to reflect a little more deeply on some of the themes explored in the last discussion. Following every interview, my friend Zack Kessler and I take some time to process the depth of what was said. Zach has been to me and more on numerous occasions and spent three years here as a forest monk. And so we hope that our talk can add depth and context to the interview. He's now living in rural Thailand and I'll just make a quick call on Skype to connect with him now.
2:03:01
Hey Zach, how you doing? Hi, I'm good. How are you?
Host 2:03:03
Yeah, okay. Okay. So good to connect with you this week we were talking about husana someone that we both have a bit of a history on.
Zach 2:03:12
Right bond is played a quite a role in my life as a monk in Myanmar. He was there from the, from the very first time I came to visit you at SRI Eagleman, he was instrumental in helping me stay there with the tourist visa. I'm actually quite a debt of gratitude for really give me time and teaching me Burmese. He gave me about a half an hour a day for all almost a year as long as I committed to studying three hours a day minimum. That was our deal. And yeah, and that whole section on learning languages reminds me I really need to get on my my Thai learning. Yeah,
Host 2:03:51
yeah, right. Um, language learning is definitely something that opens a lot of doors when you're in another country, certainly when you're in Southeast Asia and you I mean, it was it was interesting for me to hear his story. I knew the broad strokes of it. But I guess some one way to think about it is that like if you say you have, you know, your grandfather or something or some teacher from school, and you just kind of know who they are in that mode of life, and when you think about them being a younger person that brought them from where they were before to where they are now, then it opens up what you think you know, the person and for me, I've never known as far and outside of robes. And so his whole personality and his and who he is in Burma is everything of which I've always known him. And so to hear this background story of how he got there, and you know, being an adolescent being a child being a teenager going through college, early 20s, that was very interesting to hear those steps that led him to where he is now. And the roadblocks were quite interesting. You know, he didn't know any Buddhists. He wanted to meet these Buddhists and in Czech Republic and it took them a long time just to make a simple Buddhist friend. The feeling closer and more attached to his girlfriend possibly becoming a wife. And not knowing how to get out of that his dad not giving permission or initially being hesitant to want to give permission to become a monk and wanting to encourage going to university, when you see sarena now you just have a feeling this is what this guy was born to be. This is who he is. And so to hear about some of those challenges and challenges were somewhat unusual they in in the pleasures they were offering him and to hear what they were and how he developed in them to be who he is now, which is all I know of him was quite interesting for me,
Zach 2:05:40
right from v2. I've never heard some of those stories or certain aspects of those stories. It was nice to hear it flushed out I got a few different pieces and some new angles on it. So yeah, great. Another Another thing I thought was fascinating in that early part of once he did make the connections to Buddhism that, you know, the interest in becoming a Buddhist monk because of the psychic powers, you know, the higher psychic powers that they could achieve. Then he started to read some some Buddhist texts and he talks about that one on impermanence. It's, it's such a I really he really come to life wood, when he was explaining that part, right? It was so charming. When the Buddha said, is the body is it permanent or impermanent? And he said in the Buddha says it's impermanent, and and he's asking, Is it really is he really impermanent? And he just so fascinated by the question and the answer, and then it just never. It's a whole. It's like, it's like there's a part of them that really woke up there. With not with conclusions, but with fascination and interest. Just something Yeah, came alive in them. So I thought that was really charming.
Host 2:06:51
I really appreciated his honesty in that section as well of just his complete bafflement of what the answer would be and why it would be that way. Because There's this sometimes when you're reading these texts, there's this kind of call and response issue going on and call and response can also kind of compel you to want to answer what the crowds answer and, and his is just naked vulnerability and honesty of the time when he was reading it of just absolutely not knowing and yet being on the edge of a seat. Yeah, I found I found charming, also inspiring as well, just just how open he was with how much he didn't know.
Zach 2:07:28
Right? Yeah, that that part really touched me.
Host 2:07:31
But another thing I wanted to mention was, I was really struck by this idea of the media narratives that were going on, I'm actually jumping quite a bit. Now I realize we're talking about his early development. And I've now kind of fast forward into when he starts to talk about this controversy that hit on the whole second half of the interview that that arose from a seemingly mundane decision of wanting to study wanting to get better at his Burmese by having Burmese friends on Facebook and talking and it developed into this this huge narrative, this huge issue of the monk touching money that he describes in such detail. And just just to take a moment to talk about Facebook in Myanmar and its role here, you know, it's hard to live in Myanmar without Facebook just putting it simply I didn't have Facebook before I came here but it's such a, a, a shared mode of communication. It's hard to get anything done whether you're trying to talk to friends or you have a business or you're trying to you have a question you want to ask about something? It's it's been a centralizing force. And this is well documented when they talk about when major newspapers are talking about some of the problems of Facebook and misinformation me and Mars One of the test examples they're often holding up and there's a reason for that. This is a country where there was not really internet there was certainly not cell phones just a decade ago when people wanted to hear the news. They would go to tea shops, even the newspapers or TV you couldn't really get Much solid information about what was happening. So the commonly known thing was you'd go to a tea shop and you just hear all the rumors and then through those rumors, you would start to make sense of it. So it went from, from that kind of culture, to a culture where every single person within a couple years had smartphones, web 2.0, and Facebook, mainly Facebook, that was the way they were sharing information and communicating. And so it was really the centralizing force that has brought people together. It's kind of kind of been a perfect storm as well. And so I find it really interesting that on one hand, vontae is discussing the use of Facebook as a way to reach lay people. It wasn't intended that way it was intended as a simple Burmese language learning opportunity. But then it developed from all these people that he was practicing Burmese with, and they realized he was a foreign monkey started to use it to help them with their meditation practice or to guide them in life or to answer general questions and he would do newsletters and he would tell questions from people and discuss matters openly and all in written Burmese sometimes in spoken Burmese and videos. And so it's this really kind of clever tool of using dynamic modern forms of social media to spread the Dhamma further and further. But then of course, what happens unwittingly is he becomes at the center of this this controversy by not not really knowing how he got into it just through this way of trying to answer these questions from laypeople, and one of those questions happened to be with monks touching money. But what was really interesting about that was when he was describing the comments that occurred on this post, where he was discussing this matter of monks touching money, the comments themselves showed completely alternative and alternative and conflicting forms of reality, where he would describe one person would write Yes, I know of monks and monasteries that don't touch money. This is the name this is the place this is the person that the next person would write. No, that's impossible. There's no one like that in this country. And he was getting the the way he described it sounded like it was like this 5050 version of different sides asserting their own reality. And then clear as day everyone's seen that these are two different versions of reality that are not matching up. And yet there they are side by side. And, and so I found that role that Facebook played in his Dhamma life here. And the good and the bad, really kind of, you know, troubling and fascinating and inspiring, and all these things all together, when seeing how it all played out.
Zach 2:11:31
Right, it's actually it's actually something that I see happening all over the internet. Now, it seems like you can, whether intentionally or unintentionally, like this information can be dropped in and then and quickly polarize. And so, yeah, it's really fragile and you can actually get into erroneous narrative setting in actually become it can become a standardized narrative and so on. I think, yeah, I think there's a real vulnerability there. And so it exemplifies itself in a place like Myanmar, especially since, as you said, I mean, Facebook isn't only just a part of life, it's actually if you think about how they perceive the internet as Facebook, like they don't have they don't really use email, for example, like when they're on internet, and they're communicating with people. It's Facebook, so. And yeah, just that, that that fragility in there.
Host 2:12:33
Yeah, that's right. And sometimes when you're trying to give someone a website, and you say, we'll pull up your browser, I'll give it to you. They pull up the Facebook app, and you say, No, no, I mean, the website and then you realize that either they don't have like Chrome or Mozilla on their phone, or if they do, they've never used it before. So this is just the standard way of how all communication gets done that's replaced everything that came before it. So this was just not only a perfect storm, of what phases has been in Myanmar but also a perfect storm of this young foreign monk walking into this dynamic social media platform which he doesn't even fully understand. And then these alternate versions of reality just competing with each other openly as its as its unfolding.
Zach 2:13:16
Right another another factor there is that he is a foreigner. And and there's a particular this is this is one of the pieces in the recipe for this perfect storm is that Myanmar, I found has a sensitivity to the influence of outsiders, we see that in their current attitude towards international media. And certainly I faced it as a monk and husana did as well. But, you know, coming in and making bold statement about the culture in general are you can that's in that in that fragility on that platform and in this new era. You can so quickly. The sensitivity there is just so strong it not surprised how quickly it polarized and became an issue all the way up to like him being sued.
Host 2:14:12
So also since we're on the topic of talking about media narratives and such, one of the things I found really interesting was this idea that husar got behind the narrative the narrative got in front of him. As he later told this whole story in all the details that he shared with us, these facts were very different than the broad narrative strokes that I was hearing as this happened, and it has to be said this was a really big deal in me and Maher. I don't know if it was reported to national newspapers, but that kind of doesn't matter because Facebook has its own kind of newspaper. This was something that throughout the country, I think you could just go to someone and say, you know, dude, if you heard about this issue of the check monk, or they might not always check the foreign monk who's talking about monks touching money. And I think a lot of people, I think just that quick test, a lot of people would have heard some version of that story, even though no one really had the complete version. And there were a couple different takes that I heard with these broad narratives, one that was more favorable towards usara and one that was less favorable, the more favorable one presented a story of this foreign monk who was trying to live under this really good discipline and follow these rules. And because he was being more open about the need to follow these rules, that this establishment or some some senior monks were kind of coming down on him and not wanting him to, to reveal this level of rule following that he was carrying out because it put others in a bad light, the the, the narrative they got ahead of him that wasn't as favorable to kind of the same story but it just put it in a negative light that here you have this foreign monk who is come is also very junior and he's coming into our country and he's telling other people how they should be acting and casting This judgment. So in both cases, there's this overall overarching narrative view, which ends with him being admonished. And actually, in the end, very few of those things were actually accurate. And this is something that you hear in media studies anywhere, certainly in America as well. That once you get behind the narrative, even if the actual facts on the ground contradict every aspect of that narrative, it's hard to ever get your message out there again, because that initial narrative takes hold, not just at the time it's happening, but for big events, even for years and decades later, people still remember that narrative more than they remember how the actual facts played out. And so when you hear husana speak about the story in detail and what happened every step of the way. You know, he was he was taking them and asked at court That's true, but he didn't face any kind of censure or admonishment in his telling. He got off scot free, and not only that he had somewhat of a blessing. To carry this mission on further, he had some some advice and some guidance and how and the level of care he had to choose and how he presented the Buddha's words, but and doing and bringing scriptural reference, but neither of those early neither of those early narratives were necessarily true. And in accordance with the facts, as he later told them, so through no fault of his own, just by falling behind that overarching narrative structure that kind of got set in people's minds and was very different from the actual story that came forward.
Zach 2:17:36
Right It's kind of like a wildfire on what's the wind starts blowing. It just takes off like like crazy. And it's really like this. Like it like you've been saying, it's the perfect storms, lots of things come together in that moment that we talked about some of them as I when I was a monk. There is this difficulty Because we do approach, foreign monks approach the Dhamma differently. We come from the text because we don't have a culture or tradition of it, whereas they come from there. It's such a part of their culture that it's, they lean on tradition. And so sometimes these things come into conflict. I mean, there's some things that are beautifully carried forward in their tradition. And these are some things that we miss in western Buddhism sometimes, but there are other things that they carry forward that aren't actually part of the tax, and so like, and but they just become normalized. And then, so the touching money is one of those issues. And then you have, you know, so there's a lot of foreign monks that that are trying to, you know, they're trying to follow the Dhamma and the vineya, especially, in this case, the peenya as best as they can, according to what they understand directly from the text, or at least a translation of the Pali text, right. And it's not like there can't be any errors in there but but they're sourcing it more directly. But this can put this can put foreigners in conflict with the tradition this happens quite a bit. Now I think there are, one skillful way to handle it is just to just to be a good mark, but kind of Mind your own business in a way. If you choose not to do that he choose to voice the issues. There's probably a thousands of ways to be unskillful with this, and this happens a lot. And then there. There's a way to do it. And what I've always found interesting about banteay is he took he tried to be skillful about the second choice, he learned Burmese to the best of his ability and to quiet you know, a pretty high level where he could articulate himself and he also tried to mimic their academic monastic learning in such a way that he would be able to make it not his opinion or a foreigners opinion, but but directly pointing to the sources of either the Buddhist words or the commentaries or the sub commentaries words. And in this culture, they highly value the text and the commentaries and sub commentaries. And so in this case, you know, when when he did go to court, he had actually written a small book about this topic, those five points he made, and came prepared with these, these scriptural references to and, and so that's actually what what saved him I've just not met another monk that that is prepared himself with these difficulties for his face in that particular way. And it paid off for him here. Thank goodness.
Host 2:20:54
Yeah, that that was an enormous story of going to court with a book that was already written on that. Very issue that was able to be referenced and to make use of appointed a court appointed interpreter who just happened to be one of the masters of any he definitely set himself good in that situation. Yeah, and I want to go back to something you said just a moment ago about foreigners that are taking these kind of points more seriously and trying to live by them. That you're talking about foreign monks that are coming to practice in Burmese Buddhist monasteries. But if you take that on a more general, more general perspective, that's something that's kind of true anywhere is that when you're when you're looking at new, I don't know what to call them new converts or new students, new learners, new disciples to a certain kind of field, they bring with them a different sense than the people that come from that and that's true whether you're talking about art or music or religion or whatever it is, that when you're coming from outside of that tradition. And you're choosing to want to be involved in it. It's ironic that in some ways you do take a more traditionalist approach because you're making such a profound decision in your own life to come to a different place and a foreign practice whatever that practice is. And because you've made that decision, you really want to do it the right way. And that's very different from coming up in it, where that's the only thing you know and think the first time I was exposed to this idea, I was actually hearing about the foreigners that would come to India to learn sitar and the I think the Indian teachers were saying something about how these foreigners just had much more respect and interest in learning some of the foundation of the chord they had to use to play the sitar whereas the local Indians sometimes want to jump to something else and and and there was just a more a more focus and interest and desire to want to abide by and learn that tradition because they had these musical students had come to want to learn that in the first place. And so that when you apply that kind of logic to the foreigners that are coming here to ordain and be monks, like, for the level of sacrifice they're making in their lives, it would be kind of silly if they did all of that, and then they were only following the rules halfway.
Zach 2:23:20
Right. So I think that's like the plus point of coming in from, you know, as a, you know, someone so novel to, you know, to a tradition, that the flip side of that the ugly side of that is sometimes that is a condition for for arrogance, right away to judge the locals. Hey, they're not, you know, they're they're traditionalist, and they, you know, the discipline is slipped, and, you know, now it's like this and that's normalized. And, and they're, I mean, my mind, certainly, as a monk had, you know, suffered that at times, and I mean, suffering Because it's my suffering, right, it caused conflict internally. And then if I spoke it, you know, even if I tried to speak it carefully, it's still that the conflict, what what I was forgetting often is causes and conditions. And, you know, we were reminded of this in Alan's interview, you know, like, he said, like, could I have been a horrible person? You know, the ones that are doing these atrocious things? Yeah, in the right conditions. I could. I mean, I don't think money touching money's among is as atrocious as the things he was talking about. But certainly, of course, if I grew up in in Myanmar, and I became a monk in a certain monastery and the people around me were, that's what they did, then, of course, that's what I would do. So, so there's a there can be a lack of compassion on the other side, so and a lack of appreciation, it can it can become too extreme in the sense that then we Westerners sometimes then just toss all the tradition out is not being a value. And I think I think that goes too far as well. So there's there's this balance on both sides, I think there's something to appreciate in, in tradition. And I think in I think there's something to appreciate in what Western is bringing to Western boot to Buddhism in general. And I don't, I don't think we've quite yet reached that balance. But you know, mindfulness and awareness will help us get there.
Host 2:25:31
Yeah, that's true. Both certainly have a lot to be able to offer both sides of coming together and wanting to look at how to practice and make the most out of these precious teachings. What you talked about, also makes me think of the line so to speak that we as Westerners come out of in coming to Asia which is the orientalist movement and the orientalist fell exactly into the trap that you described of Looking at their understanding of the text and judging very harshly that the contemporary people of that country, were not living up to the mark. And I think that kind of arrogance that we saw 150 years ago and among the orientalist these Westerners who were studying Asian life and religion and practices, I think that's something that's still very much found today by foreigners who come to me and more in other countries is this this arrogance that you have lost the right way which we have gained, we we have preserved and, and there's still that kind of judging and harsh critique and that when you talk about the perfect storm of where we started, I found himself that that deep pain and hurt on the Burmese side of foreigners coming in yet again, giving the lecture of what they're supposed to be doing, and especially about their own practice, can really strike a nerve. And actually, you know, Susana never did that he would never, he would never even think about doing that. But that's how the initial narrative started to take to take shape,
Zach 2:27:00
right? And that narrative actually informed on the back of, of these kinds of things happening historically. So, so there's a, there's actually a precedent for it. So that's, that's also part of the perfect storm like what you know the conditions that are developing culturally ahead of that. So, you know, it just, it was just such a ripe environment for for the whole quagmire to
Host 2:27:30
arise. So staying with this topic of husana, describing the situation of monks touching money, one of the last things he said I off I also found quite striking and that's where I think I had asked him the question of in this deeply devout Buddhist country, why is one of the most fundamental of rules are not being followed? Why is it so hard and he answered by discussing the five and measurables Specifically describing how on the lay side, the faith in these people you're supposed to have faith in and show respect for. He didn't say it this way. But reading between the lines, there was this inference that the faith in these people and the deference to these people was replacing the critical thought in examining how what they were actually saying how they were actually living, what was being done in accordance with scriptural accuracy and and adhering to the text and the scriptures. And so that these there by following the five and measurables, and showing respect for who they should show respect for there was a certain kind of critical faculty that was being shut off. And I found that very interesting. Another theme that links back to other guests we've had we talked about this extensively with the interview with the Baba seda where we talked about him being someone who It stepped outside of this normal way of just doing what you're told and staying within a certain form. And his own openness and critical faculties had led him far away from the usual way that you're expected to behave in a traditional Burmese Buddhist society. And it also links forward just to give a little bit of a preview to to sway when a guy will be having on a political prisoner who started meditating while in jail. And it's also central to his story of, of really being against this mindset that you just have to do things the way you're told because everyone else has done them. And it's interesting here because these five measurables I mean, on face value, this is a wonderful thing you should pay respect for people that that are deserving of respect. I mean, who could argue with that and who could argue with the quality of deferring to people that, that have, that have some kind of stature or have offered you something precious in your life, and yet, the way that he that husana contextualizes the five measurable taking place in Burmese Buddhist society. It's been seen as a as blocking these critical faculties to be able to look at this fundamental following of a video.
Zach 2:30:14
And of course, they that's like an analysis, they don't actually know that anything is being blocked, right? They're just they're just following along with with things that they believe are valuable in the way that they do them this reverence. Right, and, you know, and I'm not sure where that comes from I, if it's commentarial, you know, I don't they don't have to say no, or care where it comes from. I mean, if, if it's scripturally relevant, whether it comes from for them, that means either from the early scriptures or from the commentaries or sub commentaries. That's that's good enough, you know, whereas you know, I look at it it's like well, I mean, the the suitors are full of, of local people. complaining about the behavior of the monks. And, and this actually helps shape the vineya because, you know, the monks were behaving poorly and, and the admonishment that not behaving well as a monk actually harms the faith of the people. And so it's an interesting how to say kind of like a straitjacket for for traditional people, because they do suffer bad behavior of monks, and yet, culturally, and not just as a letter of law culturally, but in their hearts as well, there's this, there's this conflict, there's this tension, because they do have such reverence for the monastic order in general. So, I mean, internally, they have this quagmire themselves that they, they, you know, what do you do with that? Of course, they, they, they defer to the respect you know, in, in Asian culture, as far as I've learned, you know, they're going to do For two to not confronting anyways.
2:32:05
And then
Zach 2:32:07
and then the the respect level is I mean it that's not just a show they, I mean, it's so deep in their hearts as well. So I actually appreciate the struggle of that whole situation and kind of understand how it manifests like this. But it's easy to not see the nuances of that as a Westerner and they just come in and judge. And I think that's, I think that's problematic, but that just adds more suffering. Essentially.
Host 2:32:39
Yeah, it really takes a skillful balance to be able to, to come to such a foreign country and culture and practice and on one hand, to not lecture to not say, well, I've read these books or I've done this practice or I have this teacher and therefore this is the way it has to be. And then the other hand, not be, so to speak. Like an apologist for everything and justify or a defender, that oh, this is the, you know, everything that's being done here, this is exactly how it should be and nothing's wrong and there's, um every aspect of the society is, is completely in accordance. And I think that when as a practitioner, you're here for longer periods. I think you and I think I definitely have have strayed to either side at times and then realize that was a little far over and had to self correct but to try to balance that and to see things as they are to have proper respect but also critical faculties to have faith but also trust in yourself and your own understanding of the practice and the teachings. That is something that takes incredible skill.
Zach 2:33:51
Right? Well, I think it's a I think it's how to say I think in in the history of Buddhism, there's a rare opportunity here, where there is a an East meets West phenomenon. It's not just Eastern West so much as a tradition and culture. And on the one hand and scripture on the A, I guess that's oversimplifying it, but I think there's an the two different approaches. Really, there's an opportunity there. And I think both the overall there could be a benefit. Of course, I come from one side of it. So all I can actually do is do the work of balancing internally. And looking at some of the just looking at what the mind does with things like you said, going too, sometimes to one one side too strongly and, and then blaming that on that, you know, while they're like this, and that's what the problem is, you know, not looking at, like the source of suffering that's really in this mind. And so the work I can do is internal And work I, I tend to do when when the mind goes unchecked is to try to correct everything externally and that there is a way to influence that skillfully and perhaps Bonta is showed us some of that by, you know, by by looking at how they approach things and try to acquiesce to some of the ways and means.
Host 2:35:24
So yeah, this conversation about the monks touching money and who sarin is rolling all of this last year. It's just it's such a rich topic. There's so many different angles and elements to look at in the process. And another part that we focused on that I spent quite a few questions following up on because I found his approach. so fascinating, was this idea that he wanted his solution for wanting to correct this problem going on was to look for a lay involvement and greater lay control of songa issues then amongst themselves. And that was quite surprising to me because in the reading that I've done, and I referenced this in the interview with him. There's these historical precedents of, of the king and other lay officials that are getting into Tsonga matters. And there's there's often quite a bit of pushback from the monks themselves saying, Hey, you, you do your thing over there, this is your job and you let us be independent and do what we're supposed to do and not interfere to to greater degree and he's basically waving a flag saying over here, over here, interfere, come here and tell us what to do. And, and I was quite confused what his motivation was for that. And when I pressed further, he finally revealed at the end the motivation was, was that the the seniors in the Sangha who could be doing something about this are not making it a priority and him as a junior does not. He doesn't have many options open and so for him in his place, the best way forward that he saw was to have lay people of stature, start to speak out more and and do what they could to try. Do you influence changes?
Zach 2:37:01
Right. And I wonder about that, you know, that's a that's something I have actually have a leaning towards that. I don't think I don't think unless it involves laws of the country that that any, anyone outside the monastic order should should be involved in these kind of things. Yeah, when I did heard, I heard in his explanation that quite quite good reasons for in this particular case, oh, but you know, when I heard about like kings disrobing, monks and stuff, I always thought that was wrong. There's really only five ways to to be disrobed committing one of the four defeats or per Atticus, or deciding yourself to disrobe that's the fifth way there is actually according to the Buddhist teaching, there is no other way unless you count dying as a disrobing, but and so on. So yeah, I think this is really like, do we really want? Can we really expect the lay supporters to memorize the monk's rules? And is it that their responsibility? Is it there? Is it the government's responsibility in general? So, I mean, I guess it just takes flexibility because because like vontae explained, he made a good case for it. So. So I just worry about the precedent that sets, you know, and so I'll acquiesce to the point he made and yet I still think it's a it's a discussion, it's inconclusive, in my mind, you know, I think ideally, would not be outside of the monastics but then I'm not sure everything going on these days is ideal. So there are different conditions and they may call for different decisions.
Host 2:38:54
That's right. It's a dangerous precedent to go down that road but it's also might be a situation where there's no There's no easy solutions there's every answer is going to be fraught with some kind of risk. And this is just the particular risk that Susana is feeling is the most appropriate one, given the circumstances,
Zach 2:39:11
right? at a personal level I, when I was young, I didn't touch money and it wasn't just rule. Following there's there's a really big, you know, that the Buddha talks about a dust free life, you know, compared to the lay life, and it's what holds on to money in those circumstances. It really, they'll never, they'll never know that freedom. And so, I have a personal wish that that people will take that chance and actually abide by that rule. So I have a there is an attachment there. And so this particular controversy over money and and, you know, what does it mean to be a monk you know, a monk is one who does some type money. That's I think how vontae described the the words of the Buddha on this issue. I would like to see creative ways to get back to that. No. And I, so it's interesting that has come up at all I'm so even if it was a controversy at the way it came up and the results of it. Yeah, I wonder, you know, wondering about the narrative and how that will carry through, you know, versus like, just the overall issue now that it's on everyone's radar, I just wonder what will happen with it. And I'm curious about the future in that sense.
Host 2:40:36
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is something that he's starting to feel strongly about, but was never so much a social mission until now. And it happened organically, as we heard about in the interview, and now that there's some momentum behind it, and he's collaborating with local, very highly respected say it does, that have been following this in their own way in their own region. It's quite interesting the resources he can now bring together and talked about that, at the end talked about the shape that that collaboration was taking place in terms of providing education and materials, working in concert with those monks and communities that are already making this a priority themselves.
Zach 2:41:14
Right? If it manifests, it'll be interesting to see how it how it does something I observed in Myanmar is like, the way that the way things move is often gears that turned behind the scenes. And so I've seen some really clever and very skillful ways to because there's a there's a conflict, right? There are not just a majority of monks touching money, but even some very, very senior monks in positions of power. So how you go about shifting that without embarrassing people and having people lose face. There's a way to do that. So I'm not sure we'll see the machinations of it. But it'll be interesting to see if it unfolds more or not.
Host 2:41:58
Yeah, and especially now that There's this greater openness. I mean, there was an openness on the Burmese side of this Facebook thing kind of exploding everyone getting a window into what was happening and how people were responding and what was taking place. Even if it wasn't quite an accurate telling. It was still through the mechanism of Facebook, it was something everyone can participate in. And hopefully through a podcast like this, which is an English both his discussion of the matter and our processing it here, that is also carrying the conversation in the messaging to more people to be able to learn the level of detail and context and history about this matter and to have a sense of interest and appreciation, moving forward to see how it develops as well as for foreigners in this country, having a renewed Sense and Sensibility of where they want to fall on how they're making their own donations and how they're viewing. Monks they're in contact with concerning their own following of this, this this video All
Zach 2:43:00
right. Well, it's fascinating topic. We'll see what happens. Yeah,
Host 2:43:05
yeah. Great, then. Good. It was great. Great being able to discuss someone that we both know so well and have such a history with. Absolutely. Okay, then I think we're good for now. This has been a great talk and connect on the next speaker.
Zach 2:43:19
Great. I'll see you next time. Okay, great. Take care.
Host 2:43:27
You have been listening to the Insight Myanmar podcast, we invite you to rate review and share our podcast every little bit of feedback helps. You can also subscribe to the Insight Myanmar podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Also, make sure to check out our website for our complete episodes, including additional text videos and other information at www dot Insight myanmar.org that's one word. Ai n si gh t, m y And m AR dot o RG. If you cannot find our feed on your podcast player, please let us know and we will ensure that it could be offered there in the future. We would also like to take this time to thank everyone who made this podcast possible, especially our two sound engineers Martin combs and darnay along with Zack Hessler, content collaborator and part time co host, Ken pranskey helps with editing caching that Campbell does our social media templates, and Draco's, Pandita and Andre Francoise make our sketches. We'd also like to thank everyone who has assisted us bringing the guests who have made up the show thus far, as well as the guests themselves for agreeing to come and share. Finally, we are immensely grateful for the donors who made this entire thing possible.