Transcript: Episode 24, Media Corner: The Power of Ethical Spiritual Intelligence
Following is the full transcript for the interview with Alan Clements, which appeared on November 19, 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.
Host 00:01
As past listeners to our show may well know, we are committed to telling stories about Burma Dhamma on this platform, in my own personal experience, the deeper I go into my own learning, the more I discover there is to learn within this broad field, we're committed to authentically relaying stories to our listening audience that explore a diversity of topics illustrating the depth and breadth of Dhamma practice and Buddhist culture in the golden land. We are also always open to new suggestions. So if you would like to suggest a topic or theme that you feel is worth examining on future episodes, please be in touch with us. And with that, let's get on to today's show.
00:57
A lot of
01:13
good. So Alan, welcome
Host 01:39
back again to Insight Myanmar. After it's been what almost a year since you were first on as a guest. So I'm really excited that we finally nailed down this time to have this conversation. And you're here this time to talk about this recently published amazing book, Burma's voices of freedom. So first off, I just want to offer my heartfelt congratulations on this accomplishment. That's been my understanding. You've worked on this project for nearly three decades. So as someone who has spent nearly a decade developing a meditators guidebook to Burma, I can only imagine the perseverance, passion and dedication needed to see a project like yours to completion. So again, congratulations,
Alan Clements 02:22
Joe. Thank you. I'm honored to present these four volumes, Burma's voices of freedom, and unfinished struggle for democracy with my colleague and co author Fergus Harlow. together. We spent eight and a half years straight, interviewing dialoguing, traveling the country editing, transcribing, and the interviews actually do run from 1995. Up until 2020. It's a gift to the country of Burma, to Myanmar, my spiritual Dhamma home to the people of the country, and to the world. It's a testament to the to the durance the moral courage of the people of Myanmar, all ethnicities, who stood up to challenge totalitarianism for the last 75 years. And it's a field guide for people worldwide on what it means to non violently, struggle for freedom and democracy and respect for rule of law and universal human rights. So, yes, I am grateful to have participated in this journey. But if people have venmar, that I bow my head to in support and honor.
Host 03:51
And that really comes alive in the pages and the work that I've seen of it. And I'm also honored that you've chosen this as the podcast platform, to talk extensively about it. Given how engaging our first conversation was, and the response that had, I'm really looking forward to what follows. I know that our listeners will be enthralled by the stories that you'll be sharing. And there's so much I personally want to learn as well. But I want to start us off simply so the first question is just why did you want to write this book
Alan Clements 04:24
to support the people the country, the legacy of Dhamma and its infusion with non violent revolution, the courage to care about things larger than your own self interest. It's a very rare experience that I've had to one Joa to be embedded deeply in the Tera vaada system of transformation, primarily within the Sati putana. We pass in above in a model of evolving freedom and overcoming kilesa in defilement, and it's a gift back to the people. It's a support for the people's long term wish for unity harmony and peace. And to me personally, it's a very small offering to the truly the jewel the diamond, not just of Dhamma but of the witnessing over many decades of the power of Donna generosity, the power of sila ethical courage and the power of, of Bhavana people willing to put their mind in transformational relationship with the power rummy's the forces of transformation within and express loving kindness and compassion, truly in one of the most complex circumstances that I've seen, in my decades of traveling the world. So it's a small gift to give back to the people who've been so instrumental in my health, my emotional health, my dama health and my, my understanding of what it means to be a human being.
Host 06:19
Certainly, and I think there definitely is a need for more information on this country and culture and spiritual practice. There's been such a dearth of real scholarship or information, given the nature of the country's history recently. And actually, something just occurred to me as I asked that question, you know, and my own experience of working on that meditators guidebook to Burma, while my own underlying motivation stayed consistent throughout just about everything else along the way. And the project shifted, you know, an ETL. Right? So the simple question that I just asked, you might have been based on this assumption that you had this fairly static situation throughout the writing process, whereas quite possibly, lots of things changed along the way to say nothing of how Perla itself was undergoing these dramatic transformations as well during that time as a country. So to riff on the previous question, but now with this dynamic quality in mind, did anything fundamental about the project and or your relationship to the content changed for you along the way through the years of steadily working away at these pages?
Alan Clements 07:28
Well, this particular set of books were birthed from my encounter my connection to the UNK Santucci in San Francisco. I think it was back in 2012, I was invited to a ceremony that where she was granted the Bekaa Hubble award for creative dissent. And we had a chance to speak for the first time in 17 years, post my blacklist from the country she was in America for the first time in many years. And we talked and she encouraged me, Listen, please come back to my country and do what you can to support the evolution of democracy, rule of law and human rights. And so I entered the country with one agenda, which was to what did the people feel about the process? What are the lessons the people of the country are learning from former political prisoners from minko? Nine Koko, g EU in 10? Eu 10, eu chemung to all these different heroic men and women, some of them taxi drivers, painters, artists, performers, what do the people feel about the transition? What have they learned in terms of their own struggle for freedom within the complexity of living under such tyranny for so long? And I can say although I was challenged at different times, there were lots of obstacles. But I've learned over the years that obstacles no cliche intended are really just opportunities to keep evolving your demo. And so I just rolled with the flow and kept coming in and out of the country maybe 10 1215 times over the last 12 years. Um, time spent spending two months sometimes up to eight months in and out of the country in one year, and just traveling around different regions, different states, different cities, walking into impoverished areas of the country lengthy, which is most difficult and complex, impoverished areas of the world. Meeting ethnic minorities meetings. leaders, government officials, what do you feel about your country's transition to democracy? What have you learned under tyranny and dictatorship and it's their voices, it's really their voices. That's what we call a Burma's voices of freedom so that the world can hear from the people, rather than journalists alone, who often have never even gone into the country. To hear and study, to feel, and to inform, listen, this is Myanmar. This is Burma. This is our unfinished struggle for democracy. We, the people are speaking. And that's what I've encountered here with the people. And it's the people's voices that we have brought to the world and I begged the people around the world. You know, I'm not trying to change your opinion. I'm just bringing the people's voices to Aung San su Chi is just one of them. We had Joa maybe 100. Other feature interviews that we could not include the books would have been 5000 pages. So we had to whittle it down to 35. Key interviews and I really asked journalists around the world presidents and prime ministers, Pope Francis, religious leaders, Dharma teachers, mindfulness coaches, all the respected ambassadors at the United Nations, please read these books, bring them to libraries, bring them to schools, study the machinations of tyranny, and dictatorship and totalitarianism. And let us learn from the mistakes of a misguided rule in that country, and learn from the wisdom, the complex wisdom, it's not an easy transition, everyone knows that the complex, beautiful transition through nonviolent means, primarily, to I hope, and pray, and I do have faith, that democracy rule of law, and a new birth of democracy in Burma will find its way through the will of the people.
Host 12:02
Yeah, I really liked what you said about the different kinds of people and voices that you are bringing in to showcase mirrors my own experience living here and some of the media that I have done and I'm interested in because I do get the sense that it's kind of funny, because whether you're talking about spiritual teachers, or or journalists or writers or something there, there's this kind of fly in fly out if you even fly in, and just collecting these kind of sensory impressions and even tropes of how the country is characterized. And then that becomes the the messaging going forward and from I've done much more in terms of like the Dhamma, found here than more of the worldly political stuff. But just on that end alone, before I started doing any kind of writing or speaking about it in a more public setting, just the material that was there, I felt was really kind of at odds with what my actual experience was living on the ground and going to monasteries having friends that were ordaining or going to long term courses. And so wanting to not not particularly having an agenda myself, in terms of wanting to say this is how things are, this is how people should leave, but just wanting to put more voices into the others so that that that people can be informed so that there's some kind of voice and perspective and background that you don't usually get, because of the nature of the clothes setting, you just get these, these kind of short talking points that are on repeat. So that's also something I found, that I found inspiring and went along with my own beliefs and perspective here that you're you're bringing in this diverse spectrum from a number of different people, and just letting go and asking them interesting and provocative questions and then letting their answers kind of sit. Sometimes they contradict each other. And that's okay. But letting that be there to provide more information about a country and people in practice. And that goes beyond these kind of usual, somewhat boring talking points that we usually get,
Alan Clements 13:58
right, nicely said, you know, one of my, one of my deepest desires in manifesting these books in these interviews was exactly what you're saying, to bring in diversity. I mean, that's the number one quality within the book that I wanted to, to keep high and alive that the power of dialogue. That's what I learned over the years in Burma, within monasteries, and later on on the ground within the political realm was that the National League for Democracy originally and now the people's will, if the power of dialogue over destruction, this book is not an easy, I agree with all things done by the National League for Democracy I brought in contradicting voices, people who adamantly oppose the basic views that are assumed to be the views of the NLD or Dong, Sun Tzu Chi, or if tinubu or many other the leaders and I interview for Apple five separate occasions the president of the Myanmar federation of the country. I asked him incredibly detailed questions I let him speak his mind in detail verbatim. I interviewed on several occasions, Archbishop Charles bow, the Catholic and then we have Seder. Ooh, Pandita reverential, Dhamma teacher, speaking about the wisdom and the, and the details of what he called the Dharma or the Dhamma of reconciliation. Many people know perhaps they don't know that Dong son to choose spiritual guide, meditation teacher, along with many of the other NLD leaders, is in fact, the late Satan who Pandita very few people know, Nelson Mandela's spiritual teacher, or Martin Luther King, spiritual teacher, or Mahatma Gandhi's spiritual teacher. No, he was an instrumental force in utilizing Joa the wisdom of the human voice. Remember, now in Burma, they used right speech as the revolution against the weapon. It was a revolution of thought, conscience, and voice. And if you look very carefully at the book and read a lot of the things that he says it's the study of the power of auditory vibration fused with compassion, with metta, with an honesty, with timing, with setting with intention without attachment to outcome. It's an amazing study and revolution in action, using the power of the mind, the power of conscience, and the power of the voice. But coming back to diversity, especially the youth in Burma today, the young activists, you know, I know I was very young and active and rebellious myself, they want immediate change. They want promises kept. But you know, my experience, maybe I'm wrong. I never heard promises from the elected leaders of the National League for Democracy in the civilian government. I heard hi wishes, desires in the overarching mantra, we can't do it alone. Everybody's got to do their part. And I don't want to preach from the outside. I'm just an outsider in this process. But I have never been more inspired in my life. And I say this with with deep conviction. Myanmar is a microcosm of the planet a diversity of what nearly 130 135 ethnicities and equal number of languages and dialects, every major religion and subset from animism to Buddhism, it's connected to Tibet. Where do we find in the world the power of the word mindfulness it was birthed in many ways, from the Buddhist teachings kept alive and active within Myanmar. And where do we see in the world active politics with the power of consciousness with the power of metta and Karuna, and mindfulness and diversity and the power of the human voice, with tolerance and patience? And so I think the study of Burma and these books especially Burma's voices of freedom, I hope they serve as a blueprint. For a higher order democracy in the world that abandons the primitive vocation of might is right, it's just done. And all the criticisms of Burma's inability to manifest on the terms of how the primarily the white outsider, you know, not at the right time and the right way and the vilification of the process, the vilification of dogs on sushi, for God's sake, a country where there are multiple gulags imprisoned, tortured, set aside the story of 135 years of systemic white supremacist torture by the British. People talk about Black Lives Matter in America. Hey, listen Burmese lives matter in Burma. They were oppressed by a white supremacist, torture, imperialistic government that invaded the country in what 1835 or something
Host 19:33
was full succession, I think, in 1885, is when they have the whole country under the grasp.
Alan Clements 19:38
And people forget that it was Winston Churchill's father, who was the Governor General of India at the time who, right, let's bring Burma as the crown jewel to the white supremacist Kingdom of England. It's just very few people really recognize the context of what this emerging demand Democracy sits in. And so I've often joked and said poignantly that, you know, after eight and a half, you know, very intimate detailed years, bringing these books through interviews to the world. Burma needs a, a global psychiatrist in a way to support its transition. It's so complex. So, you know, to me, where do we find a parliament, where you can find people who, in recent time, either were ordered by or actually carried out orders, of torture, of rape of fat, with people who are wise, compassionate and tolerant enough not to look the other way, but to look beyond the easy blame. And think about the future of the people in the future of the country. That's Burma.
Host 21:02
Right, and many of the people you interview they're their true heroes and patriots in their society. They're not only on a national level, but they're striving to live the spiritual and ethical lives. And one of the things I love is how sharing these voices and their stories to readers and meditators everywhere, it reminded me, it's not totally unlike what we've tried to do with this podcast and bringing together these voices, and then having creating a special space for the voices to them to have an intimate conversation as we're doing and then be shared more widely after the conversation airs. And one of the things I found and while all the talks are special in their own way, there are some that really seem to come from nowhere and just kind of blow our team away from what we knew or what we were expecting walking in. So I'm curious about anything similar that might have happened in your case of doing all of these interviews? I know I'm asking a difficult question pertaining to a book where there are no dull interviews in there, and maybe putting you a little bit on the spot. And for that, I apologize. But I'm wondering if you could share with us, a person or two you spoke to who really impressed you maybe even challenged you and the impact that had on you and the nature of the project.
Alan Clements 22:17
Let me say this early on in our conversation, Joe, these this our conversation is for the people of Myanmar. This is intended for the parliament, for all religious leaders for the monastic order for the retired, senior General Tom sway, for Major General mning online, it is designed in ethical intent. Let me state my intention in bringing these books forth. There's provocative material in there, but the intention is for national and global reconciliation. And it's the dialogue without the fear of persecution, that's the key here freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and personal circumstances that inspired me. I I must say, I'm one of those people who am perpetually in awe. And in respect to that little known country of Myanmar. 55 million people who, back in 1977, March when I arrived for the first time, virtually close to the world, seven day visas maximum, to where we sit today is an unthinkable transition. I cannot recognize Mandalay or Rangoon or even a car.
Host 23:59
Right, right.
Alan Clements 24:02
But the people there's an abiding quality among the people that I know and meet and often. I would, in the interviewing, I would stop sometimes and ask a taxi driver who took me from point A to point B. Would you mind if we could speak a little bit? He would pull off and we would talk for an hour i'd record it. Mm hmm. He would not take my taxi fare, although he was barely surviving in a poor area of the city with a family of three working 15 hours a day driving as you know, bumper to bumper and Rangoon. Yeah, what is that quality and someone of high reverence for shared principles? Donna, sila Bhavana parami me the practice of mindfulness. And you see this goodwill, even among people who are not Buddhists, yes, Burma is fraught with these fractions of weaponized boys and girls in the ethnic areas and this long standing 400,000 boy man army in Naypyidaw, it's so complex and within it, we have these remarkable voices of reason and of freedom. Some of them have say right out my favorites I must say in 95 and 96. My meeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at that time, and I've met her a number of times since then. I like her tenacity, I love her. Her her intelligence, her wry humor, her directness, her intolerance of stupidity. Her her dedication to high ethics, her courage to take it higher, and she is so deferential to the people in her lives, not just by name, but by principle and value. I love that about her. Now, I was blessed to meet through her and around her remarkable men and women. Of course, I'm extremely deferential to say to Pandita. He and I spent 43 years when I first met him at mahasi Sasana yeiktha Here I am a young, brash, Rebel artist, former drug addict, uncertain of who I am trauma from a car accident probably have autism and Asperger's. You know, socially inept in many ways, but I was dedicated to what is this meditation that you talk about? That In one, two stages of insight and possibly Nirvana? And he talked with me for 43 years, there was nothing that we couldn't talk about. I earned, not just information and emotional, I would call it elegance, the aesthetics of interrelationships from him. But the power of the question if you will grow up and have anything and everything can be included in our relationship, Alan. And so we talked and we talked and we talked more so than the content, although his content is remarkable. It's the space that he created for open dialogue. I love that about the people that I've met, who've met dot Aung San su Chi. In New the former General of the Army I met when he was released after six years of isolation put there by his dictatorship boss ne when he was released, and I think in 1980, was a room at the mahasi Giga near mine, I learned about Burma's politics through him and the psychology of totalitarianism are interviews, maybe 567 of them in the book. Just a remarkable is His grace. No, he went from a natural born killer under a win being a General of the Army to a man of high redemption, rooted in a timeless quality of Ahimsa or harmlessness. He formed the National League for Democracy with the other men and women in Burma. And it became a non violent expression of democracy and of metta and of non violence in transformational action. And the ethos of that was non demonization, non vilification of the so called I found in our dialogues that he could reiterate that he had not one detectable emotion that I could see in all the times that we spent together over 10 years of interviews of ours included in the book, it wasn't just one off all those years he spent in solitary confinement, I think it was maybe 11 or 12, and then another six or seven under house arrest. You could not detect any dosa any anger, any blame at all? Where does that kind of Dhamma understanding come from? Where you're willing to even go beyond forgiving? Your captor your torturer, and he is a manifestation of what I would call dama intelligence. Combination of high mindfulness practice infused with Karuna compassion with metta loving kindness mudita sympathetic joy And all the boys and girls in the men and women who spend time in the gulags in Burma, the the labor camps, the quality of pickup of high engagement, I would call it not just balanced, that's too easy, high engagement with extreme complexity where they're able to move in the emotional, psychic cognitive flow, of torture, of deprivation, of disease of loneliness, with Uppekha. And so eu tinu was a remarkable set of conversation. It brings me up to the gentleman who I am deeply impressed by who's passed away. Who when 10, the renowned journalist, co founder of the National League for Democracy, I think it was back in 89, with Dong Santucci and others, ucci, Mung booty new and others. You may know but maybe people do not know. And I'm sure there's a whole generation of people in Myanmar today and it's worth bringing this man's life into higher fidelity. He's done his own books. But we spent five separate occasions together in his little hut that he chose to live in on a very busy road in Rangoon after he was released. From nearly 20 years of extreme solitary confinement extreme here in the sense, without any provisions, no bed, no pillow, so on and so forth. And he chose to give all of his money, all of his copyrights all of his books, his home his money to families, of political prisoners, who were still in the prisons in Myanmar, so that those families who now who lived in extreme trauma and deprivation had some income from his support. And the grace of this man, his honesty, you know, everyone talks about how he was unwilling to, you know, return his blue shirt that was, you know, the classical blue shirt used by prisoners in prisons in Burma, right. He refuse to give up that shirt, maintaining that he wanted to live in solidarity with the freed prisoners of conscience within the gulags of Burma. That tells you a lot about a man or a woman's. I would call it unshakable ethics, unshakable solidarity with the timeless qualities found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dignity, conscience, you know, I asked him so many questions, Joe about his life in prison, of course, you're, you're enthralled and terrified. What it means to even imagine the day in the life of a prisoner of conscience, who lives either with cellmates and or alone. But here's a man who did that for nearly 20 years. How do you get by? Mind you, I would only encourage all the people of Burma, I would encourage Major General mning online. The former general tonch way, every member of the military read this man's book, read these interviews, study the psychology, of dignity of conscience of a freedom, as he said, that includes even our oppressor. And that was so empowering to me to hear, wow, wow, my freedom is in such solidarity to a security and me that it is not able to be violated by the persecution, even the torture of another now he could walk his talk. I'm speaking to a man from the outside. How do you keep freedom alive who When, when, when you're alone in a prison cell. And you know, paraphrasing, some of us thought I would take it times. You know, little broken pieces of brick from the brick walls of my prison cell. And I would just just imagine all of us meditators what it means to do this much, I would take that little piece of brick and just ever so slowly rub it again. The wall to get powder over days and weeks. And then I would take a little bit of water and I would slowly make a little bit of a letter in the alphabet and the Burmese language. And slowly over the months, I would write a line of a poem that I knew in my mind. And it wasn't just the language of the poem on the wall of my solitary. It was the process of keeping freedom alive. In my mind. We talked about doing things mindfully eating, walking, answering the call of nature, in the comfort of a sacred environment, like the garden, the gate to upon depot, Rama, all the great monasteries throughout the country and around the world. Think about this gentleman's dedication to a mindfulness that's in consideration of the freedom of other people and not just of oneself. And that's another thing that I learned from Winton, and DOS, who and who entertain and say to Pandita, but all these freedom fighters, their freedom was intimately connected to the freedom of other people, even their oppressors. And I think that's one of the most marketable qualities I have ever dreamt in my human life, to see in action, that comes through the power of these dialogues through these people who lived through some of the most horrific circumstances, and deeply compassionate for the people of the country. You know, if we were to pause right now, and just take a deep breath, at least, I'm inviting myself to do that, and perhaps people listening, this is very intense. You know, when I was in Burma, for example, recently, and I did go out to the Bay Area. And I went to some neighboring villages. And I've been out there many times before, and just not with an agenda other than to feel just to temporarily, do what the teachers of Karuna tell us to do. The power of taking oneself into the mind and body of another. Just the pure psychology of empathy and action, not easy to do, even under the best of circumstances, even with people that we love. Sure. And so I'm going out there to feel into this environment. And you see kids with bloated bellies and sunken eyes and red hair from malnutrition. You can barely walk through the area from the stench of urine and feces and rotting food, rats and mice being sold and fried for food. And it's You can't imagine people could survive through the rainy season, or the lack of medicines, the lack of water. And it's so easy to remember the heroic high profile, who intends who tenuis who when tane minco nine, Coco G. So many of the others don't unscented cheese, but these people openly speak in our books that they are there only for the people of the country. The people of clang they are the people of Korean of Rakhine of mon state of current state of all the states, all the ethnicities, they are there as servants of the people. And that to me comes through these books. In my questions, I try to remember this, but in right back to being out and playing Thea. If there's anything that I would encourage, if someone would have asked me, What could you see Alan, as a conscious act to support the evolution of our democracy. I've said this repeatedly here as an American in my own country. Mr. President, Speaker of the House, members of the Senate, the House of Representatives, all seated of the tech industry. All stockholders of the weapons industry go to places like you men, go to places like Syria or Iraq, go to places like Afghanistan go to failed nations and see what supremacy, imperialism, weapons, drones, death and denial does two people see what starvation, see what COVID looks like, among the poor, the disenfranchised, they're forgotten, the expendable. And I would say the same thing about Burma. It's very easy. I've saw this in a monastery. It's very easy. This is why it's so breathtaking for the monks and the nuns, to walk through the villages. Stay connected, not just to the vow of not owning money and food, stay connected to the ambience, the psychology, the economy, the environment, the smell, the taste of the village, the ordinary people. And that's what I would really recommend. Of all the people in Myanmar, take a big moment. Don't go there with a motorcade of supporters don't go there in your uniform don't go there to court vote, although the vote is being taken today in Burma. Go there and in really, really, really, really feel the people. This is why we included and I'll end here with this particular comment. No, we included maybe 20 or 30, of, of Dong sunsoo cheese, more recent talks that she gave around the country. Just at the emergence of the COVID pandemic, it was barely cracking the surface of people's consciousness. And she was traveling the country to all various ethnicities and talking to the people we include, verbatim in the book these not easily found talks that she gives to ordinary people, I want the people of the world to hear her as she speaks to the ordinary people, including the questions of people who oppose her, or who are questioning her. These books are a dialogue of the people with the leaders of the country, and me in dialogue with people who are young leaders, and or citizens of this country for the benefit of the poor, the diversified ethnicities, and even of those armed soldiers, those armed ethnic groups around the country, what is it 10 2030 ethnic groups. I don't know how many Exactly. I beg of you to relax the certainty of your prejudice, your rightness and your indignation. And give democracy and harmony and unity of chance, the leaders the benefit of the doubt. And remember, that will all be soon forgotten. But there'll be a new birth of a new generation. And we're doing it you're doing it for that new birth of the people of Myanmar, and as a gift to the world of how it can be done without violence.
Host 43:36
Right. And one of the things I hear in what you just explained now, as well as in the pages of the books, is of the recent book, I should say that Burma's voices of freedom. There's the sense that in my experience, it's actually really rare to engage in a discussion about Burma, that is fully appreciating and acknowledging the spiritual as well as the worldly spheres like we're doing now, and like you've done in your book. And so that's an area I want to focus on a bit in the next few questions. So for example, generally speaking, you might have meditators, or monks, and they frequently speak about how the Buddhist teachings are followed in Burma, but without examining necessarily the wider context and relationship of the country's contemporary or historical realities. And by doing so, you can miss this important external shell and structure through which these teachings actually come alive. Conversely, on the other hand, you might have non meditators that are there through some capacity and living in the country studying or operating and fields, Burmese history or politics or whatnot. And in all of their examination and analysis, they seem to overlook these lofty spiritual goals that animates so many throughout the society. And if you overlook this key component, you're kind of missing the point. pulsating heartbeat of the country. So I think what most fascinates me about your work and these conversations is the way that it examines this intersection between the Dhamma. And well, everything else on the worldly level in Burmese society. When for many, as I mentioned, it's this distinct dichotomy were never the twain shall meet. So what I'm curious about is like, is this a conscious process for you as to how and where you personally settle on this balance between the spiritual and the worldly, and how you look to bring them together and balance them.
Alan Clements 45:39
It's been an evolution over the last 45 years. And over the last 30 years, a deliberate evolution. And I would say a more appropriate way to describe not an evolution, but an integration of, of all things considered in Dhamma, without the need to see a division between Dhamma and worldliness. It's a non separation Dhamma the lawfulness of human interaction with context. When I learned from Saito mahasi, zero that meditation was a twofold application, there was the mindfulness in the Sati putana, self to self within mind and body within nama Rupa within the six senses, the mind door being the sixth, and then there was contextual, Sati putana, clearly comprehending human existence within context, through the sense doors to otherness. And many people attribute this so called self with other self with other self with community self with nation, self with the environment, self with the cosmos, self with samsara. That's the Bodhisattva path, but not a Buddhahood attached to it. taking those theologies out of self with other simply, we have a meditative opportunity, that's 24 seven, then the postural apartheid that's so easily programmed into the belief that meditation takes place best in a meditation center, or in a retreat, and when you're sitting. So my evolution was the integration that Domino is an all posture, all state, all time, all circumstance application. And I have to really credit said upon ditto for the evolution of my thinking, feeling more than that, the experience, stress to me Joe is so often in our dialogues, and in the book, Alan, paraphrasing him Dhamma is identical to breathing oxygen. Hmm, you don't save up breathing, to breathe more of it tomorrow. You are living, breathing in an oxygenated nature of what Donna sila Bhavana, of pyrometer, the 10 virtuous qualities of consciousness that shine forth to compliment your Donna sila Yerbabuena authenticity, determination, truthfulness, breathe into these states of mind SLM states of mind. So he was the one who introduced me to understand Dhamma as a trans meditative practice, without negating it to be a meditative practice as well, when you choose to do intensive practice. But then, as you evolve in your Dhamma, you're living in the world as a retreat. It's not practicing meditation in the world, or meditation off the cushion, anymore than practicing yoga off the mat, practice meditation in the world to bring to your cushion. And, you know, I'm alive 24 seven. And so I have to really credit say to Pandita, for this broadening of the spectrum, to include, I would say, a trans apartheid approach to inner and outer and inner beingness with outer beingness. I'm alive, my meditation is here and now in context to myself with other and I think that's what Burma provides for a lot of people. Look carefully into that expression. In my interviews, if you read them all, you'll see that I asked many questions with people about what does the Dhamma mean to you in prison in the world right in Parliament. And I would call it the the most evolved expression of Dhamma in the world today, which is I would call it a trans Buddhist Dhamma, if you will, even though Pandita encouraged me in our final interview, Alan, there's no need to, to teach Buddhism, there's no need to share Buddhism. Dhamma is important. Breathing is not Buddhism Sati putana is not Buddhism. Freedom is doesn't belong to the Catholic to the Jew to the atheist. Freedom is freedom. And that's the beauty of the Dhamma is how well do you practice freedom as a living, breathing experience of your day to day life?
Host 50:36
Yeah, and it really was quite interesting to see in some of those interviews and hearing you talk now of how you're exploring these spiritual beliefs of the practitioners, but then grounding those spiritual beliefs in who they actually are, what they're doing in the world. And so as you were going about to conduct these interviews and collect this information, did you specifically seek to establish this balance while you were writing when you were pursuing the interviews? Or? Or was it some kind of intuitive sense or more natural, but I noticed in so many of the interviews, these two parts are really there continuously. And that's, as I say, That's rare. I mean, often I encounter meditator books where they're, they're really just getting into doctrine and practice and freedom. And, you know, and ignoring the sense that whole Burma has had this really difficult history, and they're a very different country from ours, and they've gone through this collective trauma and, and, and it's kind of in this vacuum, you're getting these teachings, or the other way around, where you're studying these worldly political actors and the decisions they're making and evaluating what you think of various actions. And to me, I've personally never liked having them separate, I think you really lose an essential understanding when you're not trying to integrate that. And so I really enjoyed the experience of trying to have this nuanced view of how someone's spiritual beliefs and system were manifesting in the political realities. And that's not to say that everyone gets a pass, or everyone because they think that they're okay, it's not really a judgement here we're looking at, or at least, that's how I took it. It was more of a depth of trying to understand why they were doing what they were doing and how their spiritual background went into the mundane reality of the decisions they were making. So as you were conducting this process of interviews, I'm curious how much of that was like a conscious thing you wanted to get out? Or how from hearing how you just spoke? Now, it sounds like it might have come from a more holistic worldview on, you know, how life works, and how you try to bring your own practice in there.
52:42
But I'm just curious
Host 52:42
how that how those elements came to the page in the preparation and the actual work of the interviews?
Alan Clements 52:52
Well, this, this, this forced into the world expression of Dhamma in action for me, maybe you remember, but I, you know, I was told to leave Burma, by the authorities and by the dictator, on several occasions. And so here I am in intensive practice and living my life as a monk at the Maha seca. And you get this pink slip, and you're told by the authorities, it's an unquestionable out in 24 hours, and that happened several times. And I left the country as a monk a number of times, and then eventually, on the fourth time of being told to leave, I just couldn't bear the in and out process. And I adored the sanctity of practicing among monks and nuns, you know, it's beautiful to have food provided for you and shelter in silence, and a meditation hall the sanctity of a of a place to challenge the nuanced elements of kilesa, these these defilements of mind and to elevate the radiance of, you know, higher order parmi and the seven factors and the five spiritual Bala's you get to practice consciousness and it's beautiful, to be around elevated men and women who devoted their entire life but it's not so easy when you're, you know, in the world. And I found that that longing to be back into the sanctity of the environment that I was thrown out of, to be very detrimental for me than ever, eventually Burma 88 you know, as we all know, there was the attack on the students protesting nationwide and many were killed and the country was closed. And I went back in numbers of times, secretly and ended up reporting on the crisis within that country in several books. And that was my transition of Wow, Alan, you know, your monastery is no longer available to you. And, you know, what is Dhamma mean now, as a living, breathing experience, that isn't a second best expression that the first best was in the monastery. And so what is it metta inaction is a Karuna inaction? Is it done inaction? Is it seeing it in action. And then slowly over time, I began to see, you know, it's one thing to watch your breath mindfully. It's another thing to realize it with every breath. It could be your first and who knows your last, then all of a sudden, you realize that it's not just about breath control, or watching your breath, mindfulness or even just, you know, immersing yourself in nature, not to, you know, you know, the famous nature of some Quran Hoopa divided me know, all things are conditioned, all things are empty. To understand impermanence, every breathing, waking moment of being is to live in the highest happiness. There's our meditation instruction, live in the wisdom filter of understanding a nature of impermanence, and not to emptiness of self fixation. And all of a sudden, you go, Okay, I don't need to practice mindfulness as much as I need to embody punya wisdom, and occasionally, metta and Karuna. And all of a sudden you're going, Wow, a resurrection of my Dhamma understanding to loan longer be in technique fetish, huh. And that was a very distinct support that I got from zeta who Pandita was, you know, he didn't use the word, method fetish, but I do. And there are a lot of people who live for the next retreat, they live for the next breath to be more mindful of the next breath, you know. And the more mindful, they are more indoctrinated they become. And it's like, Okay, what is this living, breathing Dhamma, you know, just an aside here. I'm certainly not a scholar of traditional Pali, and of Tera vaada. But I've read all of mahasi Saito's books, I think they're close to 70, or 75, or 60 of them in English. And I've read a fair amount of, you know, the traditional suitors and Abbe Dhamma, that I'm taking in on a personal level. And how many of these classical suitors that are so easily overlooked, are about a sharing of a dynamic with ordinary people in a context in the world and not in a monastery. It's not really, there's no Buddhism, it's just a man and a few women and men in their early days, who found the most remarkable regard as I understand it, for the transformation of consciousness is the highest vocation of the human and found that if you do this, this result happens. And the next thing you know, through the practice of what they called, present time, awareness of the phenomena of inner and outer being at the center stores, through wisdom, they saw into these things that they call the T lacuna into impermanence, of emptiness, and of unsatisfactoriness, the cause through grasping and attachment. And of course, I'm just using language here to, to mimic what I understand to be the freedom from suffering. And out of the goodwill and the compassion of that understanding. They just shared that wisdom in the most remarkably creative ways. For example, I don't know whether you know, this sutra or not, but it's called the to pataka suta. And it's an obscure suta Saito, Pandita. I never heard him talk about it. But mahasi said, I talked about it, and it's a recent book of his a few years back in English. Just In brief, what fascinates me about it, Joe, is if I can tell a brief story, if that's okay with you, please. Many years ago at mahasi I had heard that there was a woman who came to see him and the other monks in the morning when they gathered at the mahasi Lodge, and talked about the day's teachings. She was a long term disciple and she came sat behind the monks. And the Sado asked her, What is it that brings you and suddenly as I was told, she speaks in a language of classical Pali, which she did not know according to the story. I was told, and she speaks in a voice, not her own. And she announces herself to mahasi Saito and to the other monks, that she's a Deva from a particular realm within the six Davao realms, and she said that she was alive and still alive as a diva. She wanted to come and pay her respects to mahasi sayadaw for keeping alive the set Sati putana teaching okay far fetched, phantasmagorical, in this person told me they have a tape of it 20 years by, they came to my room some years back, we found the tape and here it is. Do you have a translation? they translated it for me. Wow, that's pretty amazing the dialogue that those two had, but still is it verifiable? A couple of years back, he came back to me and said, Alan, we found for the first time this is this is mahasi Santos, Principal biographer. We found the only discourse of say dodgy mahasi Sara, where he talks to the gathering on Sundays where he gives a Dhamma talk where he did until he passed away in 82. Where he refers to that woman who came to see him with the other monks way back, I think it may have been in the mid 50s. And tells the audience, and I'm going, you have evidence that mahasi sayadaw actually said that that's true. He said, Yes. Hmm. Now, that exchange I just had with you has been put into a book. But what's interesting about this is the actual discourse itself, and the discourse attributed to the Buddha that mahasi brings light to and this is it in a nutshell. It turns out that the tuba Taka suta, the Buddha was in a circumstance where he was somehow in radiant congregation with scores of devas, which, of course, as you know, in your own history with studying Buddhism, so much of the traditional Buddhist literature, is not just a young man who attained Buddhahood, or enlightenment in context to boys and girls. In ancient India, these traditional Buddhist texts are filled with stories of deities of Davis of angels of light of Brahmas beans, that have gone beyond bodies, but are just a pure states of consciousness in the 31 classical planes of existence, found an Abbe Dhamma in Tera vaada. Very few people really respect the 31 dimensional aspects of classical Tera vaada mahasi does say to Pandita does not many Westerners do. The Dalai Lama does, he's the 14th. He's not the 12th. He firmly believes he's the incarnation of 13. Previous Dalai Lama's what we're pointing to here is a trans dimensional expression of Dhamma. We talk about Dhamma in the world, what about Dhamma? In dimensionality to the radiance of different states of consciousness, in the 31 planes of existence, that we're always in simultaneous respect with if we had the sensitivity of mind to feel and to see, are you with me on this job? Yeah, okay. And I know in my own meditation practice, you know, which I very rarely talk about. There have been many times, and I've seen many other students of Dhamma and meditation in their practice, say at the stage of Buddha banyana, the stage of arising and passing away. I'm not trying to claim some kind of special talent or some kind of special power, it's very ordinary, that all of a sudden you can sit for hours you feel like you're you go into your room, the whole room is lit up with light conversations with deities in four dimension. You see Davis you hear sound you hear mystical music, you have access to things that you normally can't have access to. And all of a sudden you have a taste of this intersect ethical interdimensional aspect of existence is always co arises within our own bandwidth of understanding, but we normally don't have access to it unless you have refined consciousness. Well, the traditional Buddhist texts are filled with stories of this multidimensionality the Buddha's going to a daiba realm and there's scores of Devas and he's doing a survey which he often did, of the mind, readiness of the congregation. You know, one of the most classic stories of this is when the Buddha was said to have had a bunch of people gathered monks and nuns who are really waiting to hear him give an exhortation on Dhamma. And then a very beleaguered disease man came up and walked behind the congregation you remember the story of the leper? Sure. And very few people remember this story. He's not just a leper. But could you imagine in ancient India being a leper, we think COVID and being infectious is one thing. Could you imagine being a leper, you're exposed by society. This man have never probably ever kissed, made love or touched. People left food probably far away from him not to be contaminated or dizzy. And then the Buddha goes, this man's consciousness is ready for Dhamma is ready for Nibbana he spoke to this man's mind, that's breathtaking. That's not monastery Dhamma. That's monastery Dhamma, taken out of monasteries, into the theology of living in life. And in this tubas, Taka suta, the Buddha did the same thing but in the Deva realm, and he said, There's no one here, according to mahasi, interpreting the classical teaching in the tuba, Taka suta, in tera, vaada, quoting the original Paul, no one was ready to hear the Dhamma he said, these are all devas. And so the Buddha decides, according to the suta, to duplicate his body, imagine that. I mean, talk about Dhamma in the world, right? He duplicated his body. And he then programs the duplicate body to ask the original source of the duplicate himself, intimate, progressively deepening questions about the nature of life Dhamma and freedom. The discourse is a dialogue between the Buddha and his duplicate. And mahasi is telling the audience at the mahasi in Rangoon, back in the 50s about this discourse and he's telling the audience Listen up. We too, you too, could have a tuba Taka moment. Listen, with the whole of your being. That's a very different teaching than bear attention at the sense doors,
Host 1:07:40
right?
Alan Clements 1:07:41
Yeah, it's listening with the freedom from the fetish of technique. Don't just hear a thought as thinking, thinking, hear it in relationship to the filter of Ponyo wisdom, let it translate like say to coupon DITA as I hear it, let it oxygenate your own innate punya, your own vimukthi your own freedom, your own innate Nibbana. And, again, I bring this up at the end of the discourse. It's one of the shortest discourses of the Buddha. Countless devas are enlightened. Based upon this, I would call it dama. inter psychical theater, if you will. Now look at that kind of example as what does it mean, to live in breathe and emote and interrelate in our own lives, as if either weird Davis, or the leper or the Buddha to be each of us living metaphorically in this interactive exchange? Of what does it mean to live in the highest radiance of your punya That to me is the evolution of Dhamma in the world, stop practicing mindfulness and live wisely. And if you need to revert to in breath out breath, thinking, hearing seen sitting walking, cool. Be in the prison camp of Orthodox mindful practice alone.
Host 1:09:17
Right? Right. So the balance between these structured courses and then how we bring them out into into daily life and to take the knowledge and the wisdom, what we can gain on the cushion and be able to engage in the world
Alan Clements 1:09:30
with exactly what I was saying earlier, you know, to go back to this point of inviting presidents and prime ministers and Pope's, and members of Congress and senate and people all over Burma and around the world, all leaders, take off your uniforms, take off your labels, go to these places, in those places of deprivation, despair, difficulty. It's not just about being in the world and practicing Dhamma but one of the greatest practices, I think, and I'm saying this with A degree of humility. I'm not trying to victimize those who've already been disenfranchised. But what can we learn and give back to these people? What does it mean to live in Dhamma in Donna and sila in wisdom and compassion, go to these places where it's an optional not to be loving and caring to these people and watch how your mind cringes in the face of seeing a boy or girl who's had their leg blown off, who's starving to death, and look at our complicity with the white supremacists forms of stock options, and votes to supremacist governments, to perpetuate the madness upon these people, and then you break the coma of your religion, and begin to see that Dhamma is a world activity all the time and you can be proactive, if not activism, it's not Dhamma in the world, it's just a deeper dedication, say to Ponty to turn me on to this very provocative topic. You know, we talk about the Buddha as a bodhisattva, or body soften the Sanskrit word have been dedicated to the evolution of the pyramids, the 10, classical states of excellence, Donna sila renunciation that the so on. And here we find these qualities, and
1:11:36
you
Alan Clements 1:11:40
need to talk to me about it the no time off model of parmi development. And think of that when you live into that moment where you are analogously with your lover, where the intimacy and the vocation, and the fidelity and the presence and the fluency, of touch of intimacy of love, kissing of holding of sharing space, bringing that type of romantic erotic Tantra, intimacy into your love of carmi. With complexity, no time off, and all of a sudden, we find ourselves more and more and more in the vocation of transformational wisdom. Like the Bodhisattva here, whoo Ponti, to talk to me said, Alan. It's a very little known concept. But there are many, many occasions in the traditional texts and commentary with the Buddha to be, was born and reborn as a daiba in one of the six dimensions, and because it was so difficult there to be in the evolution of the commitment to the permies. There's so much breathtaking mind manifestation and creativity, and subtle forms of low bar and craving and clinging, and joy in rapture that's breathtaking. He could see in a moment of wisdom, that this was not an environment for me to really deal in the complexity of the locations that are more demonstrative in the human realms. And so he committed what was known in the Pali, which I can't recite it at the moment, but he in the book, he committed what he called psychic, Deva euthanasia. Hmm. How spiritually in correct is that? now talk about Dhamma in the world, he seemed that hey, listen, the party's over here. I want to go back to a place where the environment is far more enriching, to my dedication to be alive in Dhamma. Rather than reading a book in a novel in a, you know, in a comfort of my own mansion, right? Or being a teacher to get another group of retreatants and Captain my loot at the end of it and how much Donna like how much endowment I've gotten No offense to the Western, to the eastern teachers who live being co opted by wealth and status and lokoja. But radically coming down off the elitism and the corruptions of capitalism and greed and fear and delusion and go, Wow. You know, although I may have lost the election, I found my soul so to speak, Donald Trump makes an announcement to the world. I am going to you men, in volunteer in the refugee camps, through the wrongful selling of weapons to Saudi Arabia, and I am going to humble myself for the rest of my life alone. with Jared and Ivanka, and Penn, even new Nancy Pelosi, I invite you come with, right? Imagine how easy that would be in what a world turning monarch they would become. It could be a complete resurrection of faith and competence in the world. Why is that? So far fetched? Why is that so spiritually incorrect. And the great teachings out of Burma bring to us, the people and the transformation of consciousness over privilege, elitism and power. That's what I have learned. And yes, I have seen my shadow to state the obvious, I have been corrupted, I openly speak about my times, double life, even my triple life, even my quadruple life. Hmm. But I do feel the sincerity of my conviction and honesty and moral courage. And I feel blessed by the few people in my life who stood by me through thick and thin and said, Alan, what you think is not true. This is more in line with integrity. But we have a chance to keep alive Dhamma, not Buddhism, the transformation of consciousness in these books going back to the books, Burma's voices of freedom. It's the people there, they lived in the complexity of these places and said, Hey, just like the Bodhisattva, left to David Rome, every one of these boys and girls in Burma, as non violent revolutionary said to themselves as I understand adjoa freedom is more important than fear. I am a non violent revolutionary, I saw it in action over the many decades in Burma. I saw it in 95 and 96, when I was in Burma, at dawn Santa cheese house, six months of conversations with her in the book, the voice of hope, people risking their freedom in their lives, every minute of their day. They chose complexity over the comfort of the day below, of the fear of being in their own home and the obedience to the fear programmed throughout society by the totalitarian regime. You stand in freedom, and you die. And that is the corruption of society in Burma represents the willingness to courageously and morally confront that timeless corruption. And one more point here, you know, when I started these books with Fergus, totalitarianism was sort of you something you studied in the first year in college. dictatorship was sort of okay, but totalitarianism and big brother and of course, everyone knows that George Orwell lived in Burma, and very likely to see that 1984 were born from his three years as a policeman, back in World War Two, as a running dog for the white supremacist I might add, of the British Empire. But totalitarianism, all of a sudden, has become ubiquitous as a global phenomenon. People are talking now about Orwell and big brother and Big Sister, and he logs out of the Chinese Communist Party of China, how easy it was to forget that China not so long back in 1951, through the ideology of their totalitarian dictatorial psychological narcissism decided to do a thing called let's invade Tibet. And let's kill those Buddha's 2.5 million, Tibetans were said to be exterminated. That's forgotten that's on the hands of the history of the Chinese Communist Party today, and to think of all the persecution in China, by the dictators in China, the think of what's gone down in Hong Kong. And so totalitarianism right now, these books coming back Burma's voices of freedom. It's a study tragically, on people not fighting with guns and weapons. But how to use the power of conscience, and have the conviction of the human voice and the power of the mind. Although you'll see that's fraught with difficulties and shadows to uncensored choose the first to admit her shortcomings. But totalitarianism is a scary proposition. And there are many ways in which it infiltrates our own lives, and it's infiltrated many of the lives in Burma. A much more nuanced form of money. Control. Because dictatorship doesn't belong to one man. It's a psychology in one has to be deeply vigilantly in Dhamma, mindful intelligence to protect the fidelity of your own moral courage not to believe in the indoctrination, of wealth of status of corruption, of deception of cronyism. And the world today is really probably standing at the precipice could be the end of the nation state. Freedom versus totalitarianism. I don't know where the world will go at this point, except that I'm a little bit scared at the merger of the globalists, with the so called Biden presidency merging yet again with his fidelity, his corruption, his long standing, selling out to the Chinese Communist totalitarian government call it what it is. And all of a sudden, so many people from the EU from Canada from freedom loving democracies now are talking about, are we entering, not just a corporate totalitarian state? are we losing our last vestiges of human rights here in this next five to 10 years, along with the, you know, the greater context, which is the environmental, which many talk about is the irreversible climate collapse that we're in, and even the mass extinction that seems inevitable? So these books aren't just about Myanmar, I would really, really beg people who hear these podcasts. I mean, I might add, these books were produced by donations over the course of many, many years close to $200,000 was put into making these books happen. Took nothing from them. And I really invite people who care about democracy and freedom, not just about Burma, buy them, read them, study them. give as many copies as you can afford to your leaders to the members of the United Nations to journalists, send them to the editors of the New York Times, the BBC, CNN, ABC, CBC, anywhere in the world, send them to Bono, send them to people who've been critical of Burma's transition critical of Don Santucci. Let them read the voice of the people and see what the dialogue and the narrative is after reading these books, and then write your journal pieces, then go on air. Invite me if you wish to be on any of your TV programs or podcasts. Although I don't intend to do many more if any after this, Joe. Those books speak for themselves. And it's a statement. Listen, we have a moment in time. No give freedom a chance to support the people of Myanmar. I implore leaders around the world, peel back your belief systems of complicity with genocide. Peeling, peel it back, read the book, see a different narrative. Throw your support at the transition. support the people not just on Santucci, she will soon retire. It's the people and more than the people it's democracy, it's freedom. And let's put totalitarian psychology, where it needs to be put, as a lesson learned on something not to repeat. So sorry about a rant. But I I feel like I'm speaking up in my own humble way here, Joe, for the people who have died in Myanmar. This book represents the living, although many of the people I did interview have died. But there are 1000s more who've lost their lives, who live, traumatized 1000s more who disappeared. And these voices speak for those people. And I certainly speak for what I know of them as well and my questions in my comments. And it's not just those people. But if we were to pause for a moment how many generations of people on our planet no 800 billion of us that have lived since way back. And think of all those moments of courage that it took to bring into formation this three page document the blueprint for civilized exists. called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all beings are born equal in dignity and conscience. These four books are a living, breathing, typical Bible, Quran, if you will, of, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in action. And we need to pay respect, and keep the promise of all of our sisters and brothers before us that have ever lived and struggled for freedom to overcome tyranny. And I will say, may you do your part to, to rise up, encourage that this time of global transition? And let's keep the luminosity of freedom and democracy and not just Dumbo. But a trans dama that includes beyond your own respective religion, the timeless qualities inherent in human psyche, and perhaps consciousness itself, in all animals, all beings in all dimensions? What are these transformational qualities, and may we commit ourselves to the good, the true and the beautiful, and if I've learned anything in Myanmar is to really be vigilant and to protect and safeguards your mind, for no other reason, then their effect and their impact on other guards yourself from these places of greed, of anger and delusion. I was in Yugoslavia for the final year of their war, a genocide. I could barely speak during that time seen the convulsions of the human psyche, through kilesa. rape, murder, persecution, denigration these burning forces are global. They're inherent in consciousness. And each of us have a responsibility to state the obvious to uphold the importance of transforming our own inner being. And to an all that we can to remove from the genome of this, this this world in mind that we're embedded these these forces of greed, anger and delusion, I see no more important journey in life than to safeguard the future of freedom by challenging my own unrecognized key, Lisa.
Host 1:27:51
Right, and you spoke a bit about the complexity of some of the concepts that you're looking at, and also the universal aspects where these fit in and how they apply. And I have a question along those lines, it's a bit of a long question, maybe a statement first and then followed by a question. So So Bear Bear with me with this, it refers to Burma's history and how it relates to how we see these dynamic balancing forces of acting in the world and one's spiritual practice. So in the US, as in many other Western countries, we have this ideal that we want to maintain a clear separation between church and state. It's an important feature of the political and the cultural landscape. Even though these days conservative movements, at least here in the US are more actively trying to blur these lines. So for me personally, as a meditator born in the West, I say I'm secular in my outlook. But I confess there's this time a feeling of tension between my own personal commitment to the Dhamma. And the overwhelming presence of religion that you find in all aspects of life in Burma, including the political. Many other Western meditators who are coming to the practice, from perhaps more progressive backgrounds, are often surprised to encounter the teachings that they're following when they come to Burma resting in a more conservative, religious, hierarchal, patriarchal, traditional society that you find in Burma, not totally unlike the one they rebelled against in their home country, and which may have even inspired their Dhamma practice in the first place. So, for that reason, let me give one anecdote that illustrates this kind of seeming disconnect. And that's in the 1950s and Prime Minister who knew took over and had an independent Burma. He passed this wide range of official initiatives that encouraged his government ministers to bring Buddhist teachings into their official positions, even into their actual physical offices. This was very much a conscious Buddhist identity that he wanted to take on. So one of his ministers say it you can took advantage of this by incorporating a Buddhist Trine into his office, actually bringing in people to give Dhamma talks in the office and eventually even started teaching meditation practice in the office itself before moving to the international meditation center. So hearing this story, it's might be an odd comparison. But one thing that comes to mind is what happened in 2003 in Alabama, when judge Ray Moore, who was a devout Christian, refused to follow a government injunction to take down a display of the 10 commandments at the Alabama judicial building in Montgomery. So in some respects, the examples of judgment or newbiggin are actually not dissimilar. And yet, while I was adamantly 100%, against Moore's action, separation of church and state, I'm much more ambivalent when it comes to begin, because well, I was a direct beneficiary of that mission taking place. So because the kin took that step, it was the first step in establishing the international meditation Center, which is where sn Goenka became a student and ended up spreading these teachings around the world. And this marked my own first step into the world of Dhamma. And so it's this interesting situation where I'm a progressive secularist. And learning this history at a deeper level makes me a little uncomfortable if I'm totally honest, especially when I consider my reaction to the incident in Alabama. So with my progressive secularist hat on, despite how enormously I've personally benefited, and how much the packaging and the practice, at least in the West, is emphasizing this non sectarian nature, I have to wonder how Lukins non Buddhist employees may have felt at that time to say nothing of other minorities comprising the newly independent Burma that they're having this push to have a Buddhist state. So interestingly, I see this tension playing out in your book on some level. On one hand, you encourage the role that Dhamma practice can play in national reconciliation. And you've mentioned that here in this talk as well. Yet on the other hand, you interview people like Archbishop Charles bow, who you also recently referenced, who believes that the greatest mistake in the country's recent history is to have declared Buddhism the state religion, which is what Manu did. So you're advocating how a transformational spiritual practice can play a role in the actual reform of the country. And yet, one of the prominent non Buddhist peace advocates that you interview feels that this formal identification with Buddhism was one of the biggest missteps that Prime Minister knew made after Burma's independence from Britain. So this is all kind of a long winded way of setting up this question. How do you square these views, balancing the power and the wisdom of Buddhist meditative practice on the one hand, with the need for plurality and respect across all religious, cultural and ethnic lines on the other?
Alan Clements 1:32:59
I wish I knew. I wish I knew the way to overcome the dogma the platitudes, the preferences, the hierarchy, the patriarchy, of one's own preferences or prejudices, the various expressions of racism and apartheid and xenophobia, it comes back if I were to say here, just riffing on this, from my heart is an education of the heart and education of a trans religious consciousness and challenging the vocation of your fidelity to your own language. Like how do you see the meaning of Buddhism to mean something without using the word Buddhism? Remove the Buddha from your Dhamma. Remove the Dhamma from your Dhamma. Remove the Catholicism from your Catholicism remove Allah from your Islam. And isn't that tracing back the radiance to the fidelity of shared states of consciousness? It's really the kind of the metaphor the psychedelic, there isn't, you know, I mean, I say this very cautiously. But there isn't a kind of Christian LSD. There isn't a Muslim Iosco there isn't a Buddhist cigarette. I mean, all of these things point to states of consciousness. I think that's the beauty of an individual who's mature enough to understand beyond their religious predilections, the embodiment of the universality of loving kindness, it doesn't belong to God or Jesus or the Buddha or the boat, sorry, Buta. When tener de Aung San su ci or President Trump. You know, it's that simple. And coming back on a practical level. I've had this conversation A number of times, in fact, prior to deciding who Pandita is passing away, we had proposed and he was totally down with it, Jolla to do a retreat for one on the one hand of former political prisoners, to have all leaders whether it be from the democracy side, whether it be ethnic leaders, whether it be from the military, on what he and I talked about, which was mindful intelligence, the culture of consciousness, what are these timeless qualities, that when embodied over the fidelity in the adherence and the blind allegiance, to authority, to privilege, to ethnicity, to language, to philosophy, to gender, what are those timeless qualities, and I can tell you my experience, I'm a mere outsider to these, to these heroic women and men, who devoted their entire life to the transformation of wisdom. That there is a language of consciousness that exceeds your Buddhism that exceeds your Christianity. And it's not multifaith, there is a constant, I call it world Dharma, a trends, traditional trends, orthodox, where the teachings of liberty and liberation are more important than the system or the technique. You know, you go way back to this handful of leaf discourse by the Buddha, you know, we held up a handful of leaves and says, oh, nuns and monks, as I understand attributed to his teaching, what is more leaves in all the forests of the hand, full of leaves, and that's it, of course, in all the forest, there's more leaves and since. So two is my knowledge of Dhamma. More than what I share just this mere handful of leaves of what I share, and to think think of that, really what's being pointed to there is what I hear there is unlimited diversity, of possibility to awaken. You come back to the simile of the blind men and the elephant. 4567 different men are attributed to this teaching of the Buddha, you know, you touch the tail and you What do you feel that feel, it's like, it's a rope, you touch the Tusk, and all seven of the men have different experiences of the elephant. No one really knows what it is that they're touching, except that it's true to what they have their hand on. I think religion is a hand on some element of the whole. And the wisdom of the relativity of the hold, is to relax to hold, to see more of the whole, maybe not as whole as all the leaves in all the forest. But there is the evolution of consciousness and I would not be surprised. It someday in time, probably even who knows 2025 maybe 2090. Some boy will think of some phantasmagorical app, you know, very much like the iPhone that's able to transmit images and sound across time. You can imagine if you know, at the next Buddha, so to speak my trailer, you know, someone has a video camera that's able to shoot in four D. and 10 takes an image of the interior transformation of a mind going from heightened states of parmi to full Buddhahood, it's on camera. And that particular imaging is then decoded into an AI in which you can just simply inhale it like an inhale and and all of a sudden you have the mind of an arahant the whole dialogue is over. We're in an evolutional bandwidth of transformation, I think. And so on the one hand we have these traditional teachings called religion which are cool and groovy. But look at the wars in the blood to state the obvious. committed in the name of our Holy Father, our holy teachers. They're outmoded. I'm not saying throw away the tipitaka throw away the Bible, throw away the Quran, throw away our allegiance to dogma and learn a more mindful intelligence in this country. back to what he wanted to talk to me about, you know, he agreed, bring the people together our in our country here in this country and a non sectarian trans Buddhist education on mindful intelligence. And I think that's what we're pointing to here, to drop your religion, and to live more in the universality of these timeless principles. And yes, if you need a particular, your handful of leaf, yes, I'm going to be beholding to the Quran, I'm going to be beholding to the Bible, I'm going to be beholding to the Mahayana texts, but have enough grace and wisdom to let go of that. And realize that you're not alone in this world, and that these teachings are about consciousness and consciousness exceeds the apartheid, of Russian, Chinese American Jew time, past and future. And that's the dance, I think of wisdom. And that's what we're in. And that's what these books bring to the world community. The radiance of freedom beyond the barrier of religion, of ethnicity, and you have to glean in the interviews to find it. But I'll tell you, I spent 35 years primarily the last 10 years of my life in Burma, dedicated to bringing alive what I just said in these interviews.
Host 1:41:25
Right. And that also led to another question, curiosity that, although you're a former monk, and Buddhist meditation has had a profound guidance in your life, you go out of your way, in this book, to speak to several people of different faiths, Christians and Muslims, as well as those from other kinds of backgrounds. So why was it so important to you to tell this wider story and go beyond just those within your chosen spiritual practice?
Alan Clements 1:41:55
The state the obvious, and one of the things that are overlooked. Burma is a tapestry of complexity of conditions for that reason religions. It's to me it's a fascinating microcosm of the whole. I've never seen anything like this the size of France or Texas or Germany, to have such diversity. And I've, you know, 43 years I've lived and breathed and traveled, I speak a little bit of the language. I have walked and breathe and commune and lived and almost died numerous times, dealing with disease, terrorists, arm soldiers, you know, I've been held at gunpoint. I've been held with grace. I know that people to a large extent, probably as well as most, who've really studied and felt and embedded their heart and mind in Myanmar. And the reason I have brought into these books diversity is because of the fact that Burma is diverse. Hmm. And Burma is not Buddhist. And I'm not even down with calling it predominantly Buddhist. Burma, Myanmar is militaristic, it's Catholic. It's atheist, pagan. It's Jewish, it's jihadist, it's Muslim. It's compassionate. It's frightened, it's violent. It's corrupted. It's dictatorial. It's traumatized. People don't like that word in Burma traumatized. But when you look and I've gone to the British Museum and gotten personal tours there, the British Museum, Burma department, and really looked at the photographs that were brought back over the time. Burma was a tortured country. You look at the famous Buddhist monk who brought Gandhian nonviolence fused with Dhamma activism to the country and was imprisoned for his confrontation of the white supremacist British people forget about Ultima. And you look and go, Whoa, this country has been severely violated it was bombed incessantly, during World War Two by the Allied soldiers trying to out so to speak the Japanese fascist. I've heard so many stories, who Pandita told me directly. He saw nuns being raped by Japanese soldiers, who tinu told me hand to hand combat. He's pulled up his monk's robe and short bullet holes in his body. mahasi said or wrote the great treaties on Vipassana hearing bombs near swaco in World War Two, huh? How many of us live with that type of of Have incessant we hear a gunshot and many people are scared for a year. Burma is resilient, and they've absorbed a lot of what my country and our country has done. We export our violence. We're extroverts and our sociopathy. We kill other people in the name of freedom, Burma inverted, to use a very, you know, generous psychological assessment. They went from 135 years of white supremacist, near genocidal oppression, tortured, imprisoned, denigrated, subjugated, impoverished, made to bow and to, you know, speak in reverential terms to their white supremacist slave owners. And out of that, we all know the independence story in the complexity of that. And who knew and general long song dawn Santa cheese father, these young boys and girls rose up in challenge challenged the white supremacist invaders, even enough to stand with them to challenge the Japanese fascists as kids. And tragically, they was assassinated prior to independence. We know the story. And as a result of what happened think of in a family unit, the psychological convulsions of, of secular domestic violence, and the level of trauma and struggle, despair, psychological emotional distortions in the family, the wife, the husband, the children, over many generations, liquid my country has done to the Native American Indians. How many millions were persecuted and raped and beheaded and scalped and look at the convulsions of our country, the same in Burma is my point. And so diversity here is, is really respecting historical relationships. And equally, Burma is a country of amazing diversity that pretty well got along like ancient Tibet, long before the white invaders came. Tibet was a perfectly sovereign country, as we know, getting along in their own difficult way, before the Chinese came in and said, Hey, listen. Tibetan Buddhism is a plate upon the refinement of the Chinese mind, you must die you vermin. 2.5 million people 200 men and women still have emulated themselves in the last 10 years in Tibet, to protest the ongoing violation and rape of the Tibetan people. And the same thing in Burma today. And so in this book, these books, these four volumes, Burma's voices of freedom, I wanted to meet as many people as I could, from the ethnic minorities, not minorities, because they're smaller and amount. It's just a convenient term to talk about people who have a high stake in the country's harmony and their peace. And it's so utterly complex in their words, my words are meaningless. All I did, and I tried to do Joe and whoever's listening. I tried to bring ethnic group leaders, unknown people and voices of all religions and ethnicities into a dialogue with each other. And that's the missing ingredient that's in evolution in Burma today. I beg of you. Ming online Don Santucci, the leaders in the current state the Kachin state, the Shan state, the Rakhine State, whatever is needed to relax the weapon of retribution and blame. I know the peace processes are going along. But what's going to really get the Burmese army the Rakhine, aka army, the army, the tion army, the Korean army, the mon army, all the various independent armies to just give peace, a chance and talk. These books are an offering on what dialogue looks like when you read it. That's why I included it as an invitation to people to see what you're not doing, as well as what could be done here. And I tried in my own humble way was to ask the difficult questions. And I'll say this. I purposely did not seek Dong son to cheese involvement in this book. I purposely did not seek Min onlines involvement in this book. I purposely did not seek retired general Tom Choi's involvement in this book. I invited the people I spoke with for you. What would you like to say to dawn Santucci? And what would you like to say to senior general Ming online? What would you like to say to former general tonch way, and some of them when silent, some of them chose not to be named in the book. So deep still is their fear of persecution and retribution. Some of the other people blew my mind what they said some of the younger people in the book just stood right up and said, This is what I think and feel. If freedom of expression isn't the the basis of democracy, what is sure? Yeah, I said listen, from what I understand here defamation. These potentially are punishable statements. Freedom of expression is more important than fear Dong. Santucci encouraged us. Eu when 10 encouraged us, eu 10 eu encouraged us EU contain encouraged us, a monk encouraged just minko nine, co co g hundreds 1000s of others encouraged us the basis of freedom is freedom of thought freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Without them, there is nothing. And so I encouraged Archbishop Charles bow I encouraged the president of the Myanmar federation of Burma, I encouraged citigo Sado I encouraged Uin chain. I encouraged every other person in that book, to speak freely to the people, to the leaders, and to your own conscience, and give that truth, a chance to be heard. And I say it again as I started this conversation with you and the people of Burma in the world, that my intention is to give voice to the people and to ask difficult questions at times without taking aside, but I've had feelings. I'm invested in the country. And so please forgive me if I've crossed the line with anyone in the country. But I write very, very best to listen to the leaders and to say to Pandita to dawn Santucci and my other friends and leadership. Our goal is national reconciliation that requires honest truthful dialogue. Non vilification, freedom of expression, and that is the intention of these books. And that's again, coming back to your question. That's why I sought out diversity in the book. And I'll close here. I won't say the names. But there are many ethnic leaders, I invited into this book, I want to stand on that, that chose not to participate. Sure. And there are other people who are active and prominent, who chose not to participate. And there are other people who are prominent and active, who chose not to be named. And so there are anonymous interviews in the book, based upon my agreement with them, and even key facts in the interview have been changed to completely keeping visible the source.
Host 1:54:01
Right. And speaking of difficult questions, I had the pleasure of interviewing sway when on my podcast in an earlier episode. He's a former political prisoner who started his meditation practice actually in prison, and today has been released. He's a journalist and activist activist, a very inspiring figure. And I want to ask you the exact question word for word that I asked him, because I think it's perhaps the most common question we get from foreign meditators trying to understand Burma and I say we, because anyone who has lived as a meditator in Burma for some time with the understanding of the difficult, worldly reality, gets this question from foreign practitioners who are coming trying to ground their practice and also reading the news and being confused as they do. So, here's the question that I asked him that I'll also ask you, and that's quote, Burma is a complicated country. A difficult recent history, combined with a rich meditative tradition that has since inspired mindfulness movements around the world. A question I often get from meditators and I struggle to find a way to answer is, why is there not more peace in a country where so many people are at the forefront of pursuing inner peace? What is your answer to this?
Alan Clements 1:55:25
Well, I, in a way answered it without the question in the last two, but that's a very important question that I gladly will enter. Having been blessed to travel the world for the last five decades, multiple cities, multiple countries. As I mentioned earlier, former Yugoslavia during the war based in Zagreb, later in Sarajevo. 1000s of people killed, raped, institutional gang raping of women, ethnic cleansing was born. post war in Vietnam, invited to write a film, interviewing people like I did in Burma, talking, listening, traveling the country scene what my people my country my age, did to decimate a land and an ideology that was vilified. I met people that grew up for the first 10 years of their lives. underground tunnels never saw the light of day. I saw boys and girls who were born from Agent Orange parents and mothers infected by that insecticide. I think it was by Monsanto. I'm not sure exactly. But they had no features no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no, no, the tiny slips. Violent violence is the first noble truth of samsara, the truth of Duka the multiplicity the variations on this, this this expression why of why why is the universe programmed to violate itself? Why are there massacres? Why is there denigration? Why are there genocides? Why is one woman wait anywhere in the world? Burma is not an exception to any place anywhere in this universe that I can see. Even at this very moment, I've read this book recently by Michio Kaku, the great quantum physicist, future of humanity. He talks about the context in superstring theory and the multi dimensional nature of the scientific understanding of the 31 planes of existence and Arboretum. And how at this very moment, there are at least four or 567 billion other earth like planets, where there could be life as we may imagine, or assume it to be similar to our own and equally simultaneous in this galaxy of infinity. There are countless in huge quadrants that are going extinct. All life in them. Assuming there is life in these areas are instantly evaporated no different than 200 million years from now. Our sun that keeps us toasty and overheating and warm and suntanned and cold will envelop our own precious Earth, and we will be a dissolved silent planet. We live in a Duca field first noble truth, violent universe. Burma is no exception not coming right back to your question on a very tangible level. Burma's history is peaceful compared to Europe, inquisitions prosecutions, the imperialistic genocidal attitude to the Catholic Church, no offense to the decimation and genocides of the indigenous people of my country, our country, to the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Canada and Australia. I mean, hello. What are you talking about in recent history, before the white man came in from England, and did what they normally do, which was to, you know, violently persecute, subjugate, denigrate, humiliate, shame and enslave. And then the onslaught of the modern day weapon, the bomb, and the fascist ideology out of Japan. configurated as we know, in Burma, okay. Since the 40s Burma has had a tumultuous History. Within that there were 27 generations or 2700 years of classical Dhamma give or take a few 100 years, probably an ancient deep, Earth based wisdom culture. I mean, I traveled the Burma many times, as you probably have instilled today you are struck by you're seeing people in villages. This could be 234 5000 years ago, it seems like and I've had places back in the 70s and 80s, where I've gone, where they haven't even seen a white person in so long. They all out in their finest clothes and bring me into their village heads home, play music and dance and then talk to me. What is life like in your country? Where do you see that? Burma yes has its complexities because of this. And I say this in a relative outsider's perspective. Yes, on one relative level, Burma has had a tumultuous 70 year period. A terrible dictatorial torture, his army, the corruption of civilians through money and wealth all over the world. We see it but it also in Burma. But I have to say it's it is acute over the last 30 4050 years. But in comparison to the long history of violence in America, the England and Canada, the EU and Australia. I've been to Afghanistan, the decimation of what my country has done to Iraq. The new president, it looks to be Biden was adamant about the necessity of invading Iraq. Convincing other senators knowingly It was a lie. There were no weapons of mass destruction. We knew that he knew that a million civilians died. And we just elected him as President. I mean, just look at your own home and take the white shame, blame judgment off the people of Burma. They've had a bad 15 years and I would say as a psychologist. Hey, listen, you talk to a woman who comes to you quietly. Don't tell anyone, please. My husband brutally raped and beats me and the kids to like the British did in Burma. You know, you're gonna blame the husband. Well, his father and his father brutalized him had him in a dungeon beat him in slave Tim. It's systemic trauma. Host Burma's had difficulty, have some perspective, have some compassion. More to the point is for me, is that peace survived in Burma. Dhamma survived in Burma. Catholicism survived in Burma. The Islamic teachings a piece survived in Burma. Compassion survived in Burma. And in many cases, if you really look carefully, it's not the glass is half empty. You see a radiance, of generosity of loving kindness of moral integrity, that I've never seen any where in the world. And this last trip, I was there for three months. I walked everywhere I could alone, rather than driving, unless I got out and talked, and I was invited into so many different homes. And I have to say, in my heart, I cried with the joy of communion of how beautiful by and large, the vast majority of the people of that country are even went into mosques. Went into churches, went into synagogues went into temples, but by and large, I went into villagers home. And they weren't just Buddhists. And I can speak enough of the language to get by. And it was just you know, all I'm saying here is if you're a Buddhist, and you're a meditator, and you're looking at how troubled Burma is, look at your own country first and then venture out deeply into the the environment of the country. Talk to the children, talk to the families bring gifts, open up your heart, show a non prejudice. Go out to lengthier go to nearby villages, go to the schools, and see what you can learn from the voice of the people and see, okay. You know, they've had a troubled 5060 years, it's understandable. And you listen to what Alan says. And you come out of there how many people I've talked to, will say, even during the reign of terror, when tourism was let back into the country, I've never seen a country more beautiful than the country of Myanmar.
Host 2:05:38
Right. And that's where I want to go. Next, I want to talk about the state that Burma finds itself today. When we first spoke, you were quite hopeful in some regards, and even on this talk, as well, some of that hope and optimism has been there. And I wanted to revisit a couple of quotations from that initial interview we had, and then bring in some of the things from the book that just wrote out, just came out the Burma's voices of freedom, see where they contrast and what they tell us. So first, in the interview that we had earlier this year, at one point, you said, quote, we might see reconciliation take place here that transforms the society. Where in the world have we seen convulsion of active democracy, active non violence, with the forces of darkness and violence in one small nation. And then later on, you said, quote, and we see something here that exceeds anything in South Africa, anything in Chile, and Burma could be the new hope. I really do believe that. And I'm investing in that. And then contrasting that with in the book you wrote, and you also said in this conversation that Burma needs a national psychiatrist and added, quote, make no mistake, there are no easy answers here. Burma is on the cusp of becoming a failed state and quote, so as we talk now, my question is with elections underway, and the country is suffering from wave after wave of Coronavirus, outbreaks and lockdowns. Where are you with this perspective on the hope in the future of Burma with the depth of the challenges that it faces?
Alan Clements 2:07:21
Interesting question. I struggle with it, Joe. Just state the obvious I am not envious of the leaders in Burma. I stand outside I offer my gift of these books. I listen, I'll stand corrected if wrong. When you look at the international condemnation of the grotesque, so called ineptness of the military and the perceived collusion of the civilian government with that ineptness of military response and an overwhelming response to the so called the crisis in Rakhine. Burma's being taken to the world court by the Gambia his accusations along with the 57 other Islamic countries that that represents of so called genocide to the Rohingya has. You look at the complexities in the current state in the chin state, the Shawn state the the sheer the vast corruption in the country through the staggering wealth over decades by military and cronies close to the military. The military here is the totalitarian hierarchy. As time has gone on, it's it's just a formidable task. But my sense is that with this election with Aung San su cheese resolve with the men and women near her, and the new ones born into the political system there as peace loving democratic champion activists and now politicians, with the possible change of heart within the military, if there is one or two or 10 or 50 people with the mindful intelligence to help support the navigation of this democratic vision if countries around the world would help support economic equality and stop vilifying and shaming and do everything possible to invest in the peace process to give back to the country to de weaponize it, to modernize it. I stopped right here and I asked myself, Alan is this realistic hope, this fantasy hope, I think of young Greta thumb Berg from Sweden, September 19th 2019. Standing in front of the United Nations 177 representatives of the so called world and saying, I don't want your fairy tales of endless economic growth. People are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. People are suffering. How dare you? Okay. Is that a hopeful comment about the climate crisis and how every one of us on this planet today all almost a billion of us are complicit and participants in the fossil fuel addiction. And I think of what realistic hope is in the face of democracy, and turning back the avalanche of an economic crisis that looks to be in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. And Alan, speak truth to power, what is resistance? What is really realistic up here? What is a morally courageous thing to do? And what is a hopeful outcome? What's a realistic outcome? Well, we'll start on such a key recede into the the subconscious of time. And the military reforms and find itself as a dominant power of a militarized pseudo democracy that lives in a kind of communistic, socialistic, semi dystopian world for most of the people in the country, or will China see Burma as the next Tibet? Why is there a pipeline all the way from the Bay of Bengal into the union province? Why are they thinking of doing all that they possibly can to build and create these economic islands? Off the coast and near Rangoon? And why the domination of the Communist Chinese party? Do they have the best interest of the country of Burma? Which is? No, it's it's much smaller than, I think, half of the provinces of mainland China. It's not uncommon. I heard it very frequently among people, Burma will be the next Tibet. And so what is success here? What is hope? Hong Kong was a free island country until recently, the unthinkable happened. The Communist Chinese party created a Security Act, which is essentially let's impose totalitarian imprisonment upon the democratic loving people of Hong Kong. And just as an 88, and then later on, in 2007. In saffron, the Chinese Communist Party arrested as we know, the leaders of the Democratic struggle in Hong Kong. They even captured many of the people escaping by boat to Taiwan, and they've been deported to China put into gulags and forgot. That's the investment party with much of the military owned apparatus of Burma, with these totalitarian, you know, economic dictators out of China, Aung San su Chi and the civilian leadership, I would say that they have more than a formidable issue to deal with. But again, travel the country for 43 years. I've interviewed a lot of people as recently as 2020, January, February and March. I've asked the question, what is hopeful here is their true hope. And I do believe in Burma. A country with the vast majority under 25. They do not want any part of the corruption of the history of what the country is today. They want no part of cronyism. They want no part of any of that residual, psychological, economic, elitist mentality that America owns and dominates the world with and China's doing their very best to come in as well. I believe in the youth of Burma. And I do believe in the fidelity to values and principles of the elected leaders today. But it's the under 30, and the under 20 year olds in Burma, just as they were in 88, the mimco nine, the CoCo G's, the Neela things that generation they rock, the punks, the heavy metals, the Pope, the peacock generation that had been wrongly imprisoned, they want peace and freedom. And they will be heard Why? Because they're the youth. They're the majority. They know social media, and you can't beat those kids in to repression. Aung San su cheese generation broke the ice. They know it. And those leaders in the military and those cronies that own the resources, the oil, the gas, the labor, the slave labor, those kids are going to refuse to participate in the totalitarian madness that we still see in Burma. And so to answer my question, so well put by you. Yes, I'm hopeful of Burma. I'm not hopeful for the world.
Host 2:16:47
And so my last question is this returning to this spiritual worldly divide or balance, what you want to call it that I find so vital and trying to understand this country in this practice, whichever direction you're going in which you engage with, with all of the interviews that you do in the book, and I want to focus my question on the extended discussion you had with Fuji mount, he's the deputy chairman of the National League for Democracy, and for many years previously had fought against the British for Burmese independence, prior to World War Two. So as we get into as you get into g mounds interview, he discusses the role of meta in NLD political speeches. But on the other hand, he admits he's killed men in battle, and that he would not hesitate to use violence again if he or his friends were threatened. So for example, and answering how he would respond to a potential threat. In your interview, he says, quote, nor would I sit there in meditation, trusting that my meta would dissolve the ordeal. I'm no saint. Now, I don't like the use of force, but I could never tell you that I would completely abstain from it, and quote, so what profound and complicated and authentic take this is here. So even more interesting to me. He then references deep Buddhist spiritual teachings to explain how he dealt with difficult world events and his career. He mentioned in that interview that many years previously, on one occasion when on songs, he was arrested, his response during that time was to remain light and even laugh. And he had this to say about how he was able to maintain this good nature. Quote, it can be explained by the fact that the narrator had no regrets at all for what had happened in the past, the eye and the me of the past are dead and gone. By the same token, the narrator of the present is not worried about what might happen to him in the future. In fact, he is not status conscious at all. What I strive for is to live a life of complete awareness from moment to moment, and to provide the best service I possibly can to all living beings, without discrimination and with a detached mind and quote. So I really love hearing the depth of huji mounds reflections, and more so credit you with allowing the interview to develop in this way, eliciting such a deep and multifaceted response. And I think for many of us in the West, the practice is so new and foreign to us, that when we first start on it and really become serious, it can be kind of awkward and even jarring to figure out how this new thing of daily meditation Five Precepts karma, and the rest of it all fits into the overall nature and form of our life. However, when I hear anecdotes like big mounds, it reminds me the extent to which spirituality is never verified. From daily life in Burma, even in this rough and tumble world of politics. Sometimes this takes beautiful and profound forms such as the Dhamma wisdom we hear from Mooji mount. Yet Other times, and this is one of the more unpleasant and dark parts of Burma's recent history. This spiritual aspect has taken the form of superstition, astrology, numerology, in deciding the country's policies, and grip on power. So this brings me to the question as you yourself being a former monk and a lifelong meditator who has interacted with Burmese leaders at all levels, to what extent Have you seen real dominant wisdom animate political action and legislative decisions?
Alan Clements 2:20:50
My immediate resonance with this question, Joe is, is reflecting upon the multiplicity of people I've met in their country over 43 years. And the answer, in short is the Dharma intersecting with society. And politics is infinitesimal. It's it's the radiance of engaging Dhamma all the time. With the context of their lives Burma is a political cauldron. You cannot help but immerse yourself in Dhamma. In politics, freedom is inseparable. As dawn Santucci said, No one is an island. And Burma is the most avert expression of totalitarian politics that we've seen in modern times. Probably outside of some of the most draconian expressions of dictatorship, like in China, but Burma is right up there in the top, one, two or three expressions of totalitarian violent cultures. So to be in Dhamma in Burma, you are politicized from the embryo. Your mom and dad have been living and breathing. That's why so many of the girls and 88 iF 1314 and 15 grew up, knowing and they went okay, let's rise up now. overt expressions of IT people who really risked dama interfacing with, you know, potential draconian expressions of dictatorship and politics. Safran 2007 chanting meta in the face of guns, being shot down monasteries, being ransacked, being imprisoned and tortured, I've interviewed a number of these monks. And I mean, that is rad. That's super courageous, to be bringing to fidelity, the transformational wisdom of, of the radiance of loving kindness in the face of a military arsenal of men's nailing down with bandits and automatic rifles. That's an epic confrontation. Then the book is filled Burma's voices of freedom, these four volumes are filled with the question, What does Dhamma look like, in keeping alive your political solidarity, to democracy in action in solitary confinement? You know, the deep internalization of politics, without falling into the abyss of it just being personal now, of survival. How many of these freedom fighters kept freedom active in the prisons was a very powerful learning process and the set of conversations that I had with various former prisoners of conscience? That's one area in an epic country, with the extremes of non violence and violence are so overt, as they were at least in Burma, and probably very much so for many of the ethnic groups in the various ethnic minority areas of the country where they live in the most difficult conditions into some of these difficult conditions, to live under the threat of death, starvation, violation and disease, and to feel somewhat helpless, even with knowing where you can eat your next meal. That's how do you manifest your religion, your truth, your heart, your Dhamma in those contexts, Burma is forced to do that. And they're aware that it's a political deal. Those military men been ordered out of Navy doll and of those other regional commanders of the Burmese military army. They don't have to attack these other people. They don't have to. Those soldiers do not need to maintain a obedience to the hierarchical commanders above them. It's a mind set. And I think this is a very important thing in Burma is, is the study of mindset. More than politics in a way because it all comes back to mindset pieces of mindset. Compassion is a mindset. Empathy is a mindset. democracy's a mindset. Freedom of expression is a mindset rule of law is a mindset. And there's a belief that we need men in uniform and women in uniform to protect our country from outside invasion, which, of course, stands to reason. But so rarely is it ever really used that way anymore. It's used to metastasize in my country profits. And in Burma to keep it Bay was first democracy forces that were nonviolent, and eventually the perceived threat of ethnic armed groups. So the mindset of peace, and I would really advocate just jumping right to the core of this for me, is they'll probably be many boys and girls in the Burmese military is 400,000. And many of the leaders who have the money to acquire these books I was told by the owner recently of the Myanmar bookstore, the largest distributor of books in the country, with bookstores in most of the major cities, and an online presence, Myanmar bookstore.com is at or Myanmar distributor.com. Look it up. These books will be actively available on his website and in bookstores, leaders, the military, buy them, acquire them, the E book, The softback book, The hardback book, and examined mindset. And what I gather is dictatorship, totalitarianism and cronyism is the unmindful allegiance to the corruption of our ethics, and a blindness of allegiance to the authority of a dictator or a totalitarian psychology. And so the military in Burma, they could immediately just break ranks. With any orders to shoot, kill, steal, rape, and die. You know, as my mom said, before she died, Alan, anyone can be mindful, even an assassin can be mindful what we have to do. We talked about this question through the lens of your own delusion. The perception of enemy it's a mindset. It's not an enemy. that's a that's a young girl. I don't that no, that no that the kitchens aren't my enemy. No, no. Those aren't my enemy. Put down who's got the courage, the mindful intelligence to Put down the gun of prejudice and unquestioned vilification of enemy. And that mindset to me, is where the intersection of mindfulness and Dhamma at courageous Sati putana, deep self reflection on the efficacy of my thought, speech and action, does it promote peace? Or does it denigrate peace? Does it promote safety? Or does it denigrate safety? Does it promote my welfare, or denigrate the welfare of myself and my family and other and I think the military in Burma from major general online to the ethnic minorities that have armed insurgencies. It is not in your best interest to keep shooting each other. It's an old mind set a habit. It's an addiction. It's a prehistoric state of consciousness. And I think that is where Today we are sitting and it's not going to be the mindful skill of the elected leaders alone. They speak of peace and unity all the time, we need to speak of, I would think, as a coupon need to talk to me, Alan, for 50 years I have called in my monasteries, a Dharma culture course. I go to the children. We're not teaching them Buddhism per se. We're teaching them the power of ethical, spiritual intelligence, harmonious coexistence. Why is it efficacious? He would talk to me to restrain from harm, anger, greed and delusion? Why do you harm yourself? Young girl and young boy, when you speak through the defilement of blame prejudice, projection in greed, much less attack, or kill or imprison or torture, or rape someone else. When you're quiet in your own mind, you will hear that cognitive dissonance between what you've done and who you are today. And that'll come in the form of terrible, psychic, emotional pain in the form of what's known as history and otoko. You'll feel such regret on what you've done. You know, I might add here, Joe, you know, once when I was a monk, you know, I was, I don't know, maybe some months into practice. And it was only a couple of us there was Saito uzawa. At the time, one of the nyaka said, I was at the mahasi yeka. And we had a Thai monk, who was with us in a couple of months into the retreat. And he was a good meditator, he was very mindfully was very obedient. He listened carefully to the instructions. And then slowly, we could see when we were in group interviews, that he was beginning to quiver a bit lower his head, and he felt insecure, we thought it was a stage of practice. And he couldn't quite reveal when the teacher asked him, please talk to me about your experience. And he kind of overlooked it, which was natural and culturally acceptable. And eventually it came out, Joe, that he had a memory that he had blocked from his young adulthood of murdering someone, Oh, goodness, in in his life in Thailand, and how he escaped persecution and avoided criminal charges, and became a monk. And he himself was, for whatever reasons I don't know exactly was able to bury it. Which is not uncommon to see tortures and killers and those who order the invasions of other countries and even look at the screen have seen starving people in Yemen and Syria and Iraq. And they drink wine at night, make love with their wives and their husbands. And it's the disconnect is obvious. And he revealed cutting right to the core of this. He admitted that he killed someone. And the teacher skillfully asked him, Joe, what do you feel that you would like to do with that insight? And it took him a bit of time to find the answer. The teacher gave him the Conti, the space for that. He helped sacred space. He said I want to go back and admit my fault. He disrobed, he left. We never saw him again. And it to me it was such an epic, almost to Pinnacle level of biblical teaching of although you may see what you've done and forget it. There's a reservoir in our own being a rezone an etymology, a root system to behaviors and thoughts and speech. And I think mindfulness what it really does become intimate and powerful. It reflects on deep, deep core issues where the subconscious becomes conscious. And you begin to see Oh, nuns and monks, as the Buddha was said to have said, how you have filled the oceans with the blood of people you've killed in the name of your truth, your totalitarianism to stretch this. Have you not understood that through the unmindful mindfulness of kilesa to paraphrase in my own language, Have you not seen enough to turn away to seek conscience, and integrity and of wisdom and of Nibbana, and so on and so forth. And I think the same could be said in Myanmar today. I do believe that Don Santucci knows what I'm saying. I do believe that when tain knows what I'm saying, I do believe that there are many people in Parliament who know what I'm saying. I do believe that mning online and, and former general tonch way and many other regional leaders in the Burmese military, most of them Buddhists know exactly what I'm pointing to. You cannot escape here in audible. You can't escape conscience, and how great it would be for the resurrection of these qualities. Were all it would take. And I put it in my book, I think, for former senior Gen tonch way, and Ming online to hold a press conference and talk to the nation, talk to the world and say, you know, we don't need Naypyidaw to my kids are wealthier than enough to feed the entire nation for a lifetime. What I want is true. Measure democracy, I mean, really, really, really, really what we're committing ourselves, to freedom to universality of right to equality. And I really, really want you to know, ethnic minorities with your, with your disbelief of what I'm saying. You tell me what you want to know, from us. For us to walk our talk into a peace process. All it takes is just one shift of a mindset. And I would not be surprised that it goes global, it goes viral, could you imagine, and I've said this in my book, I'm holding out that a peace prize to come will be the collective forces of the Burmese military. And the collective forces of democracy in unison with the people with the people of the Burma, all ethnicities win the Nobel Peace Prize for the very thing I'm saying in their own way.
Host 2:37:16
That's, that's beautiful. That's just thinking for the right words. And that is a great way to end it. This has been a really powerful conversation going over the depth of what was in this book. And I really thank you for your time in sharing and uncovering some of the process both of writing this book, as well as the ideas that were explored there. I know that for me, personally, as well as our listeners really appreciated hearing the breadth of knowledge that you have about Burma in general and about this topic, specifically, and the Dhamma wisdom that has brought into all of that work. So I recommend anyone who has an interest in Burma, whether it's the spiritual, the worldly, or both to find a copy of this book, or as you said, Alan, if it has these universal applications that you're able to bring into other parts of life. So I really wish you good luck with it. It's been a huge achievement, and it's taken this time to come out. And I'm really glad that it's there. And I really thank you for making this time with us.
Alan Clements 2:38:21
Joe, thank you. And I also want to thank the listeners to this sharing, too lot to absorb. It's a personal opinion born from deep investigative journalism and deep drama research of a 43 years, principally the last 32 in primary the last 10 since I've been on blacklisted and suspend your opinion. There's lots of information and opinion out there about the so called truth of Burma's transition about dawn Santucci. I would really really recommend and I really say this strongly and please allow me to say this, Joe? Sure. Celebrities, politicians, members in the United Nations prime ministers, presidents, members of Congress, religious leaders across the domain, Islamic leaders in the Middle East news agencies, people who think that they really know longtime journalists covering human rights issues Warzones firm itself, may I invite you please momentarily suspend, read these four volumes, Burma's voices of freedom and unfinished struggle for democracy. My colleague Fergus Harlow and I have brought these books for Fergus transcribed almost everything that Don Santucci has said publicly. She has been released in 2010. The essence in her words have been included in these books. You can hear what she says in relationship. She hasn't spoken out about the Rakhine issue. I have spoken out, I say all these things is suspend your opinion. 35 people I interviewed in these books, weigh in on letting you know what the truth of the country is. And if you're an outsider, listen to these voices. And then may I invite you rewrite the narrative based upon what you read and assess, invite me on your show your TV program, your podcast, and I'm very happy to dialogue with you, even if you disagree with what I say, to keep evolving the narrative of a higher order frequency, that gives the democracy process in Burma, every possibility of success. That is what I'm asking. So in that made the people of Burma be heard, and may there be peace in unity and harmony and ultimately made these books are national reconciliation, and I pray global peace. So thank you from my heart, for having me on your podcast, and for the good people of Burma. Thank you for allowing me in your country for these years and decades.
Host 2:41:32
Well said well said Well said, Thank you. Thank you for your time. And thank you for being involved and best luck with the book. I'd like to take this time to offer sincere gratitude for those listeners who have supported our efforts. Thank you. Without your generous contribution, we would not be able to do what we're doing. And if you've 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 receives full remuneration for their work. Some volunteered their time, while others offer a large 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 plant. 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