“Freedom must be demanded and defended by those who have been denied it and by those who are already free."
—Aung San Suu Kyi, de facto leader of Myanmar
We are standing in solidarity with our dear friends Maybelle, her daughter Michelle MhuMadii and fiancé Jason [yes, coincidentally the same names as our kids] and the over 50 million people of Myanmar (Burma) that are suffering immense hardship resulting from a military coup that ended the country’s nine-year transition to Democracy led by Suu Kyi. A day before the protests, the military leadership ordered a day-long internet blackout.
My love affair with Myanmar began during my first meditation retreat in early 2000. Over the years, I had returned to Myanmar to study and participate in several annual three-week mindfulness meditation retreats at Kyaswa monastery in the Sagaing hills outside of Mandalay. Everything I learned from my studies from the Buddhist tradition I owe to the Burmese lineages that have been kept alive for centuries by the old forests monks. Sayadaw (teacher) Lakkhana, the revered abbott of the monastery died in 2014, and my esteemed lay teachers, Michele Macdonald and Steven Smith from Vipassana Hawaii continue to pass on the light of the teachings. The word Vipassana in Pali, the language at the time of the Buddha means “to see things as they really are,” and is an ancient meditation technique.
A week ago Sunday's protests were the largest of its kind since the "Saffron Revolution" in the fall of 2007, that connects the protests against Myanmar’s military dictatorship to the saffron-colored robes associated with Buddhist monks who were at the forefront of the demonstrations. Suu Kyi, a human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, became the State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a Prime Minister), brought some degree of democracy to her country through nonviolent resistance. As of February 1, 2021, she was arrested and removed from power by the military that declared last November's general election results that her party won by a landslide as fraudulent.
Nyein Chan, BBC Burmese, Yangon reported that protestors took to the streets by the tens of thousands in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) and Mandalay. They demanded the release of their elected leader Suu Kyi and members of her National League of Democracy (NLD) Party including President Win Myint. The three-fingered salute used by the protestors (see photo) and activists from Thailand and Myanmar was borrowed from the Hunger Game film series symbolizing solidarity for democracy movements.
Due to the Saffron Revolution in 2007, westerners like myself weren’t allowed into the country, so in 2008 the annual meditation retreat I attended was held at a Burmese monastery outside of Bangkok, Thailand. In 2009, I returned to the Kyaswa Monastery. While there I met a Buddhist monk (photo) who was assigned to a hut (kuti in Pali) behind mine. He invited me to visit him later that afternoon. He had posters on the wall of his hut, one of the Buddha and another of Suu Kyi, the former leader who was under house arrest at the time. He had been gently caressing and petting a squirrel (see photos) he had coaxed down from a tree a few weeks prior to our meeting. “His name is ‘Rambo,’" he said smilingly. I let out a nervous laugh. How fitting, I thought that a former member of the Ministry of Defense of the Military, turned Buddhist monk would come up with a name like Rambo. He shared how much at peace he experienced being a monk, thanks to his good friend and our respected teacher, Sayadaw U Lakkhana, the abbott of the monastery.
Back History: Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, Myanmar’s independence hero and the founder of the Burma Independence Army (Myanmar was known as Burma until 1989). He functioned as colonial Burma’s prime minister, moving the country toward independence from Britain in the late 1940s. He did not survive to see a free Burma. Tragically, in 1947, he was assassinated at the age of 32, along with other members of his cabinet when his daughter Suu Kyi was just two years old.
Postscript: Cecile and I visited our friend Maybelle, her daughter Michelle and Michelle’s fiance’ Jason during a one week pre-trip of our five-week tour of Southeast Asia in 2018. I have known Michelle since she was six years old. I also had a nostalgic visit with my esteemed lay teacher Michele Macdonald who had just finished leading a meditation retreat at the monastery.
