Chapter
9
Transcending boundaries:
samsara, the State,
the prison and the self
So far, I have traced the coping mechanisms of
imprisonment, both for the prisoner and their relatives, to the Buddhist
practices of mental culture. The purpose of mental culture is very much to
understand and uproot the ultimate causes of confinement, namely confinement
to bodily existence and its implication of suffering. Since the possibilities
of developing a political philosophy for the NLD are limited, the ideas
surrounding the prison experience itself, I will show in a later section,
informs what is becoming a particularly rich political philosophy that is
close to addressing the common peoples’ suffering. Here I wish to
investigate more closely the role of mental culture, in particular vipassana,
as a historical tradition of coping with imprisonment beyond the particular
conditions of the NLD.
‘Buddhist’
imprisonment
In the Burmese context imprisonment may be regarded as
something very different from the way Foucault has used the concept, in
particular the way he used it prior to his technology-of-the-self period.
Of course, unlike Foucault, my focus here is not on the means whereby the
individual and the population of prisoners are isolated into victims in a
social and institutional sense. I am not writing a total history of the prison
as a Burmese institution. Nor is my focus on the history of discourse on
discipline and punish.
I adopt here a minimal definition of imprisonment as an
undesirable condition arising from the application of superior institutional
powers to confine and isolate persons or groups of persons through instruments
of institutional repression. These instruments can take the form of
imprisonment, house arrest, car arrest, exile, hostage-taking, bondage through
forced labour and portering and forced relocation. The concept of imprisonment
flows naturally from the regime's Myanmafication policy of spatialising and
territorialising its concept of purity. Today it is being extended to health
care, whereby HIV patients are now being placed behind barbed wire in camps.
Indeed, it extends to the wish that Saw Maung expressed that democracy and
politics does not spill over into public institutions but remains within the
confines of the home.
My primary interest, however, does not lie in the
technology of confinement, but rather in the technology of liberation from the
prisoners' point of view. And in particular, I focus on the imprisonment
concept as the Buddhist idea applied to samsaric existence. It is this latter
idea which permits transcending the dichotomy between the jailed and the
jailers, and offers prisoners dignity in their suffering, for both are subject
to the same laws of impermanence. Furthermore, this allows analogies between
the political order and the condition of imprisonment to be made.
The most common word for prison in Burmese is htaung
[eTac\]. As a verb this means to ‘set
a trap’, ‘entrap’ or ‘catch’, in the sense of animals.
Alternatively, it means to ‘erect’ as in the walls of a house or a
marriage (literally ‘to fall into an erected house’ [Aim\eTac\k¥]).
It can also mean to build as in a country as in the ‘Union’ of Myanmar
(‘erecting a country by gathering together’ [òpv\eTac\su]),
or a family (‘erecting a house by joining together’ [Aim\eTac\su]). The meaning of binding is implicit in the older
concept of prison as meaning a cage or ‘house which binds’ [eNHac\Aim\].
One is not simply imprisoned, but one ‘falls into’ [eTac\k¥qv\]
or ‘is made to fall into the trap (prison)’ [eTac\K¥qv\].
When we translate Aung San Suu Kyi's words that ‘we are
prisoners in our own country’ and Tin U's ‘we are prisoners within a
prison’, we find a wordplay on the use of ‘prison’ or ‘trap’ (htaung)
as a component in the concept for ‘nation’ (pyei htaung sú òpv\eTac\su).
This is an extension of the common
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p195/392
wordplay on the concept of getting married,
which literally means ‘setting up a house’ [Aim\eTac\k¥qv\],
but can also jokingly be used to say ‘falling into the prison of the
house’. The meaning then can be elaborated into various alternative puns, so
that the NLD and all the people in Burma are characterised as ‘assembling in
the country [state] prison’ [òpv\eTac\mHasuqv\].
It is based upon this experience that Moe Aye writes that
‘in Burma, if you ask someone which prison they would prefer, the answer is
that there are only two prisons, the one with walls and the one without.’
Indeed, this concept of ‘country prison’ resonates with the Cambodian
expression of ‘prison without walls’ (kuk et choncheang), used by
Cambodian survivors during the genocidal Khmer Rouge Democratic Kampuchea
regime between April 1975 and January 1979.
This gives rise to the commonly made characterisation of Burma as ‘a country
of 50 million hostages’.
This concept of imprisonment of the entire community
resonates with Burmese interpretations of the entire world-system (loka)
as a form of prison, having its locus in ‘I’-ness and embodiment.
According to Buddhist interpretation, the ultimate form of imprisonment is
neither family, prison, nor country, but it is inherent in the concept of
‘I’ [At† atta] which
maintains ‘mundane existence’ (loka) or the samsaric life-cycle
itself. Craving makes one attain new lives (houses) within samsara, and
by uprooting this one becomes truly homeless:
-
I, who have been seeking the builder of this house (body)
failing to attain Enlightenment which would enable me to find him, have
wandered through innumerable births in samsara. To be born again is, indeed,
dukkha!
-
O housebuilder! You are seen, you shall build no house (for
me) again. All your rafters are broken, your roof-tree destroyed. My mind has
reached the Unconditioned (i.e. Nibbana); the end of craving (Arhatta Phala)
has been attained.
If the Myanmafication programme is about confinement –
by erecting real (prison walls, national boundaries) and metaphorical walls
(culture, law) – then mental culture breaks down these walls that are
responsible for people's ignorance and isolation. The freedom that prisoners
in isolation experience through mental culture means that Insein
Prison itself has become an instrument of liberation. The prison, on the one
hand, is dubbed ‘Moscow University’ and ‘The University of Life’,
drawing attention to the harsh regime of deprivation of freedom within.
However, on the other hand, in an inversal of this concept, newly arrived
prisoners are known as ‘New York’ [nyU:erak\
], as if they were entering a new phase of liberation. Ultimately, to draw
attention to the prison as an instrument for self-liberation, the prison is
also known as Insein tàw-yá or ‘Insein forest (monastery)’, a
place dedicated to the practice of mental culture.
The Buddha, and much hope is invested by Buddhists in
particular in the future Arimettaya Buddha, ‘sets free Samsara's captives by
his holy word’. Among the omens of
Gautama's birth inaugurated the breaking up into pieces of ‘prisons and
fetters keeping men in bondage’, including the ‘elimination of the
conceited notion of “I” ’.
After seeing the Four Omens – the old, the ill, the dead and the ascetic –
he realised that ‘all beings who have not yet discarded craving for sensual
pleasures have to remain like prisoners amidst the swords or spears of the
five sensual objects aimed straight at them in whichever existence they might
find themselves’.
However, Gautama was unable to set free the prisoners
tied to the wheel of rebirth merely by preaching – he had to liberate
himself first. He needed first to practise the Thirty Perfections (parami)
throughout his countless lives, and to apply himself to mental culture. The
fact that Burmese kings and politicians are proclaimed, and sometimes proclaim
themselves, as bodhisattva means that much of Burmese politics is
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p197/392
necessarily based on this concept of prior self-liberation through mental
culture before social and communal liberation can take place.
As a result of Gautama's realisation, he taught the
methodology of mental culture. And as the Dhammapada states, ‘those who
enter the path, and practise meditation, are released from the bondage of
Mara’.
Mara is often identified with mental defilements and with
loka. The point I wish to make here is that collective freedom in the
Buddhist tradition is thus necessarily preceded by mental culture practised to
first liberate oneself. In the Buddhist texts, true freedom is a mental
disposition attained only after release from the Five Hindrances (nivarana),
namely ‘sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and
remorse, and sceptical doubt’. Release ensures ‘unindebtedness, good
health, release from prison, freedom, a place of security.’
Such hindrances ‘envelop the mind’ and prevent all forms of mental
culture.
The Buddhist concept of true freedom is about the
encouragement of certain mental dispositions that must be attained by oneself
before it can be encouraged with others. So also the techniques which senior
NLD leaders advocate are about personal spiritual freedom which must
necessarily precede the institutional political concept of freedom. In
conjunction with morality (sila) and one-pointed mind (samadhi),
vipassana promises liberation from the wheel of samsara into the
state of bliss that is nibbana. In adopting vipassana as their
instrument of liberation, Burmese political prisoners thus shift the agency
and locus of imprisonment. Vipassana is the ultimate instrument for
liberation, for it liberates from the prison within, in relation to which
freedom is attained from all other conditions of imprisonment. Thus it is
possible to attain mental freedom from all forms of imprisonment even though
physically they may be still imprisoned in the other respects in the sense of
prison, household or country.
Vipassana furthermore asserts a very different
agency, both taking responsibility for maintaining the conditions of
imprisonment and as the subject of imprisonment itself. Foucault argued, in
his last phase of scholarship before his death, that he regretted his view of
humans as unwilling victims of the power of discourse. It is in fact possible
to develop a technology-of-self to assert one's own sense of reality and
dignity against that of the State and the prison authorities through the
techniques of dreaming, writing reflexive diaries to oneself (meditations),
and through meditation. However, here we have a technique yet more radical
than this. As a technology leading towards the realisation of non-self (anatta)
it transcends the dichotomy between the jailed and the jailers, for the
ultimate laws of existence are the same for them also. There is no-self (anatta)
to experience, and so there is also no-jailed (self to isolate and confine)
and no-jailer (self who isolates and confines another self). Through
self-observation of all mental processes, furthermore, the agency of Bentham's
panopticon itself is internalized – mental culture is paradoxically both a
technique of liberation and self-control. I will return to this later.
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p198/392
Practise of vipassana changes the locus of the
battlefield from a conflict between people and institutions organised as
political rivals, to a conflict within one's own mind. This totally changes
the concepts of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’, as we shall see later, to mean
states of mind – the friends are mindfulness (sati) and
loving-kindness (metta), and the enemies are the ‘mental
defilements’ (kilesa). The ultimate form of liberation is realisation
of ‘no-self’ through elimination of the mental defilements that cloud a
wrong-viewed vision, perpetuating samsaric existence.
The Burmese prisoners restore dignity to themselves by
mentally internalizing agency and domain of conflict. This technology of
non-self helps the prisoner literally rise above their imprisonment. They need
no other instruments, just their own minds and bodies. In reference to this
attitude, Guha, a barrister, characterises it: ‘I have seen [Burmese]
prisoners condemned to death, talking and behaving normally without any worry,
nay, assuring grieving mothers not to be unhappy’.
Furthermore, the technique is sufficiently portable for
prisoners and refugees stripped of their possessions and marks of identity.
Unlike space-intensive leisure activities, vipassana can be practised
anywhere and permits even full practice in the tiniest of confined spaces. Vipassana
is self-sufficient for unlike samatha, which often requires a suitable
external object and a suitable place, in this practice only the body and its
senses, in the context of daily life, are the universe. As the Buddha put it:
What monks, is the universe?: The eye and forms, the ear
and sounds, the nose and smells, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile
objects, the mind and mental objects.
The concept of imprisonment is therefore not just a
two-fold concept – a prison (the prison establishment) within a prison (the
country) – but rather a three-fold concept, including Buddhist ideas of
imprisonment in samsara or loka. It is through
self-reliant liberation by means of the practices associated with this third
concept, namely through mental culture (through samatha, including byama-so
tayà, and vipassana), that the individual prisoner is empowered to
find freedom and dignity, in spite of apparent continuity in terms of
imprisonment in the first two senses. Aung San Suu Kyi's concept of the
‘revolution of the spirit’ in the context of Burmese history is therefore
a necessary self-reliant attainment that must prelude the attainment of
democracy in the collective sense.
Imprisonment
and the Hpo Hlaing lineage of practice
In the previous section I have demonstrated there is a
‘Buddhist logic’ to mental culture in that it permits release from
imprisonment within all kinds of domains, and not merely the prison. I have
slipped a few hints as to the particular historical relevance of mental
culture to imprisonment. However, I have not indicated in any concrete
historical detail how such response to imprisonment by means of mental culture
was perpetuated in Burma prior to the 1988 situation.
I now wish to demonstrate, by focusing on a number of
historical personalities known for their involvement in the vipassana movement
prior to the SLORC-SPDC conflict, that in their lives also there is use of
mental culture in the search for freedom from constrained environments.
Techniques of mental culture sharpened as tools for the release from the bonds
of samsara are conceived of as the ultimate instruments of liberation
from all prison-like conditions and, therefore, from those political
conditions that give rise to imprisonment – embodiment, household, prison,
and country. Furthermore, mental culture is not just about liberating from,
but also transformation of these very domains. I am thinking here in
particular in terms of the relationship between government reform and vipassana.
This practice addresses a myriad of positive benefits – it promises national
independence, harmony, law and order, good government, good health, and all
that requires some kind of transformation of identity for the good.
The history of vipassana popularisation goes back
to Mindon's reign immediately after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. Its history
correlates to the increased experience of repression from the days of British
colonialism in 1823 to today. Through political support for the practice of
mental culture, its profile as the
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p198/392
only ‘legal’ and officially sanctioned
technique of liberation has been enhanced. It was during Mindon's time that
state sponsorship of lone reformist forest dwellers, emphasizing mental
culture over scriptural learning, caused major sectarian fission within the
Sangha,
which in turn had a significant impact on reforms in royal government. Below,
I would like to trace the involvement of four particular individuals
influential in the application of mental culture to imprisonment, two of whom
– U Hpo Hlaing and U Ba Khin – were particularly significant in their
attempts to reform government. The four are historically linked through the
lineage of Buddhist practice – U Hpo Hlaing, the Ledi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin and
Goenka.
The central focus is the employment of a connotative
language rooted in practice, and not an explicit and rational
fully-thought-out ideology. The power of this lies in its opacity which
permits it to operate beyond the prying eyes of the authorities. In other
words, it is not contaminated by any one particular framework outside the
practitioner's control. Thahkin Kodawhmaing's discourse of political
transformation was very effective, and every page of his many writings
contains several allusions to mental culture. With this language he sought to
overcome the British authorities. However, he was never arrested because the
British could not penetrate the significance of what he wrote. Thus the
internal cultural debate surrounding political dissent makes use of a
connotational language, which evokes and resonates with people's religious and
cultural value systems without appearing to be political; in other words, it
is not denotatively political.
Yaw
Atwinwun U Hpo Hlaing (1829–83)
U Hpo Hlaing [eyaAtæc\:wn\¨I:Biu:l§ic\]
was the most significant advocate of political and economic reform during the
closing period of the monarchy before the British seized Upper Burma, the last
remaining area under the Burmese monarchy. His life and works have been
described in at least three different booksize biographies published between
1960 and 1997.
The English had already annexed Lower Burma during the
first Anglo‑Burmese Wars in 1824. He joined the monkhood in 1845, and in
1852, just after the Second Anglo-Burmese War, he disrobed to join the Mindon
rebellion, to which he made a critical contribution because of his bright
intelligence. He was appointed Minister of the Interior under Mindon at age 29
and was assigned to carry out collection and preservation of the Tipitaka and
the stone inscriptions, which he did until 1868.
Together with Prince Kanaung, King Mindon's brother and
Crown Prince, he sought to encourage learning of European knowledge in Burma
for which he arranged meetings between youngsters and he sent 90 scholars to
countries such as France, Italy and England – Yaw was made responsible for
this plan.
He encouraged foreign learning while yet retaining Burmese ways.
He wrote at least twenty-two works, and biographers
characterise his writing as partaking of both the mundane (loki) and
the supramundane (lokuttara). These touch upon politics, Buddhism,
science, grammar, medicine, alchemy, and many other topics learned persons
pursued in those days. I will below briefly touch both on his political
writings and on his writings on vipassana.
Hpo Hlaing served under King Mindon and King Thibaw. He
held many titles and responsibilities, but under Mindon and Thibaw he served
for the most part as Minister of the Interior. He was also of great
significance in taking charge of foreign policy matters.
As Maung Maung explained in his section ‘the choice of
democracy’ in Burma's 1948 democratic constitution, it was U Hpo Hlaing who
first introduced Burma to democracy. Hpo Hlaing had ‘tried to press upon him
[Thibaw] a democratic constitution’.
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-
U Po Hlaing at the height of his power on the ascension of
Thibaw to the throne had submitted a constitution, or a treatise of rules for
the King, by which the King would draw a salary and reign as a constitutional
monarch, while the affairs of state would be conducted by a bicameral
parliament of the people and the aristocracy, and a cabinet of ministers. The
ideas were drastic then, and the absolute King and his weaker ministers
rejected them, and U Po Hlaing was stripped of power and turned out of office.
An independent thinker, he was forced into exile by
Mindon in 1871 for misdemeanour. This prompted him to write his first work on vipassana.
He was exiled for holding the view that beer is like a medicine in relation to
the five precepts, not a form of alcohol. This was tantamount to questioning
inherited tradition and less tolerant kings than Mindon would have executed
him, as Tharrawaddy did his father. However, as Mindon found him particularly
useful, he was reinstated within six months of his dismissal. He remained
outspoken, in particular on the necessity to reform Burmese kingship towards a
constitutional model. He was dismissed no less than four times for his
impertinence, twice for pressing government reforms home.
He is referred to by some as ‘Burma's Adam Smith’ for
his advocacy of economic reform. Among his twenty-two books on varied
subjects, from the point of view of the politics of democracy, there are three
important treatises. The first he wrote in 1871, was An analysis of the
Maha-Thamada (Maha-Samata Vinicchaya Kyàn [mhaqmtwinisÍyk¥m\:]).
His main purpose was to revive the idea, and remind the king, that the head of
State (Thamada, the Burmese word for President) does not rule by divine
right, but has a social contract with the people. And this social contract
should be respected (see App. 1.2).
In 1878, he wrote Companion of Dhamma for Royalty
(Raja-Dhamma-Singaha-Kyan [razDmîqgçhk¥m\:])
which he gave to Thibaw. This was his fourth and last impertinence, leading to
his dismissal in that same year, less than a before the British annexed Upper
Burma, bringing the whole of Burma under British control.
In the latter book he advocated a change in the mode of
government towards a constitutional monarchy, under which the King and his
royal functionaries as well as the nobility were to draw a salary. He reminded
the royal government of the social contract between the monarch and the
people. Under his proposal government would be conducted by a bi-cameral
parliament involving representation by the people, the aristocracy and a
cabinet of ministers. This meant that the king would no longer rule directly
but indirectly.
The concepts he proposed were drawn from Buddhist
teachings of the Seven Aprihanriya Principles [Aprihaniy
tra: 7-på:] that prevent deterioration and ruination of the country,
as preached initially by the Buddha to Lissavi Prince.
He proposed major economic reforms, including restrictions on royal
expenditure, establishment of a banking system, encouragement of
agriculturists and traders. In particular he enunciated the Four Singaha
Principles and analysed the causes of decline in the Burmese population, who
were escaping excessive taxation by moving to the British-dominated southern
Burma.
These radical ideas were rejected by Thibaw and his other
ministers and he was dismissed from office within fifty days of its
submission.
Had Hpo Hlaing's suggestions been taken on board by King Thibaw, and had the
monarchy reformed itself at that time to his plan, Burma might have escaped
annexation by the British and might never have had to experience the current
crisis.
Hpo Hlaing has been characterised as ‘a great Burmese
politician’ [Qeg>m>nkYd\g;WeQmMEfd]
who ‘wanted to bring the politics and government of Burma up-to-date.’
Prince Kanaung and Hpo Hlaing sent many Burmese abroad to study western ways
of government and technology. After Kanaung's death, Hpo Hlaing was the
best-informed member of the Burmese court regarding the ways of the world
outside Burma, and in particular those of the west. He is described as having
great curiosity [[á\QaSá\Fm], as
having great daring [\M†e], as being objective in
speech, and inclined towards ‘revolutionary ideology’ [kMamZuQmkYd\kVaMYad~\:m[>m\Fm]. Because of this, contemporary
Burmese accept him as a leader with a revolutionary mind.
Apart from his political work in which he advocated
radical reform, he also wrote on mental culture and advocated radical Buddhist
reforms. He wrote the first of three major works on vipassana while
exiled to
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Amarapura by King Mindon in 1871. The taste of freedom [wimut†irqk¥m\:]
he wrote ‘for the benefit of yogi who desire to attain to the path and
fruits of nibbana’ [W<mTegZmQebèåQm:egZegZadk\a
kXa<fSg<¼ehZmMegb`:ohed>uá]. This competent work in modern
vernacular style comments on vipassana practice. It compares the Noble
Eightfold Path in east and west and included ‘revolutionary interpretations
of past views’ [k;Mmk^a>md `Xi[áOMegb:eg
kMamZuQmSðSp>m\Fbm\kVaWoadSáYue\Fm]. Its distribution was
intensely supported by Mahawíthokdayon Hsayadaw [mhawiqudÎåruMSraeta\].
Divided into eleven numbered chapters plus an introduction, it contains 109
numbered sections, and in particular attacks wrong view [misÍaOeIe]
associated with self [At†],
characteristic of Hindus, foreigners and the peoples at the beginning of the
world who lived in a state of jhana;
only knowing no-self [Ant†] through
mental culture, in particular through vipassana, will truly liberate
one and attain nibbana.
There are two particularly important political messages
buried in this work. First, he wrote that ‘the Buddha taught generosity only
for the sake of very ordinary people such as the rich man's son, Singala’,
meaning that there are higher and more noble ways of practicing Buddhism.
This confirms the view that merely pagoda building is not something the
political opposition, the intellectuals at least, pander to.
Second, he wrote about a
king finding his happiness by delegating State power and administration to
eight righteous ministers abiding in the dhamma. The eight ministers
represent the eight kinds of vipassana understanding (nyana)
which are accessories to the king's Thirty-Eight Factors of Enlightenment (bodhipakkhaya
nana). The implication here is that the king should increase his
understanding by taking advice from his ministers, so that the State as a
whole should function like a fully enlightened person. Hpo Hlaing
concludes his work with a prayer that reads: ‘May our king who owns all
lands and waters look after all his subjects justly and fairly like his own
sons as all the righteous and Bodhisattva kings did to their subjects in
ancient time.’
His second work on vipassana is Contemplation
of the body [:aXaQgS]Qa:oWmd] he
wrote in 1875 at the request of Salìn Myósà Princess [AZ>mdWqegbAadW>md\Wfd],
daughter of the king. Inspired by an Italian book, he took into account what
westerners call ‘anatomy’ [`QaMWf],
and some have mistakenly assumed this book to be about anatomy. This is not
about anatomy but about its Buddhist equivalent, namely the vipassana
contemplation technique on the body (kaya nupassana) as impermanent and
void of enduring substance.
In this work he ‘reconciled truths which arise from
meditation (kammathan) with views prevalent in western science’ [Neg:oWmd~
:WîIáQmdMYadMegb:eg
`kQa:mMeg>md\eSénSFa`Xi`BRu>mb
Fue Röeg>mdSpBeg\Fm].
This volume is divided into an introduction and colophon plus 16 chapters,
including: on the 28 material entities [YgSmRuAmBlbYuAmSád];
exposition on the corporeal collections [YgSm:ZaSm
11-AFmd]; on (re)birth [SGe\kRãSpBeg;Lmd];
on aggregates such as virtue [\fZ:ðRÎs\Fm];
an exposition on the ways of taking the objects of meditation [:WîIaQmdXiQFmdSp];
the cemetery meditations [MASEß:
:WîIaQmd];
chapters on taking as meditation object flesh and bones,
heart, liver and intestines.
In 1877 he wrote his third work on vipassana,
namely The ten kinds of vipassana insight [[eS]QaEaLm
BXmSád] at the request of the monk Hpòndawgyì Hpayà [VgQmdkMam:sfdVgYad].
I do not have a copy of this work and so cannot comment on it.
It would appear that vipassana had the capacity to
reconcile between divided worlds and it permitted joining of Western-style
worlds and politics to Burmese ones, just as it permitted mapping of Western
concepts of anatomy to a Burmese system. U Hpo Hlaing, apart from his
involvement in foreign affairs, furthermore, had a great interest in science
and he invented the Burmese system of telegraphy code.
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p201/392
Hpo Hlaing suggests several important historical
precedents and continuities with today's culture of imprisonment. First, of
course, there is the conjunction between imprisonment and the practice of vipassana.
U Hpo Hlaing was pitted against the rule of authoritarian kings, just as the
senior NLD leaders are pitted against the military regime. He never forgot how
his father was killed by King Tharawaddy, and he was convinced that the
Burmese system of royal government was outmoded and in need of change. Both
Hpo Hlaing and NLD members develop vipassana as an instrument of
liberation and as a hope for transformation of government and its
enlightenment.
Second, in his Taste of purity he regarded fair
and enlightened rule as possible when there is full awareness on the part of
ministers and king through vipassana. This requires that government
take to mental culture to change itself and to bring righteous rule. It is, as
we shall see later, often made against the military regime today.
Third, there is the link between demands for political
and economic reform and general critique of government as a cause of
imprisonment. In other words, through the intermediary of imprisonment, there
is a conjunction between vipassana and political reform. Vipassana
emancipates from ‘wrong view’ and from personal conditions of
imprisonment. However, as ‘wrong view’ is characteristic of foreigners and
bad government, also needed is vipassana to assert a traditional yet
radically renewed sense of Burman identity based on a different concept from
the one handled by the government. Interestingly, it proves to be the ultimate
instrument of liberation accepted by jailers and jailed alike. Mindon did
listen to his criticism and did introduce vipassana into the Burmese
court, and he also introduced several important government reforms, as we
shall see later. These reforms, however, were not extensive enough.
Nevertheless, this suggest that vipassana historically provided a
practice – a mutually acceptable idiom for – advocacy of government
reform.
Fourth, the NLD is currently under attack for wanting to
introduce democracy and human rights to the Burmese people, which its critics
claim are ‘foreign’ elements to Burma. In Hpo Hlaing the regime has an
example of how a government minister a than a century ago advocated democracy
in conjunction with enlightened government, albeit based on Hpo Hlaing's own
reading of politics in the West. Hpo Hlaing is therefore an important example
for the conjunction between vipassana practice and advocacy of what
Maung Htin calls ‘Burma's traditional democracy’ [òmn\mariu:ra dImiukersI], a revolutionary concept at the time. He
made a study of ‘foreign’ models of government and attempted to make these
relevant to Burma in a Burmese way. He also supervised the Fifth Sangayana,
and was at the frontier of reform in Buddhism.
Like Thibaw, the military regimes since 1962 have ignored
demands for reform and asserts purely ‘indigenous’ elements against
foreign influence. However, this has taken Burma destructively down the Thibaw
road. To deny reform, called for under the influence of vipassana a
century ago, is to deny the wisdom that one needs to adopt good government
practice from whichever part of the world it might originate. Burmese ideas
about identity as associated with vipassana practice would appear to
provide sufficient dynamic to help conceive, formulate and advocate such a
change, while at the same time it provides the instruments for coping with the
consequences of doing so in terms of imprisonment. It does so furthermore, by
techniques sanctioned by local cultural and political tradition. U Hpo Hlaing
therefore provided one example of how Burma proposed its own democratisation
through ‘local’ and ‘Asian values’.
Fifth, U Hpo Hlaing's demands for political reform set a
precedent for subsequent Burmese political leaders right up until today. Hpo
Hlaing's argument about national harmony resurfaced in Thahkin Kodawhmaing's Thahkin
Tika (1938) where he prayed ‘that the leaders be endowed with the four
kinds of sangaha, the seven aprihaniya and the ten precepts of
royalty’ [rif;wdkYusifh&m?
av;jzm o*F[? owå ty&d[med,m? q,fjzm"r®? usifhukefiojzifh].
Not only does Aung San himself cite U Hpo Hlaing, but U Nu, in his 1950
National Day speech, also expounded the seven tenets of Aparihaniya,
‘the Buddhist doctrine of building up internal strength’ that are
presupposed to accompany a democratic system of government.
Finally, it is ironic that U Hpo Hlaing is selectively
cited on the very cover of Maung Maung's Burmese (not the English) version of
Ne Win's biography as having justified ‘harmony-unity’ (more fully cited
in chapter 2):
-
Realising the danger of destruction of harmony-unity (nyi-nyut)
-
arising from disharmony-disunity and dispute
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Having recognised that free from danger happiness prevails
-
harmony-unity must be developed through assembly without
dispute
-
As successive Buddhas have taught
-
‘May harmony-unity prevail amongst all of you’
As I already pointed out, it was Maung Maung who was not
only the author of Ne Win's own sanctioned biography and legal architect of
the BSPP period, but who also appreciatively pointed out in his book on the
constitution that Burmese democracy began with U Hpo Hlaing. In conclusion,
then, a uniquely Burmese concept of democracy may be traced back to Hpo Hlaing,
for whom vipassana was a practice at times of political crisis, to whom
has been attributed the idea that unity proceeds from harmony among the monks
observing their Vinaya and frequently assembly, and for whom advocacy of
political reform towards ‘traditional democracy’ coincided with vipassana
practice. Thahkin Kodawhmaing, Aung San and U Nu had appreciated these ideas. Under the military regimes since
1962, however, and in particular since 1988, in spite of Maung Maung's high
estimation of the man, Hpo Hlaing's ideas have been impoverished to mean unity
without regular assembly and without enlightenment and
internationalisation.
The
Ledi Sayadaw (1846–1923)
U Hpo Hlaing was a significant influence on many
revolutionaries. He also significantly influenced the famous vipassana
teacher, Ledi Sayadaw, who, while engaged in his studies at the Sankyaùng
monastery after 1869, used to visit Hpo Hlaing's house. The Ledi Sayadaw
imbibed Hpo Hlaing's scholarship and clarity of expression in vernacular
Burmese. At that time Hpo Hlaing had a reputation for his independent and
insubordinate (lit. ‘revolutionary’ – see chapter 11) stance against the
king [kMamZuQm]; and Ledi Hsayadaw also
took up writing in a way which was insubordinate [kMamZuuQm]
to established custom [\WadÙegd:o kÙud`Xi`B
k^a>mdWoad:geZFmdkMamZuQm;lbkS\Fm"]. In contemporary parlance
we would say that the Ledi Sayadaw was a ‘leftist’ [Z:m[lBQm\Fm].
From this we can conclude that the Ledi at that time held views which belonged
to ‘a revolutionary person outside of his time’ [¨I:va%f
Tius¨\k yUSK¥k\tiu>mHa eKt\òpc\eta\lHn\er:pugi©oul\tiu>f yUSK¥k\m¥a:òPs\enepmv\X].
The Ledi Sayadaw was worried about the British designs on
Upper Burma. His biography describes how, immediately prior to British capture
of Burma, this monk faced the dangers of the foreigner's impending destruction
of Buddhism. When the Ledi Sayadaw learnt that Burma was likely to be governed
by foreigners, he said:
-
‘If foreigners are to rule Burma, it will cause many
terrestrial animals to be killed and destroyed. The reason is that western
foreigners are the type of people who have appetite for enormous quantities of
meat. If they arrive, they will set up killing factories of cows, of pigs, of
goats, where so many such creatures will meet their death.’ After musing
thus, he spoke the following to the monks: ‘… When they rule, many
creatures are likely to die. Among these creatures, it is the cow that is the
saviour of man's life. This animal is both our mother as well as our father,
and mankind is much in debt with them. Therefore, from this day onwards, I
shall not eat cow's meat, and please I implore you not to eat it either. From
the day he had spoken like this, he eliminated cow meat from his diet.
A common perception of the capture of King Thibaw with
his queens was that our kings ‘were captured and taken away like chicklets,
like small birds’ [ûkk\cHk\pmalk\Pm\:SI:eKÅeSac\qæa:ûkôpI:enak\].
It should be remembered that to him removing the great sponsor of the sasana
from political power meant the immanent destruction and imprisonment of Burma.
When the British took Upper Burma, the Ledi Hsayadaw prepared himself for the
‘destruction of the era’ (kalá pyet thi); on 15 February 1887 he
‘retreated into the frightening Ledi Forest of which many alleged that there
were malignant ghosts, that it was rough and a spooky forest’. He found a
big tree, and resolved, ‘that tree is an excellent place, and he meditated
under it’. Through the Ledi Sayadaw's presence, the forest became a friendly
forest.
The Ledi Sayadaw came out of the forest experienced in
mental culture and strengthened with a mission. After his sponsors established
him in a monastery, pupils soon flocked to him for his teachings. It was
‘from round about 1896 after his studies’ that ‘he toured the various
parts of Burma and spent many rainy seasons in various places … to preach
and treat people to that medicine which is the cool water of
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
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insight (vipassana)
which dispels darkness (a-maik [hlwín] hseì)’.
Between 1905–22 he preached right across the whole of Burma and during his
life he wrote 105 books and pamphlets, most in the Burmese vernacular.
If Ledi's practice was intended initially, to liberate
his own mind in response to foreign conquest and control over the country, so
the technique he taught proved to be useful also in questioning the boundaries
set by the colonial and military masters.
First, the imprisonment experience is relevant to the
Ledi's teachings, for during the first decade of the 20th century some
preachers imitated him and began to ‘visit the convicts in prison and try to
awaken in them a sense of shame for their past criminal acts …’.
Second, the Ledi Sayadaw's teachings greatly inspired
nationalists preoccupied with the liberation of the country. When the Ledi
Sayadaw founded the International Missionary Organization in 1913, the
nationalist Thahkin Kodawhmaing saw this as a great advance in the Burmese
liberation cause.
For example, he compared the Ledi Sayadaw to Maheindra, and wrote of the
prospect that this Missionary Society would visit England:
-
let the world be enlightened with the light of Buddhism – I
believe this is the time to form the [Foreign Missionary] Society.
-
And the glorious Ledi, King of
Maha-Thera is like the great Buddhist missionary arhat Mahindra
-
It's true, I swear it,
-
This is the only time we have heard such news.
-
In Burma, this wonderful news filled all of us with delight
and joy
-
The captain of the Barge of dhamma which must be the
most unusual event of all time,
-
With the light of the Buddha's Sasana
-
Now it is time to cross
-
To the pleasant Isle of England
More strongly even, he wrote of the Ledi:
-
Though the Champion of the Sasana [King Thibaw] was in exile,
-
From outstanding Upper Burma,
-
the Land of Golden Palace and Ratana Canal
-
In the cause of the recognition of Burmese name and character
-
The donation for the foreign mission was great,
-
Now I am not disheartened
-
although Mandalay has already collapsed …
Thahkin Kodawhmaing, the grandfather of Burmese politics,
not only encouraged the Ledi Sayadaw and viewed his teaching as
re-establishing freedom from the British, but also emphasized himself national
liberation through mental culture. I have already noted how Thahkin
Kodawhmaing was himself deeply involved in politics, in which mental culture
played a significant role. He wrote meditation verses [kmî™an\:]
on some of the heroes and Burmese icons of the past.
Third, the Ledi was responsible for instructing a number
of famous vipassana teachers, who themselves went on to set up numerous
centres, including Kyaungban (1860–1927), Mohnyin (1873–1964),
Theikchadaung Sayadaw (1871–1937), Myat Thein Htun (1896–), and Saya Thet
Gyi (1873–1946) – all of these had their own pupils who went on to teach
vipassana all over the country.
Accountant-General
U Ba Khin
Saya Thet Gyi, the pupil of the Ledi Sayadaw, taught U Ba
Khin. U Ba Khin, in turn, taught NLD Vice Chair U Kyi Maung (and also Aung Gyi,
who resigned from the NLD early on), who used vipassana so effectively
while in prison. U Ba Khin also taught U Nu, who was responsible for
introducing vipassana into the prisons of Burma. And he taught Goenka,
who was responsible for the large-scale introduction of vipassana in
prisons in India.
U Ba Khin began practice of samatha (concentration
meditation) on 1 January 1937, and vipassana contemplation the
following week. This was the year in which Burma was to be separated from
India.
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Vipassana played a role in his attempt to transform the
accountancy office from an ‘Indian office’ populated almost entirely by
Indians into a Burman office.
During the war, Ba Khin's responsibilities in government
increased as the British and Indians were leaving the accountancy department.
It was during this period that he taught various government ministers vipassana,
including Myanmá Alìn Ù Tin, Prime Minister U Nu and Minister of Education
U Hlá Mìn. They all could only reach the level of breathing as the object of
meditation (anapaná kamahtàn). Ba Khin arranged for these ministers
to practise with his teacher Hsaya Thet Gyi, but government responsibilities
prevented them from travelling. It thus fell upon Ba Khin to assist them with
their difficulties. Saya Thet Gyi impressed upon the ministers that Ba Khin
was like a doctor taking care of the sick. They should listen to the teaching
(tayà) given by Ba Khin, and his morality, concentration and wisdom
should be accepted. The British returned after the war, and Ba Khin was
promoted on 16 May 1945 to the rank of Deputy Accountant General. After
independence he was further promoted to Accountant General.
In 1951, while Burma's pride was heightened in their
Buddhism after national independence with the celebration of the Sangayana,
the institutionalization of his methods truly began. On 18 July 1951, Ba Khin
set up the Accountant-General Vipassana Research Association. The more
substantive Accountant‑General Vipassana Association was launched on 24
April 1952, and teaching began at the centre in a temporary hut early May. On
8 May, construction of the Damáyaungchi Pagoda began which was completed on 9
November 1952, when its umbrella was hoisted. The International Meditation
Centre came into being.
What matters to us, is that Ba Khin responded to national
political events with vipassana. Ba Khin's response to separation from
India and to oppression by foreigners was by means of vipassana.
Furthermore, the World War II experience motivated him to teach future
ministers of cabinet, including U Nu. Vipassana became
institutionalised as part of the glorious feeling that national independence
gave. Furthermore, he advocated the elimination of corruption from government
departments through the practice of vipassana.
Prime
Minister U Nu
Inspired by his practice of vipassana during
World-War II initially under U Ba Khin and later the Mahasi Sayadaw, U Nu
incorporated mental culture into his programme for national independence from
the British. In a sense, he would appear to have answered Hpo Hlaing's call to
involve vipassana in a reformed government. Through teachers
perpetuating the techniques taught within the U Nu initiated Mahasi empire,
NLD Tin U and Aung San Suu Kyi came to practice vipassana.
First, I have already drawn attention to how U Nu went on
a nine-day pilgrimage retreat straight after signing the Nu-Attlee national
independence agreement. He went to the pagodas around Keilatha Hill from 28
October 1947 where he practised asceticism and is reputed to have encountered
numerous yogi and ascetics.
It is no surprise that the new Prime Minister of a newly independent country
should look towards new beginnings, and the significance of this region is
that the Buddhism King Anawratha instituted in Pagan originated here in Mon
country. Here, many saintly and enlightened yogi had, to paraphrase a complex
verse, ‘put fright in the supernatural forces by the achievements of their jhana’.
In this text, a conjunction is made between the original efforts of Buddhist
missionaries and Nu's objective in government. Nu's visit, subsequent to the
national independence negotiations he had just concluded, is juxtaposed with
the story of Sona's and Uttara's enlightenment in this region during the reign
of Thiridhamma-thawka. Through their missionary efforts, Buddhism spread
across the country.
Second, a week after his return from pilgrimage, Nu
founded the Buddha Thathana Nuggaha Association (BTNA) at a meeting in his
house on 13 November 1947, together with eight other persons: two other
cabinet ministers, two high-ranking functionaries,
and four rich traders and industrialists.
This
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p205/392
initiated important Buddhist projects and structures later taken over by
national government organizations.
The most enduring project to emerge from BTNA was the
support of vipassana. It set up what is still the most powerful Burmese
vipassana centre, nationally and internationally – that ‘mansion of
science’ (theikpan beikman), the Thathaná Yeiktha (TY) in Rangoon,
or, as it is also referred to after its former head teacher, the Mahasi
Yeiktha, and it became the headquarters of the BTNA.
The Mahasi Sayadaw was a forest monk who had already been
carefully investigated in August 1947, two months before U Nu signed the
Nu-Attlee agreement. He was investigated by Sir U Thwin, later to become
President of the BTNA. The Mahasi Sayadaw began to teach vipassana in
1938 in Hseithkun village, and later in Moulmein. However, U Nu did not invite
the Mahasi to teach vipassana until after another forest vipassana monk
had been investigated, namely the Sunlun Sayadaw. The Mahasi was appointed in
November 1949, almost a year after independence. Nu favoured the Mahasi since
he was renowned not only for his fine scholarly learning and his mental
culture, but in particular for his ordination, regional affiliation and
practice lineage within the pure forest tradition of the Thilon Sayadaw so
favoured by King Mindon and his successor King Thibaw.
He describes how he established the Mahasi Thathana
Yeiktha in Rangoon for observance of morality, concentration and insight, and
how he himself regularly visited it.
-
Soon its instructors were able to report that the results
were astonishing. With the attainment of Thawtapatti Megga, the primary
plane of spiritual experience, the minds of the devotees seemed to undergo a
change. U Nu, wishing to experiment, sent a friend to the centre. This was a
notorious person of whom the people went in dread, because he drank, lied,
stole, fornicated, and would not have stopped at murder. On completion of the
retreat at the centre, he emerged a reformed character. He himself was so
impressed by the religious experience that he brought his wife to share in the
experience.
Elsewhere, Nu describes how he went with his rebellious
daughter to the insight centre, who ‘came out loving and obedient to her
parents’. She no longer begrudged her father for giving her a beating and
‘was no longer capable of being rude to her mother’.
And, ‘with this evidence before him, the prime minister
felt encouraged to erect meditation centres throughout the country’. Though
advised by colleagues and friends not to get too involved in religious
matters, he saw government as concerned with helping Burmese citizens in the
attainment of nibbana.
-
U Nu's contention was that the people had voted the
government into office so that it might bring them benefits. Religion was a
beneficial institution and those who would gainsay it were wrong. If the
government could provide for a life of one hundred years on earth, why should
it feel deterred from providing for countless existences afterwards? He would
not deviate even slightly from his path.
Expansion in the number of Mahasi insight centres under U
Nu's patronage was rapid. Before such patronage, the Mahasi opened only one
centre every three years in different parts of the country. Once invited to
teach under the umbrella of the BTNA in 1947, however, growth accelerated,
culminating in a total of 293 centres by 1981 in Burma alone; additional
centres were opened abroad in Thailand,
India, Sri Lanka, Britain, the United States, Japan, France and other
countries. Between 1947–95 the Mahasi stipatthana vipassana method is
proclaimed to have been taught to 1,174,255 yogis in over 358 centres spread
across thirteen states of Burma. This includes the ethnic minority regions –
including eight centres in the Kachin State, five in the Karen State and one
in the Kaya State.
The majority of Burmese Buddhist monasteries established
abroad draw their monks from the Mahasi tradition and at the same time offer vipassana
lessons to foreigners. Some of the centres in Burma take in substantial
numbers of foreigners to practise vipassana. In 1995, the Thathana
Yeiktha alone counted 152 foreign yogi from twenty-seven different countries.
Around 1954, Nu sought to co-opt some of the many other
independent teachers of insight through a government subsidy programme. Though
by 1957 there were 207 ‘Government Aided Centres’, the attempt to impose
total control over these other centres proved difficult.
The implication is therefore that not all
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series
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1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p206/392
methods of liberation could be
brought under the roof of one government, and under today's standoff between
the regime and the NLD we see divisions in patronage across different
traditions of vipassana practice.
The attempt to institutionalize vipassana was
accompanied by an attempt to bring vipassana as a reformist influence
into government institutions. Jail conditions are so suited to vipassana
practice that in 1957 U Nu introduced insight programmes into Burma's prisons.
‘Prisoners from 22 jails have expressed their desire to practise vipassana-bhavana
on their holidays’ and classes were opened in 13 jails in October 1957.’
The practice of vipassana also became a precondition for promotion in
government office.
He ordered government departments to dismiss civil servants half an hour early
if they wished to meditate, and he commuted the sentences of prisoners who
studied Buddhism.
These developments prompted characterisation of the U Nu
government as seemingly ‘convinced of the practical utility of meditation,
since it supports meditation centres, grants leave for meditation purposes in
some cases, and utilises the services of notable meditators for teaching its
personnel.’ His critics point out that the danger seems to be ‘that the
modern enthusiast may think to find in the meditation centre the answer to all
his nation's problems, and dangerously undervalue the other factors in social
progress.’ This did not deter U Nu
from leaving the country after the 1962 coup, first to fight the Ne Win regime
from the Thai border, and later spending seven years in Buddhist contemplation
in India before returning to Burma under an amnesty in 1980.
The Mahasi tradition was of significance, as we have
seen, in the way Tin U and Aung San Suu Kyi coped with their political
confinement. Vipassana is not partial to any one culture because it is
‘a-cultural’, and it therefore reaches out beyond all boundaries. With the
British Empire crumbled, it culminated in the end of a permanent British navy
presence in South East Asia. In a melancholic mood Rear Admiral Shattock, the
last retiring Rear Admiral of the South East Asian fleet, returned home via
Burma specifically to practise at the Mahasi centre. He ended up writing
several books on meditation in his retirement. There is irony here, for
King Mindon had taken to finding solace with forest monks, including the
Thilon Sayadaw under the aggression of British colonials. To him the Mahasi
traces back his lineage of practice. In other words, the laws of impermanence
suggest that all political domains also initiate their eventual dissolution.
All that remains for all actors in this mundane play – whether Burmese or
British, whether military or civilian – is to come to terms with the laws of
impermanence through the practice of vipassana.
Furthermore, the theme of imprisonment is also evoked in Prisoners
of karma, a story by Sinhalese Suvimalee Karunaratna, who practised vipassana
under the Mahasi Sayadaw.
This story focuses on the encounter between an elephant, a peacock and a
tortoise engaged in the discussion of the nature of karma. All three
reflect on mental culture as a way to free themselves from the self-made
prison of past deeds, not least the turtle, confined as he is to his shell.
The Mahasi and his pupils have written an enormous
library of books – in the many hundreds of books – and there is really no
point listing these here. There are also numerous biographies of the Mahasi
Sayadaw. I have analysed some of this material in my thesis. Suffice to say
here that this tradition is highly influential in Burma.
Phra
Phimontham (1901–?)
Phra Phimontham (sometimes also referred to as
Phimolatham) was the Thai Minister of the Interior in the Sangha. He practised
vipassana under the Mahasi Sayadaw. A member of the Mahanikay monastic
sect
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ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
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and abbot of the Bangkok Mahathat Monastery, which historically lost out
for the king's favours to the Thammayut monastic sect, he incurred the wrath
of Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat for his independent views on Sangha reforms.
In 1960, he was stripped of his titles on trumped up charges of sexual
misbehaviour. In 1962, he was arrested on charges of supporting communism and
as posing a threat to national security, disrobed and jailed.
The underlying reason for this treatment was that he
refused to be co-opted by the secular political authorities. Under pressure
from reformist monks, the Thai government released him from prison in 1966,
three years after Sarit's death, and cleared him of all charges. He became a
rallying point for reformist monks who continued to exert pressure on the
establishment. In 1975, this ensued in the reinstatement of his titles and
finally in 1981, he was reappointed to his former position as abbot at Wat
Mahathat. In 1985, he was reluctantly awarded one of the coveted six Somdet
titles.
His decline and subsequent rehabilitation reflects
national political developments. These developments were marked by the 1941
and the 1963 Sangha Acts, leading to democratisation, and the converse,
hierarchization of the Sangha respectively. Thai politics had taken a
dictatorial turn after a brief period of democratic reform in the 1940s and
1950s, largely initiated by the military in opposition to royalty, which came
to power under Sarit Thanarat and Thanom Kittikachorn in the 1960s and early
1970s, which had come to arrangements with the monarchy and with the Thai
middle class. However, rapid economic growth in the 1970s contributed to the
diversification of the middle class, which had by then outgrown the old
patronage relationships. These became increasingly influential in their own
right, resulting in an increased pressure for the diversification of power.
In the open climate, as the result of the 1941 Sangha
Act, Phimontham rapidly ascended in rank and in 1947 was appointed abbot of
the influential Wat Mahathat – he was even regarded a contender for the
highest position, namely of Sangharaja. However, he earned the label of being
a communist supporter when he refused, on doctrinal grounds, to implement a
directive to forbid ordination of Communists issued by the regime that came to
power in the 1947 coup. He was a critic of the new regime's appointments in
the Sangha hierarchy. This contributed to the final denouement unfolding of
events, as the appointees schemed with the regime to have him disrobed.
Phimontham developed his interest in vipassana
around 1955 as the result of connections with the Mahasi, and from around this
time Wat Mahathat became the centre of the dissemination of vipassana.
A programme was conceived that involved the setting up of many urban and
village meditation centres country-wide for nuns and pious layman ‘to find
relief from worldly cares and burdens’ instead of forest hermitages,
populated by monks. It was in particular this lay participation that Tambiah
isolates as the major threat the Sarit regime perceived in Phimontham.
-
We can now surmise why this popular program and the influence
wielded by the monk sponsoring it might have been construed as a political
threat by Sarit and his military colleagues. It is clear that the program
served as a basis for marshaling the support and loyalty of several monks and
laymen. Most importantly, that political power was grounded
theoretically in a monk's spiritual excellence and religious
achievement. This source and basis of power were inaccessible to lay
politicians and soldiers whose power rested on the control of physical force.
Insofar as there exist mechanisms within the sangha for generating a
collective support in society that can be claimed to be independent of and
immune to naked political power, the political authority will seek to curb
them. This is indeed why Sarit would and did try to taint Pimolatham's
activities as ‘politically subversive’; and this is indeed why a seemingly
religious project for the revitalization of religion could be branded as a
‘political’ attempt to amass power dangerous to the regime.
This, what would appear to be the original Mahasi-Nu
Burmese model of the BTNA plan to distribute vipassana centres across
the country, was later also emulated by the rival Sangha sect Thammayut
oriented around the royal sponsored Wat Bovonniwet, a competitor to the
Pimontham's Wat Mahathat. Tambiah records this tension in the words of an
anonymous commentator, Mr X:
-
Seeing the success of Phra Phimolatham's [the abbot of Wat
Mahathad] program of popularising Vipassana meditation throughout the
country Wat Bovonniwet engaged in the counter-campaign of popularising and
celebrating the achievements of the provincial forest meditation teachers like
Acharn Mun, Acharn Fun, Luang Pu Waen, and Acharn Maha Boowa, who are all of
the Thammayut sect's sponsorship of these so-called provincial ‘saints’.
Phimontham was thus imprisoned after his practice
of vipassana. Like the Burmese Interior Minister Hpo Hlaing, he was
‘at the centre of efforts to democratically reform the administration of the
Thai Sangha in the
(c)
ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series
33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p208/392
twentieth century’. He also wanted to set up vipassana
centres all over Thailand, but accused of being a Communist and for disrupting
the cosy Sangha hierarchy sponsored by the State,
he was disrobed and discredited. This bears out the characterisation of both
Hpo Hlaing and the Ledi Sayadaw as revolutionaries. The revolutionary nature
of vipassana is that it questions inherited tradition and only pays
attention to the moment. This means that vipassana is not just
tailor-made to the culture of imprisonment, for in a prison one is
intentionally cut off from one's habits, customs and traditions. Vipassana
is also a technique adopted in protest and transformation, which ironically
leads to imprisonment and repression because of the liberal ideals it
fosters in intolerant political environments.
Goenka
As already indicated, vipassana is an
‘a-political’ technique because of its ‘a-cultural’ approach. As such
it had no problems proliferating abroad. The technique came to be used in the
broadest sense of coping with imprisonment. This spread beyond Burma in particular through the influence of S.R. Goenka.
Goenka was one of U Ba Khin's Indian pupils while engaged
in transforming the ‘Indian office’ into a Burmese one. In 1969, Goenka
took it upon himself to missionise the Ledi anapana method in India,
the homeland of Buddhism. Of particular interest to us is his introduction of
this method into the Indian prisons of Rajasthan.
-
The first course of Vipassana in an Indian prison was
conducted by Mr. S.N. Goenka at the Jaipur Central Jail in October, 1975, as
was arranged by Mr. Ram Singh, who was at that time the Home Secretary of the
State of Rajasthan (similar to a Governor of a state in America). The
following are comments of Mr. Ram Singh about that first course.
-
Another big problem came when the course was just about to
start. At that time leg irons and handcuffs were used for hardened criminals.
Four such prisoners were brought into the meditation hall locked in these
fetters. Mr. Goenka was walking nearby and when he saw this, he was amazed. He
asked me what was going on, and I told him that these were very hardened
criminals. He exclaimed: ‘How can people in chains be put before me to
meditate? This cannot happen. Remove the chains!’
-
But the Inspector General of Prisons (IG) said that this
could not be allowed; the security in the jail was his responsibility; he
could not remove the leg irons or the handcuffs. However, Mr Goenka was firm.
He said he could not teach Dhamma with people sitting before him in chains. He
was giving Dhamma; he had come to remove the chains. The IG told him he could
remove the chains from within, but not the outside chains! Mr. Goenka insisted
that those who were meditating must not be in chains. This was a big dilemma,
a big problem!
-
The IG was a very experienced officer. He asked me not to
force him to relax security requirements for those prisoners. He said any one
of them might try to be a hero, and strangle Mr. Goenka or me to death in the
snap of a finger. We discussed the problem and finally came to an agreement to
remove the chains and fetters. An armed guard would be posted at a strategic
point to shoot any prisoner who started to advance much turmoil changed and
their faces beamed. Tears streamed down their cheeks. Tears also rolled down
my face; it was a rare moment filled with joy after such high tension.
The introduction of this particular tradition to Tihar
Central Prison (New Delhi) in December 1993 has been documented by Tarsem
Kumar in his Freedom from behind bars.
Indeed, a film has been made about how Kiran Bedi introduced vipassana
in Tihar jail entitled Doing time, doing vipassana.
When it won the Golden Spire Award in San Francisco the judges found that they
were ‘moved by this insightful and poignant exposition of Vipassana. The
teaching of this meditation as a transformation device has many implications
for people everywhere, providing the cultural, social and political
institutions can embrace and support its liberating possibility’. Its
successful application led to the spread of this methodology into British
prisons under Angulimala, the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy Organisation which
has been introducing prison courses to much acclaim.
Other
prison experiences
So far I have noted that the NLD are not facing a unique
experience, either in Buddhist terms or in terms of general Burmese history
– all are imprisoned in samsara, but some are more aware of it than
others.
I have noted that Burmese concepts of imprisonment range
from the conditions of confinement in the individual to the general condition
of confinement in the country as a whole. In this tradition, there is a
blurring between personal and national concepts of imprisonment, and its
converse, the political struggle for freedom. It is through the Buddhist idea
of imprisonment that political prisoners find an ultimate sense of freedom and
find the inspiration to maintain the momentum of their struggle. However,
national politics, as we have seen from Aung San's view of national
independence as loki nibbana, and national unity as based on samatha
practices, and the nationalist struggle as conceived by Thahkin Kodawhmaing,
are also closely
(c)
ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series
33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p209/392
related to mental culture.
Having placed the notion of liberation from samsara
at the heart of the Buddhist concept of imprisonment, I have also broached the
notion that the political struggle for liberation, whether of person or
country, has come to be seen as a quest resolvable through personal
application in mental culture. Furthermore, given the support which vipassana
provides to those who are repressed and persecuted, it is no coincidence that
the vipassana traditions have arisen and have been popularised in
response to British colonialism and the repeated political crises since World
War II.
This correlation between imprisonment, martyrdom, and the
steady popularisation of the practice of mental culture cannot be uncoupled
from one another during these conditions of extended political crisis.
U
Ottama (1879–1939)
The monk U Ottama went to prison twice in the fight for
Burma's national independence. In October
1924, Ottama was arrested seven days after making an inflammatory speech at
the Lanmadaw cinema. Apparently, he had made the speech after he had
‘decided’ to go to prison. The monks present at his trial refused to stand
up as the judge entered the courtroom, and so their chairs were pulled from
under them by police guards. Ottama was sentenced to three years'
imprisonment, but he managed to avoid hard labour with the help of his
jailkeeper. Doing light cane work, he spent the rest of his time in
meditation. His biographical account concludes by citing a Jataka and noted
‘that the imprisonment amounted to little more than throwing a turtle back
into its lake’.
Mendelson analyses
his biography and writes that Ottama's deeds are compared ‘with acts of the
Buddha, as embryo Buddhas of the past are always sacrificed self for the
benefit of their tribe or country, there being no value in coming into the
world if it is for one's own benefit alone.’ In addition, ‘whenever
interrupted by adversity in his labors, Ottama devoted himself – in prison
especially – to meditation and religious self-improvement’.
Moreover, while imprisoned in Sagaing, Ottama was known to be meditating when
the Saya San rebellion broke out at Tharawaddy.
U Ottama argued that
during the time of the Buddha it was possible to work to attain nibbana.
However, as the Burmese are enslaved to the British, people should not ask for
nibbana yet. So the techniques that build towards, but do not actually
consummate nibbana, namely samatha, were most relevant to the
national liberation struggle. This emphasis is confirmed in Thahkin
Kodawhmaing's political writings.
Meditating
on the impermanence of the British
In some respects, of course, the entire condition of the
country was seen as a form of imprisonment under British colonial rule also. I
have already noted U Wisara's equation between meditation, national
liberation, and loka nibbana. U Wisara's political philosophy was
closely related to his episodes in British prisons – indeed, he died fasting
in prison. While in prison he was disrobed but retained the monastic rules and
practised meditation [Bawnapæå:m¥a:].
At least some other movements sought to deliver Burma
from its captors by meditation on impermanence. One monk wrote a pamphlet,
outlawed by government in 1927, on how to meditate on the impermanence in
relation to the British occupation.
Also during this period, people were prepared for prison by learning the
‘story of the Bodhisattva's escape from prison’. And rather than learning
British laws, they should ‘only worry about the laws or teachings of the
Buddha’ and keep the Buddhist precepts.
Ludu
U Hla
In Prison and people [eTac\NHc\.lUqa:]
the prison experience is enriched by mental culture. Ludu U Hla collects
twelve contributions by various authors on their prison experience prior to
the 1962 military coup. He describes prisoners
who, among various activities, carry out ‘duties towards the Buddha’ [Bura:wt\tk\],
and partake in ‘counting the rosaries’ [putI:sip\]
and ‘sending loving-kindness’ [emt†apiu>].
(c)
ILCAA 1999 - Gustaaf Houtman. Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics.
ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia & Africa Monograph Series
33, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
1999, ISBN 4-87297-748-3, p210/392
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