I In November 2005, Ram Bahadur Bomjon or the popularly known ‘Buddha Boy’, a Nepali youth who began meditating beneath a pipal tree in his local village of Ratanapuri, Bara district, in May of that year, claimed he would achieve full Buddhahood within six more years of deep meditative practice. Bomjon’s claim followed an initial [...]
Archive for the ‘article’ Category
Ram Bahadur Bomjon, Buddha/boy of Nepal: between mirror and myth in a global Buddhism
Posted in article, Buddhist philosophical on December 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »
A Jewel in the Heart of Burma: the International Buddhist Education Centre (I.B.E.C.), Sagaing Hills
Posted in article, Burma material on December 11, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Sagaing Hills view The beautiful Sagaing Hills, an area some thirty kilometres out of Mandalay in central Burma, is home to a rich diversity of Buddhist retreat culture. There are hundreds of monasteries and nunneries, lay-retreat meditation centers, colleges and other educational institutions to be found there, housed in quiet hermitages, attractive old colonial outposts and more [...]
Khin Zaw – landmine survivor, professional beggar, man of faith
Posted in article, Burma material, reportage on December 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
In early March 2002, Khin Zaw, pictured, stepped on a landmine while working as a hunter in the Wawlay Nyaing forest some four hours outside of the small Karen town of Myawaddy on the Thai-Burmese border. He lost his right leg, and with it any viable means of livelihood, and for eight years has lived [...]
The Lady…and the Black Shadow behind her
Posted in article, Burma material, memoir, reportage on November 18, 2010 | 2 Comments »
The day before I left Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi had been released only two days before from nearly fifteen years of imprisonment. I had deliberately avoided the scenes of jubilation and fervor that had greeted her at the gates of her house on University Avenue on November 13th, and again during her address at [...]
On the eve of election – Burma’s unquiet moment of truth
Posted in article, Burma material, reportage on October 24, 2010 | 3 Comments »
In downtown Yangon, exactly a fortnite before the country’s national ‘democratic election’ is due to be contested, life appears much as usual. People lounge and relax for hours over slow nickle pots of tea in street tea-shops, children run and play among vehicles and the detritus of roadwork, monks – and nuns, in miraculously clean, [...]
The Burmese election November 7: boycott or engage?
Posted in article, Burma material on October 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The above image was taken by the author at an open-air exhibition in Paris, Nov. 2009, of children’s self-portraiture from around the world. Unique among hundreds of images, this portrait shows itself fully cocooned, with eyes closed, mouth wide open as if in an endless silent scream. A faceless figure, or perhaps weapon, confronts the terrified figure. The photograph [...]
Alan Clements and the Second Crisis of Autonomy
Posted in article, Buddhist philosophical, Burma material on October 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
An article written in 2006 that looks at the historical continuity of an aspect of the spiritual (in this case Buddhist) path, in which the security and identity made with a larger authority, more or less benign, is definitively left behind. Alan Clements is a contemporary maverick on the global dharma stage, a former monk in the [...]
