This essay presents a general and critical historical survey of the Burmese Buddhist alms-boycott (pattanikujjana) between 1990 and 2007. It details the Pāli textual and ethical constitution of the boycott and its instantiation in modern Burmese history, particularly the Saffron Revolution of 2007. It also suggests a metaethical reading that considers Buddhist metaphysics as constitutive [...]
Archive for the ‘Burma material’ Category
The Burmese Alms-Boycott: Theory and Practice of the Pattanikujjana in Buddhist Non-Violent Resistance
Posted in Buddhist philosophical, Burma material, essay on April 17, 2012 | Leave a 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, [...]
‘Walk On’? I’m Staying: Aung San Suu Kyi and the Revolution of the Heart: an interview with Alan Clements
Posted in Burma material, interview on October 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
In 1995 to 1996 Alan Clements, an American former monk in the Burmese Buddhist tradition, entered Burma to record dialogues with the lately-freed democracy icon and legitimate leader of the country, Aung San Suu Kyi. These dialogues were published as the “The Voice of Hope” in 1997, reissued in 2008. Today, in October 2010, Daw [...]
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 [...]
Satori in Paris – an interview with BeingOrdinary.org
Posted in audio interview, Buddhist philosophical, Burma material, interview on August 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »
This audio interview with Mike Kewley (in Paris, August 2010) from the eclectically superlative www.beingordinary.org, discusses some broad dimensions of Buddhist and ‘trans-Buddhist’ social awareness and daily-life practice with a view to collective social transformation. It considers how the dharma extends beyond a purely religiously-grounded ethical rationale, to embrace a larger secular spiritual vision as well, while still [...]
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 [...]
Violence and (Non-)resistance: Buddhist Ahiṃsā and its Existential Aporias
Posted in Buddhist philosophical, Burma material, essay on October 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Published in Journal of Buddhist Ethics # 16, 2009: http://www.buddhistethics.org/current.html A long essay looking at an episode described in Alan Clements’ book Instinct for Freedom. I consider the Buddhist ethical grounds for Burmese former monks taking up arms against their own military oppressors in the long resistance against the regime of General Than Shwe (and his [...]
