It is terrible tragedy that the Chinese Communist Party oppresses the Tibetan people while the Burmese junta oppresses the monks of Burma. As an American Buddhist, I look to some of the monastary meditation centers in Burma as world treasures that should not be subject to such harshness and injustice. The culture of Tibet is also a world treasure, but it is being diluted and washed away by a tide of Chinese immigrants with no interest in Tibetan culture. Yet the Dalai Lama rightly continues to oppose the Party. The strength of Buddhism is in its unwavering dedication to peace and harmony, not just for oneself, but even for those that oppress us. I personally feel that the Buddhist practice of Metta (loving-kindness) meditation would go much further to loosen the grip of these oppressors than any kind of direct confrontation. I hope that next time, the monks of Burma organize huge meditation retreats instead of taking to the streets. Then, the Burmese junta would see the real value and strength of those that they would disrobe.
‘I Wanted Democracy’
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The interrogators, he noted, were always police, not soldiers. He was alternately made to sit on a chair and on the ground during the questioning.
Detainees were fed twice a day, rice and fried cabbage. A small amount of drinking water was available each day. For the first 15 days, neither latrines nor bathing facilities were provided. He never bathed, because there were always three or four soldiers present, making crude remarks.
In a few days the soldiers played their intimidation trump card, moving to "derobe" the monks—excommunicate them. The military even brought in Sangha nayakas, Buddhist officials authorized to officiate in the conversion of a person from monk to layman. The nayakas refused to recite the appropriate scripture, so the soldiers simply forced monks to don civilian dress and pronounced them laymen.
"This included senior monks," says the monk, a tall man with an elegant shaved head and an easy smile, still wearing prison-issue flip-flops. "But I took my vows a long time [six years] ago, and from that moment on I know I'm a monk whether they take my robes or not. I felt angry to be forced to change my clothes, but I was still a monk."
Nothing about the soldiers' conduct surprised him, he says. As a novice in his native Rakhine state on the Bay of Bengal, he had seen the feared Tatmadaw, the military, raid villages, looting, raping women and taking away young men to serve them as porters.
A week after their arrest, "detainees got blankets and plywood flooring in the hall after one detainee died due to sleeping on the cold concrete," he says.
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