Bhikkhu Khantipalo
Pha Auk Tawya
c/o Major U Kan Sain (rtd.)
653, Lower Main Road
Mawlamyine
Mon State
MYANMAR
Pha Auk, 30th November 1999

Dear Rodney, dear friends,

greetings to you all from Pha Auk Forest Monastery. I hope you're fine and that the Dhamma keeps being a source of inspiration to you.

It has been over half a year now since I left Australia and I've been thinking for a while to get back to you. I have been daunted by the prospect of having to write out a long letter but now, very fortunately, a word processor has come my way and now I probably have to be careful not to type too much. I hope you'll forgive me that this letter is not individualized but I thought to write a long, detailed letter for everybody would be more interesting than a short, bland, personal letter.

In the following I want to give a travelogue with my impressions during my stays in Malaysia and Myanmar. Obviously, my selection is subjective but I hope one point or the other will be of interest to someone. There might not be a great deal of Dhamma in it but perhaps at least an entertaining read.

By the beginning of 1999 my stay in Perth was approaching 4 years and since my visa was about to run out anyway I decided to see a bit more of the big wide world. In 1996, Venerable Ajahn Thitiñâno, a senior French monk who had stayed in Bodhinyana Monastery in 1995 wrote a very long letter describing in detail this monastery - Pha Auk in Myanmar. He was obviously very inspired and some of his enthusiasm rubbed off on me. Obviously, there's the danger of travelling just for the sake of fascinating experience rather than to gain wisdom. So at that time I decided to stay on in Perth and continue my practice for I felt there was still a lot to learn from Ajahn Brahm's extensive knowledge and profound wisdom.

In 1997, a monk friend of mine whom I knew from England and whom I value very much as a Dhamma friend went to Pha Auk to stay long-term and from the letters he wrote me my curiosity was rekindled. Finally, I decided to give a try. In 1996, a Chinese Malaysian Theravada monk, Ven. Dhammavuddho Thera (Sally Lee's brother) spent the vassa with us in Perth, a very pleasant person and a fine samana, who already then invited me to stay in Malaysia once his new Vihâra was established. This had already happened in 1998, so it was a good time to take up his invitation. I also found out that Perth-Yangon via Kuala Lumpur (= KL) on Malaysian Airlines was much cheaper than via Singapore or Bangkok with THAI.

By end of April, all the arrangements had been made, and early in the morning I boarded a MAS flight to KL. The flight took 5 hours but was very pleasant. On arrival I was met with warm and humid weather - it's not as sticky, though, as it can be here in Myanmar. Mr. Low, a supporter of Ven. Dhammavuddho from KL, drove me straight from the airport to V. Dhammavuddho's Vihâra in the northern part of Malaysia in Perak state. It took only 2 hours on the new highway - they're like the "Autobahn" in Germany but not so clogged up (probably because of the high road tolls). The speed limit is actually 110 km/h but Mr. Low claimed he knew exactly where the radar controls were and often drove 120 or more. Arriving in Temoh, a small town near Ipoh, I received a warm welcome and was given one of 5 spacious kutis. They are professionally designed with a view of keeping the hot weather at bay - made of aerated bricks and windows on all sides. Each kuti has an attached tiled shower-room and toilet. There's no electricity but most kutis have a gaslight - it was the first time in my life I used one! The monastery is up on a hill of a 15 acre property and thus a bit cooler because of the wind. You can also hear the road but not very loudly. V. Dhammavuddho has the largest kuti but it also has to function as a meeting and dining room (and also as a tool room!) because there's no meditation hall at present. By now enough money has been raised to build a sala at the bottom of the hill with a meditation hall, kitchen, library and laundry room.
              
When I came, an Australian monk was there, Ven. Nâgita Thera who had been there for a few weeks. Before he left he showed me how to water the plants - there were quite a few of them. Staying at the Vihâra thus meant work for most days unless the rain gods took care of this task for us. Sometimes we also had to run the pump because there wasn't enough rain to fill the tanks supplying the kutis with water. 

Most of the time, it was just V. Dhammavuddho and myself in the Vihâra. We established a routine where we would sit meditation early in the morning and late in the afternoon and also in the evening. Often, we also had a sutta reading in the morning and occasionally a Dhamma discussion in the evening. Sometimes there was also time for a forenoon sit after work but often workers came who V. Dhammavuddho had to instruct and supervise. At that time, a paved road from the bottom of the hill to the top was under construction. This was good news for visitors. Occasionally V. Dhammavuddho's old supporters would come from KL and sometimes Penang, usually just for a few days during the weekend, to keep 8 precepts at the monastery. Sometimes so many people came that 2 or 3 had to be in one kuti and once I even had to move in with V. Dhammavuddho. There are plans to build more kutis just for women near the new sala.

Support for the monastery is very good - when the land was bought there was even some money left over. There are more Buddhists in Penang and KL but land is very expensive in these areas. During the week not many people come, though. The food is often brought from Temoh by a shopkeeper on his motorbike. But most days Mr. Kok, a very devoted supporter comes from the nearby town of Tapah. He never fails to bring papayas - I've never eaten so many of them in my life, particularly since they were very good quality. I also had a chance to taste the famous jambu (rose-apple), a fruit often mentioned in the Pâli suttas The Pâli word for "India" is jambudîpa, which literally means the island of the rose-apple (Interestingly, the Malay word for it is also jambu - pronounced exactly the same. There are a lot of Sanskrit words in Malay.) The actual fruit is shaped like a pear, and has the colour and texture of rhubarb. It is very juicy and tastes slightly sweet.

The last week of May, during Vesakh, V. Dhammavuddho took up an invitation to teach in Kuching, which is the capital of Sarawak State in East Malaysia (on Borneo), so I was left alone for that time. V. Dhammavuddho is actually a very well-known Dhamma speaker in Malaysia and has published many booklets on Buddhism both in English and in Chinese - some of them, like "Message of the Buddha" (his most successful one) and "Samatha and Vipassana" were also available in Perth. Now he feels he has travelled enough (he's over 50 now) and wants to spend most of the time at the monastery, possibly building up a Sangha.

It will be interesting to see what will come of that. Chinese Theravada monks are a relatively new phenomenon - the most senior of them has somewhat more than 20 vassa, but he's not a meditator. There are about fifty altogether but only five or so are theras - most of them are very junior monks. Unfortunately, many of them don't keep the Vinaya rules or not that strictly. There's no outstanding leader figure or a training monastery for monks - no wonder so many of them have been here at Pha Auk. Most young monks don't want to submit themselves to a teacher - they want to live by themselves or be teachers in their own right. A lot of monks thus have little idea of what a monk should do. Some of them came to stay with us for short periods of time and their attitude was not very inspiring. I think V. Dhammavuddho wanted to give them a chance to learn from the example of good monks but it seems they felt somewhat intimidated by the strictness of the rules and thus left soon.

Technically, Malaysia is a Muslim country with an almost completely Muslim government. But the majority of the Malays is slight - 55 %, with the Chinese population 35 % (there are also Indians, about 7 %). Two thirds of the Chinese are Buddhists, which would mean that from a total population of 22 million 5 million are Buddhists - far, far more than, e.g. the 200 000 Buddhists found in Australia. Maybe two thirds of those are Mahâyâna, and a third Theravada - other Buddhist groups like Zen don't really seem to figure.

After 5 weeks, I received my first invitation to give a Dhamma talk. It came from one of two English speaking Buddhist Societies in Ipoh (45 min. away from the monastery). The people from there usually come to the monastery every Saturday to give dâna so on the scheduled day I went with them after the meal. It was a rented house in a suburb with a garage-like open front and a large meeting room downstairs, library, 2 guest rooms, kitchen and toilet/shower upstairs. I was given one of the rooms and left alone until the evening. Out of 3 suggested topics I had chosen the one on "Kamma explained in its true meaning" and I wanted to base it on the Lakkhanasutta (D 30). To a large degree, I had accepted the invitation out of curiosity because I had never given a public talk before and wondered what it was going to be like. Ipoh is the 3rd-biggest city in Malaysia (formerly No. 2, it has been overtaken by Johor Bahru in recent years) but that evening there was the smallest crowd I was to have, that is 12 people. The atmosphere was very nice and therefore I was not at all nervous. It was just like a pleasant evening with friends. People were interested and asked some questions afterwards.

The next day, after breakfast and a sumptuous meal there was the opportunity to see some of the numerous limestone cave on our way back. There's a huge one with a garden and a waterfall, which is a tourist attraction, but we also visited a small one above a Mahâyâna temple where Ven. Nâgita was now living as a hermit – apparently Sunday was his day to receive visitors.

For the next weekend I was invited to Sitiawan, a city of 100 000 people, also in the state of Perak. The organization there calls itself Buddhist Meditation Society but they joke among themselves that it's the centre that's meditating rather than the people. The president, Mr. Au, and the secretary Mr. Teoh, came by car to collect me (1 h's drive). The facilities are actually not so bad: a one acre plot of land on the outskirts of the city with a row of 10 meditation huts on the other side of the courtyard. The main building has a not very large meeting hall with a library and a kitchen attached. I was given one of the kutis, which only have two large beds as furniture that fill almost all of the room. There was electric light and a fan, which proved very useful to keep the many mosquitoes at bay. I came on Friday evening, but the talk wasn't until Saturday evening, thus I had a lot of time to myself.

Saturday morning I decided to try an almsround - the local market is only half an hour away. After only 10 minutes of standing in the market my bowl was full! Luckily, Mr. Au came to drive me back - I probably couldn't have carried everything myself. The first day I only got sweets. Because of Mahâyâna influence, a lot of people think all Buddhist monks are vegetarian. The next day, too, there was no meat but at least some savouries.

Saturday afternoon Mr. Au collected me for some sightseeing. He's a commander in the Malaysian navy and showed me, among other things, the base where he's stationed. We also saw a Taoist temple - Taoism can be considered a cultural heritage rather than a religion in the strict sense. We also visited a Thai temple and I spotted the contents of the "What Is Buddhism?" booklet (originally written by Ajahn Brahm and published by the BSWA) printed in large letters on posters stuck to the wall of the hall containing the main Buddha image. The abbot there has a hard time propagating Buddha Dhamma. Except for KL, Malaysian cities and towns are Chinese dominated - Malays are predominantly in the countryside. (The majority of government officials are also Malays.) But Sitiawan has a large Malay population, and not many organizations propagating Buddhism. At that Buddhist Society, I was the first monk to give a talk for a long time, and the hall was actually a bit too small for the 40 or so people who came. I must confess that I, too, had the impression that people didn't know much dhamma. A lot of work would have to be done in Sitiawan. I was invited to spend the vassa there, which I might take up one day if I wanted to have a quiet time. They're not very active and wouldn't ask for a lot. 

Language is also a problem in spreading the Dhamma. The most common Chinese dialect, Mandarin, although understood by many, doesn't seem to be anybody's mother tongue in Malaysia. Hokkien is common in Penang; Haka, Tiuchiu, Hainanese are also spoken in Malaysia. Perak state is actually a Cantonese-speaking area so V. Dhammavuddho (an English-educated native Hokkien speaker) is learning some Cantonese in his old age so that he can at least speak with his workers. These Chinese languages are traditionally called dialects but really are to a very large extent mutually unintelligible. You might have 3 Chinese people in a room and the only language they have in common is English! In fact, V. Dhammavuddho spoke English with the Cantonese monk who visited for a few weeks. But the Chinese who speak English (maybe the majority but certainly not all) often don't do so very well (except in KL) - once I was asked to speak slower so that people could follow me more easily.

The weekend after that I was in Penang, and had an audience of about 50, but when V. Dhammavuddho went there 2 weeks after me the hall was packed - 200 people. Of course this was because he spoke in Hokkien, the local dialect. For both of us, the invitation came from Mahindarama, which is a Sri Lankan temple with large facilities - Ajahn Brahm held a weekend retreat there. I slept in one of the classrooms where they hold Buddhist Sunday schools. There were no mosquito screens in front of the window so I was thoroughly bitten. At least I could advise V. Dhammavuddho to take his mosquito net with him.

In Penang, I was also invited to talk to university students but the best group I went to was the sutta study group. They're going through the Majjhima Nikaya, 5 suttas at a session, and I appreciated to have a group with a good foundation in Dhamma. Audiences at public talks consist to a large part of people who don't read books and simply want to be entertained. This is certainly OK (Dhamma entertainment is the best kind of entertainment) but there should also be smaller groups with a more demanding level.

While in Penang, I also had the chance to visit the cave where V. Dhammavuddho had lived as a hermit for many years. It's empty at the moment - if I hadn't already got my ticket to Myanmar I might have moved in. One monk who stayed there had developed it quite a lot - concreted floor, roof (it's open to one side), and a large Buddha statue. He must have been quite restless for he disrobed later. I was also taken to Balik Pulau hermitage where, on top of a hill, V. Mahanyano lives near a Durian plantation. We didn't have time to go all the way up.

Also in Penang state there's the city of Bukit Mertajam - quite a large city, actually, with a very well supported monastery. The senior monk is V. Katapuñña, a senior Chinese (Hokkien) monk who had lived in Sri Lanka for a long time. He's one of the few who keeps vinaya and actually has a few (quite junior) monks living with him - one of them had been here at Pha Auk. His hermitage is amazing. It is half way up the hill but the road up is so narrow that the only way up is on foot or on motorbike. All the building material had to be carried up by hand for in the beginning not even motorbikes could go up. I stayed there for a few days and on Sunday night gave a talk in a Mahâyâna temple. Since they had a translator a large crowd gathered. I had been warned not to run down God/Allah in public talks because there's a chance they might send round a Muslim spy and then I might be kicked out of the country! Later I learned that natives can be put into prison for a number of years without trial for blasphemy.

A supporter of V. Katapuñña drove me round nearby Kedah state to have a look at a few monasteries and meditation centres but by and large they were not very remarkable - the Mahasi centre at Lunas was pretty much the best. I had not been very impressed with the temples in Penang, either. The Thai one had a massive, impressive reclining Buddha statue but all in all it was, like the Burmese one, mercenary. Large almsbowls were put up for donations - in the Thai temple in KL there were even Buddha statues holding them.

In spite of this, I see three major reasons why there is quite a lot of scope for Buddhism in Malaysia - actually more so than in any Western country. Admittedly, a lot of Malaysia's "Buddhists" are only traditional Buddhists and wouldn't know much about Buddhist teachings. Their practice of Buddhism is often limited to sponsoring chanting and bowing to and offering incense sticks to a statue of Kuan Yin bodhisattva - if it goes as far as that! But most of them feel that Buddhism is their religion. I met some people who had been nominally Buddhists since childhood but now are interested in finding out more about "their" religion. This wouldn't have happened if they had been, say, nominally Christians. Thus there would be more room in Malaysia for an unbiased reception of Dhamma, and therefore more conversions to the "true teaching". Of course, matters are not always so simple, particularly if people are deeply embedded in wrong views. E.g., the pure land school of Mahâyâna Buddhism teaches that chanting "Namo Amitofo" (= Homage to Amitâbha Buddha) is by itself meritorious, and, if practised often enough, sufficient to be reborn in the pure land of Sukhavati (= "happy realm"). If you give such people a talk mentioning the danger of blindly adhering to rites and rituals and wrong view, in effect you're telling them that maybe 10, 20 or even 30 years of their lives have been wasted by useless chanting. Now you'll understand why V. Dhammavuddho is not very popular with many Mahayanins! Some of them even burnt copies of his booklet "Main Differences between Theravada and Mahâyâna".

Secondly, although the Chinese Malaysians are very westernized they seem to have a more natural respect for monks - you don't have to spend a long time explaining why, e.g., women shouldn't touch monks etc. In the West these things are more of a problem - perhaps not to a great extent, but I felt more like having a "home match" than in England or Australia, where, outside of Buddhist centres one is an exotic figure whose mere existence demands justification ("why are you a monk?", etc.). Also, Buddhist groups prefer monks as speakers to lay people - they don't get many, though. Most of the monks, Mahâyâna or Theravada, don't give talks, let alone good ones. V. Dhammavuddho is one of the few gifted speakers. Some good monks could have a lot of positive impact in Malaysia. (Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: a handful of unscrupulous ones could cause a lot of damage.)

Thirdly, I noticed that people are quite interested in talks about dâna, sîla, kamma & vipâka, other realms, etc. Philosophical talks or high-faluting wisdom just baffle most people - first and foremost they want to be good Buddhists. However, when Ajahn Sumedho first came to England, nobody wanted to hear talks about morality, no matter how entertaining it was presented. The crowds only started coming when he gave talks about wisdom. Talks about non-self and the like are certainly alright but probably many people don't have the proper foundation in sîla to fully understand them.

The last group but one I visited was actually the closest one - 45 min. to Teluk Intan, the third largest city in Perak state (after Ipoh and Taiping). They invited me after visiting V. Dhammavuddho's place for the first time. They've got a good group of very enthusiastic people, one of them a retired school teacher who stays at the centre a lot and who helps schoolchildren with their homework (they've got a large library with schoolbooks there). They're socially engaged, do outreach work and help each other a lot. There was a lot of interest in the talk, and on Sunday morning before the meal they arranged for an informal question and answer session. All in all I was there for less than 24 hours but they made better use of a teacher than any other group I had been to before. I acquired a bit of a feeling for what makes a Buddhist group work and what doesn't.

It might look like my stay in Malaysia was continuous travel but except for the trip to Penang these excursions happened only on weekends - these were just the highlights. During the week we usually had a quiet, uneventful time at the Temoh Vihâra with meditation, a bit of work and leisure time as well. It only really started to get busy when BGF in KL invited me and the list of what they organized for me and wanted me to do got longer and longer.

BGF stands for "Buddhist Gem Fellowship". They had changed to that name from "Buddhist Graduate Fellowship", probably in order to appear not so élitist but in fact most of them are very well educated, if not intellectuals, and several of them run successful businesses. As far as the level of interest and understanding is concerned (but also the level of organization) this was by far the best group. A year ago they had also organized Ajahn Brahm's tour through Malaysia and Singapore. For me, they had organized a talk each on 6 consecutive days before my departure for Myanmar.

The first one was on Friday night at the Vihâra of the famous Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda (I was given the seat next to him), originally from Sri Lanka but now in Malaysia for decades. He has written many books on Buddhism, some of which are also available in Perth. He's tremendously respected in Malaysia - everybody calls him Chief Reverend. His impact has been so great that virtually every English-speaking Buddhist society in Malaysia is de facto Theravada, even if they call themselves non-denominational. From the atmosphere and the numbers, Friday night at Brickfields is just like Nollamara in Perth. By and large, interest in the Dhamma seemed to be quite big. When I gave a talk on meditation, there was even a very enthusiastic woman coming up to me afterwards and confided in me that her dream was to become a nun! 

The greatest fun was the study day at BGF (on Kamma and Rebirth). The hall was too small to hold everybody but BGF will soon acquire a bigger one. The present centre is just a rented house similar to the one in Ipoh. I stayed there every night and they offered a breakfast every morning but twice I decided to do an almsround to the local market instead (½ h away). Newspapers had recently written about fake monks who stood there with their bowls even late at night, collecting money. I wanted people to give the chance to see a real monk! The first almsround a lot of BGF members came but I told them not to come the second time, just to see what happened. I got enough food (it took longer) but had to refuse money ten times.

All in all, my stay in Malaysia was a very pleasant one and I hope I can return one day. I'm not sure, though, if I shall ever want to establish myself as a teacher. I heard about one monk who, after a stay in hospital, just couldn't wait to get back to give talks. Another monk told me that after a few days of talking to lay people he felt somewhat lonely when he was back on his own. For a meditation monk, learning to be alone all the time can be very difficult. Personally, I haven't developed any withdrawal symptoms but it might be a slippery slope towards such a state. The motivation can be initially wholesome but when one starts to crave an audience one definitely know one is addicted, and it might be too late then. Not without reason the Buddha warned that gifts, honour and fame are some of the worst obstacles on one's way to enlightenment. But from what I have seen, Chinese people are very happy to support monks even if they're not teachers.

The BGF members took care of me very well, taking turns to driving me to the different venues and for sightseeing. They also organized dânas at a different house every day and took me to the airport on my last day. This concludes my Malaysian adventure!

A 2½ h nonstop flight on MAS took me from KL to Yangon. The city’s former official name, Rangoon, comes from a local dialect. There’s no “r” in Burmese. The airport is very small for such a large city (>3 mill.). Luckily, my friend came with his supporter to collect me to ease off the culture shock. The difference to the tiger state Malaysia was marked - Myanmar is very backward and definitely third world. Most buildings are quite shabby and it is quite noticeable that the country has been (and in some ways still is) to a large extent cut off from the rest of the world. There are some advantages to this: the grosser forms of commercialization and consumerism are kept at bay. A lot of cultural heritage is preserved. Almost all men still wear the traditional "loungyis", a skirtlike garment similar to sarongs. I'm not much into sightseeing but the Shwedagon Pagoda was quite impressive. It was very close to the Mon temple we stayed in while in Yangon. The actual pagoda is marvelous enough but around it are countless other shrines and temples. I went there with my friend every day walking round and round, admiring it all. We had to stay a few days in Yangon because we couldn't get bus tickets for the same day. The night bus to Mawlamyine (the 4th biggest city in Myanmar and the closest to Pha Auk monastery) takes almost 12 hours. It doesn't look very far on the map but the road conditions don't allow for great speed, which brings us to the drawbacks in Myanmar.

The economy has gone to the dogs over the years because few countries want to do business with the military government. As everywhere, there are some well-off people but they are by far outnumbered by the really poor. Government workers are so badly paid that they usually have to take up a second job. No wonder that the mail in this country is unreliable! Almost always I have my letters registered because so much is ripped off. Child labour is also not uncommon. Here in the monastery there are kids as young as 13 or 14 (they look even younger) lugging bricks all day long for a daily wage of only 100 kyats (pronounced "chuts", the local currency. 1 US$ is about K330). Hard labour cuts down one's life span and is detrimental to one's health in general. Being a foreigner, monk or not, means to be an outsider and it's hard to change anything here not least because of the Burmese mentality. Even if the democracy movement came to power things wouldn't change that fast.

Part of the government's isolationist policy was the nationalistic insistence on propagating the native language at the expense of English. Although the country was colonized it is surprisingly difficult to find a native who speaks reasonable English let alone any other language. It has to do with the fact that it's not easy for Burmese to travel outside of the country, not just for lack of money. A lot of people would know a few bits but even here in the monastery where several bhikkhus are university graduates, slightly more complex sentence structures are often not understood ("if he had asked you", and the like). Unless one learns the language it is not easy to get to know the natives but very few foreigners do so. I thought of trying it myself but it would be very time-consuming. The language is difficult and the books they have for learning Burmese are not very good. Every author uses his own system of phonetic transcription, which often is imprecise to boot. I was grateful that I learnt at least the script while still in Australia. It is useful for reading Pâli and recognizing Pâli words in their Burmese pronunciation, which often distorts them beyond recognition. E.g. “Dipankara”, the name of the Burmese nun who visited Perth two years ago, becomes “Dibengala”.

Myanmar people have an interesting attitude towards foreign monks. On the one hand, we get a lot of respect, probably more than the average native monk because they think we have given up so much. Natives here believe people in the West to be fabulously rich, even if we're just come from average homes. On the other hand, we would not be trusted to have any real understanding of Dhamma, which is a purely Burmese prerogative. Sometimes even lay people (let alone Burmese monks) don’t shy away from lecturing you a on the most basics aspects of Buddhism. (“There are three pitakas – the sutta pitaka, the vinaya pitaka, and the Abhidhamma Pitaka – do you understand?”) They share this proud attitude with Sri Lankans - Thais are far more humble). No foreign monk I know gives Dhamma talks or instructions to natives. Therefore it is not easy for a foreign monk to find his own kappiyas [people who do services for monks], particularly outside of Yangon, where English is even less common. My friend was very lucky indeed to come across a retired nurse who helps him out. It’s a real difference to Malaysia where people bend over backwards to support monks.

I know only one foreign monk here who is not supported from abroad, and he speaks a bit of Burmese. (Interestingly, he was in Wat Pah Pong in the old days and remembers Ajahn Brahm as a really young monk.) Hardly any native could afford to sponsor the hefty visa fees - currently US$ 36 for only 3 months + $9 for Foreign Residence Certificate, payable every December. Also, every each extension requires a somewhat dubious “service charge” of US$3 (probably just a bribe). Thus, at more than almost A$ 260 a year this is probably the most expensive stay permit in the world. A typical monthly income, however, is US$ 10 - 20, depending one one’s skills.

Also, because of visa prescriptions one has to be attached to a meditation centre to get a meditation visa. Unlike in Thailand and Sri Lanka, it is not possible in this country to live as a hermit. Travelling around the country is restricted and quite problematic without money. In addition to that, of one has one’s base at a meditation monastery, trips outside tend to be regarded as pleasure outings, tolerable only at the end of one’s stay in the country. It will be quite a while before I can do any more sightseeing. But for now, I'm quite contended with staying here - I've never been the travelling type, anyway.

To be fair, I should add that it's not easy for native monks either to find kappiyas apart from their families, unless one is a well-known Sayadaw (= respected teacher). Generally, the state of the sangha in this country is run-down. Almost all monks accept money and many lay people don't trust them. They often think that (and they’re right) that if a monk has got his own money why should anyone be bothered to do things for them?

Usually there's no problem with staying here, though. People are very generous with the basic requisites - food and robes in abundance. I shouldn't think there's even one monk in the whole country who makes his own robes! By and large Myanmar is a very pious country after all. Many women (and also some men) crouch down or bow when a monk walks past - some even get off their bicycles! I’m curious to what extent this is genuine and not motivated by the desire for “merit”. A senior teacher here, who speaks good English (and several others) told me that there’s a very common belief in this country that listening to a Dhamma talk is meritorious even if one doesn’t understand the contents. No wonder so many people come on Uposatha days to listen to the Dhamma talk given at the lower monastery by a senior Sayadaw.

This place actually consists of two monasteries, for the number of people living here is huge: during the vassa we were 165 bhikkhus (by seniority, I was no. 36) and 6 samaneras. (One month after the vassa the bhikkhus "only" number about 110). In line with the Buddha’s prescription, the Pha Auk Sayadaw doesn’t refuse any monk who keeps the Vinaya. This is an interesting difference to Thailand where there are 2 sects and often it’s difficult to stay in a monastery of the other sect. Here in Myanmar, there are 9 sects but only study monks stay in a monastery of their own sect. Meditation monks can go to any meditation monastery.

There are about 30 Mahâyâna monks here, mostly from Taiwan but also some from Malaysia. There are not many Westerners at present: 5 monks, 3 laymen and 2 nuns. There are about 50 native 10-precept nuns in brown (called "thilashin" in Burmese) and an equal no. of Chinese nuns, also maybe 50 lay attendants and many hired non-resident workers. The so-called lower monastery is closer to the village of Pha Auk. There are some monks' kutis, mainly small ones for foreigners; the nuns' quarters; a kitchen; a house for lay attendants (kappiyas); and a multi-purpose building with an office and a room where the Sayadaw holds the interviews. The meditation hall has two storeys: nuns and laywomen are downstairs, monks and laymen upstairs. One is expected to sit meditation 6 times a day for 1½ h. Between the sittings one can do what one wants (incl. talking) and in the evening they play a tape with one of the Sayadaw’s talks. Many people use the hall but the Sayadaw also grants permission for people to sit in their kutis. Personally, I like to sit in the hall in the mornings but I go back to my kuti in the forest in the afternoon.

These forested hills are about ½ h away from the village monastery. It's really thick, lush tropical jungle - not very tall, perhaps 4 m, but very sticky. After a walk through them I'm bathed in sweat despite the cotton robes I got here. The paths cut through the jungle are very narrow and full of stones. You feel each one of them if you’re wearing thongs. Luckily, I have a pair of sturdy sandals. The kutis at the bottom of the hill are small and quite noisy but up the hill there are some really nice quiet kutis. It is a bit ironic that in one of the poorest countries in the world my kuti is the best I ever had. I have a standard model but it is quite large - about 3 m x 6 m, made of hardwood. A cubicle is partitioned off for a toilet with running water and outside there's another tap for having a splash bath. There's a large bed and the windows have mosquito screens. Like in almost all other kutis there's electricity, which is a real blessing for somebody who likes to stay up late like me. I even have an electric fan here, which brings a lot of relief to a white-skinned monk. It even doesn't use much power either (45 W)! Power cuts are frequent, though, and the bulb doesn't give off as much light as it should - sometimes it goes dimmer, then brighter again. 

A large meditation hall is currently under construction up here in the forest. They've been working on it for over three years now because of occasional lack of funds. The finished hall will cost 100 million kyat (about US$ 300 000). The plan is that all monks will sit in the new hall - so far we have to go down to the lower monastery for the Pâtimokkha (fortnightly recitation of the rules). I do enjoy my daily walks and the animal life here is interesting. There are water buffaloes in the fields, occasionally huge swarms of dragonflies, and the odd snake (usually very small) is seen every now and then. There are many stray dogs at both monasteries but, quite unlike in the West, Asian dogs are very humble and get out of your way as you come closer. They're really scrawny as well. Up here in the forest there are chickens; nightjars are heard just like in Malaysia, and also the typical tuckeh geckos on the walls of the huts - they're really loud! When I heard the call of the muezzins (there’s a Muslim minority in this country) I felt a bit like being back in Malaysia. By and large, it’s very quiet though.

The climate here is very humid. This place is close to the coast and a nearby mountain range holds the clouds which means this area gets very heavy rainfall - 4400 mm a year (cf. Yangon only half as much, Perth 800 mm, Munich 1000 mm, London about 600 mm). The rainy season also lasts longer than anywhere else, and I haven't experienced anything like it. Usually, heavy downpours don't last longer than a few minutes but here they can go on and on, for hours on end! The paths are extremely muddy - no money seems to be there to pave the dirt road between the two monasteries. The word 'damp' acquired a new meaning for me when I found out that my wet robes hung up in the evening were still damp in the morning. Luckily, a friend gave me an iron to use. I remember one Christmas as a child where my father gave my mother an iron as a present, and she was really angry with him for that, and now I was so happy to have that iron. I had forgotten the large Thai umbrella I brought in the Mon temple in Yangon and with the small Burmese umbrella I got soaked almost every day. I had to resort to wrapping a plastic around me, which looked a bit ridiculous but at least kept my robes reasonably dry.

Fortunately, the dry season has begun now. Sometimes it is called the 'cold' season but really is like summer in Europe. This is the most pleasant time of the year although it's still quite humid and sometimes 2 blankets are needed at night. The hot season here is not so long because the rains often set in early. Instead of end of April it started to pour down already at the end of March. I'm not looking forward to it even though I have my large Thai umbrella back. The rain keeps at least the temperatures down and the mosquitoes at bay.

One of the downsides of staying here is that malaria is very common - about a hundred cases a year. I try not to go out at dusk where the Malaria mosquitoes are active. But I found that even with a repellant it's difficult not to be stung at all. V. Dhammavuddho swears by drinking one's own urine (as mentioned in the suttas) as a panacea to all kinds of things but I heard that even some monks who did that got malaria. My friend didn't get anything during his first year here but got it 3 times in the second year. Interestingly, the side effects of the common malaria drugs are worse than the malaria itself. My friend told me that after taking mefloquine he wanted to have his malaria back! This really means something because the fevers often reach life-threatening temperatures over 41 °C. On the other hand one cannot afford to take no medicine because then the malaria can go to the brain and cause irreversible damage – one can even go crazy. One time my friend stopped taking mefloquine and the Sayadaw got so concerned that he sent round two doctors to his hut to make him take it. Now, though, they have much better drugs, in particular a Chinese one called Artasunate (or so). Western physicians might not trust it so much because it's a purely herbal preparation and they can't explain why it works. But it seems to have very few side effects.

I have been quite healthy myself except for a throat infection, which knocked me out for few days, and a cold on two occasions, which was a nuisance but not really painful. Several times during the rains, though, I had the feeling that my body was fighting off a disease which was about to enter my body. During these periods, usually lasting only for a day or two, I felt a bit weak and needed more sleep than usual. I'm not at all complaining but if you're health is a bit shaky than Myanmar is probably not such a good place to go. Forget about Western ideas about hygiene here. Although they clean the place it's still rather grubby, particularly the toilets. In one of them I met the biggest cockroach I have ever seen in my life!

They do take more care with the food now because in the past many people got sick from it. The usual Burmese food is incredibly oily and salty (fish paste and the like), so all the foreigners are glad that different food is cooked for them. US$ have a high purchasing power here, and food is cheap but feeding such large numbers as here costs over a $100 per day. When I finish my meal, often the laymen are still queuing up. Usually, the meal is sponsored by Chinese people and so we get a lot of TVP and tofu (this monastery is vegetarian) - I've never eaten so much tofu in my life! They don’t serve eggs or dairy products (except for some milk in the daily cup of over-sugared tea). Often there's brown rice; boiled vegetables and a cup of soup are everyday standard. A banana or other fruit is also served and occasionally there's a cake or another dessert (such as a buttered piece of toast sprinkled with sugar!). By and large it's unexciting and thus good food for meditation - you don't hate it, you don't look forward to it. Somehow it doesn't seem to be very nutritious. During the first 3 months here I lost 10 kg of weight, but it seems to be stable now. Very few of the natives are fat (something often admired in Asia, quite unlike in the West!) despite their oil-laden food and their strong preference for meat. Vegetarian monasteries and even vegetarian Buddhist laypeople are a rare exception in Buddhist countries, not only in Myanmar.

Enough with these trifles - I came to Myanmar for meditation, and this is probably the country where people meditate most seriously, In fact, the meditation centre ("yeiktha") is a Burmese invention. There's a lot of scheduled sitting and regular (often daily) interviews with the teacher are prescribed. There might not be much progress or special experiences between two interviews but in samatha practice encouragement is more important than transmission of detailed scholarly knowledge.

The Sayadaw here is quite remarkable. He's a very humble, sensitive and extremely kind person - there's something childlike about him. He always knows how to cheer people up if their meditation is tough going. Although he firmly believes in his system there's nothing rigid about him. In the last 5 years or so many foreigners have come to his monastery to learn his technique, probably more than to any other meditation centre in Myanmar.

The Pha Auk Sayadaw is also very learned, not only in Sutta and Vinaya but also in Abhidhamma, Commentaries, and Tîkas (= subcommentaries. They also have anutîkas here, which are sub-subcommentaries!). Here in Myanmar, these books are regarded as the word of the Buddha just like the suttas and to claim anything else would be heresy. Interestingly, unlike for Westerners it wouldn't easily occur to the natives to doubt this. People in this country are not educated to have their own opinion. Mind you, I'm not saying that people don't have their own opinion or are uncritical but it's not part of the education system. They learn texts by heart and how to obey authorities but not how to question things. It's almost the opposite in the West where criticism is encouraged to a fault and you're expected to have an opinion about everything. I remember from my own school days two episodes regarding this: Once, as 12-year-olds, we had a reading competition and after somebody had read a piece the teacher asked the class to judge it. Several times, he had to make the point that people should start with the good sides rather than going straight to the negativities. On another occasion a teacher gave me actually a bad grade because I didn't want to express any opinion on something I didn't feel competent to judge - it wasn't at all a knowledge question about a subject we had dealt with earlier.

When you print a Dhamma book in Myanmar for general distribution you have to prove to a council of elders that it conforms to suttas, Abhidhamma & Commentaries and contains no doctrinal errors. Don't tell Ajahn Brahm, but one monk told me that if you wrote in a Dhamma book that samatha and vipassanâ are the same, the authorities would come on the instigation of that Sangha council and close down your meditation centre. Even the Sayadaw here has difficulties because his meditation system features the detailed analysis of tiny particles called "kalâpas" and although they are mentioned in the commentaries, the above-mentioned right view police is sceptical because they believe only a Buddha can see them. The asked for changes in Saydaw's comprehensive book "Nibbâna-gâmini-patipadâ" (5 big volumes in Burmese), which he wasn't prepared to make. As a result, the book was printed in Taiwan and may only be distributed in this monastery.

Like all Burmese meditation system, the Pha Auk system is based on the Visuddhimagga, an ancient meditation manual compiled by Ven. Buddhaghosa of Sri Lanka (many Burmese think he was Burmese, though). The Sayadaw claims that his system is not his own creation but taken straight from the suttas and commentaries without any addition. His interpretation of the stages of insight differs markedly from the Mahasi and U Ba Khin-school (the latter has become very popular in the form taught by S. N. Goenka). It is more in line with the Visuddhimagga and, personally, I think, more profound. The Pha Auk Sayadaw puts also far more emphasis on Samatha practice than any other system. This is both the strength and the crux of his system. U Ba Khin e.g. designed his 10-day meditation courses that people could get as much as possible out of it in that short time. Vipassanâ was thus started much earlier, at a stage called khanika samâdhi. This means that the 5 hindrances are at bay but the 6 senses are still operating. The Sayadaw here encourages people to develop Jhâna, which obviously can take a long time. A lot of people come here with great expectations but leave a bit long in the face even if they have made a lot of effort. Success seems also to depend heavily on how much you have meditated in past lives - indeed, where else should things like 'talent' come from?

In this technique, samâdhi is just the beginning. Once you have established a brilliant light you may go on to do the so-called samatha course where you can take mindfulness of breathing to 4th Jhâna, then discern 1) the 32 parts of the body; 2) the skeleton; 3) the white kasina up to 4th Jhâna; 4) other colour kasinas and elements kasina up to 4th Jhâna; 5) the four immaterial Jhânas; 6) the Brahma Vihâra (mettâ etc.); 7) the protective meditations, viz. recollection of the qualities of the Buddha; repulsiveness (asubha); and recollection on death (maranânussati). Once you're through all that you still haven't started with any vipassanâ yet!

You can do so now, or actually, if you have light but no proper nimitta you might bypass the samatha course altogether to start vipassanâ. The Visuddhimagga describes a detailed progress in vipassanâ -ñânas (insight knowledges) which one tries to emulate. The first one, distinction between mind and matter (nâma-rûpa-pariccheda-ñâna) is peculiar to the Pha Auk method because you're supposed to see and analyze in great detail a host of small particles called kalâpas which are supposedly ultimate reality and the building stones of everything. The second vipassanâ-ñâna, the recognition of conditionality, calls for a detailed experiential comprehension of dependent origination (paticcasammuppâda) including remembering a certain part of your former life and seeing a vision of your future life (in outline). And so on and so forth! The technique is far too complicated to describe in detail here. A book called "Light of Wisdom" has been printed in Malaysia, and a copy should be in the Nollamara library. The book is not very well structured for a beginner and contains, among other things, a lot of untranslated Pâli phrases - the meaning of some are difficult to fathom even for me. Far better is the more recent book 'Knowing and Seeing', which has been printed in Malaysia for free distribution. If you're interested write to: Ng Wee Kang, 791-C, Tmn Kerjasama, Bkt Beruang, 75450 Melaka, Malaysia or send an e-mail to: knowing_seeing@yaho.com and they'll send you a copy. I give no guarantee, though, that everything in the technique is correct. For a start, although it's the most comprehensive (and complicated) meditation technique I know I don't believe the claim that it's the only correct one. The Buddha taught many different meditation methods to suit different characters. If you present just a handful of them as the only correct method (like Goenka) you're misrepresenting the Buddha. On the other hand, if you pack almost all of them into your system like the Sayadaw here does (he doesn't teach or encourage certain psychic powers, though), it becomes overloaded. Useful as they all are, I wouldn't think they're all necessary to get enlightened. In particular the succession of insight knowledges is, not only in my opinion, somewhat too rigid. You might not have them all but even if you do they don't necessarily come in the order given and can occur to various depths.

You might think that it will take a long time to master this method but actually, by and large, the meditators here fall into two categories: the ones who get the samâdhi nimitta and are off like a shot, finishing the course in a few months, and the ones who don't get anywhere, no matter how hard they try. In the interviews, all the Sayadaw asks beginners is 'How long can you concentrate continuously?' Thus, at least, you're encouraged to try hard because if haven't got any concentration power the Sayadaw cannot teach you. So better be prepared for many years of plodding away at it. A lot of people give up when they realize that they're not talented and go back to their respective monasteries. The turnover here at Pha Auk is huge - particularly with the Chinese. Given the size of the monastery this is no surprise - the 'hard core" (people who stay on for months and years) is also substantial. Mind you, finishing the course is by itself no attainment of any Ariya stage. It is just learning a method like, e.g., Goenka technique. Only because this method is so complicated many people see more in it than is actually intended. The Sayadaw is certainly no Arahant himself and silence is kept about his or other meditators’ superhuman attainments. As far as stories about people's past lives go and the like I was able to find out surprisingly little - V. Guttasila at the monastery would know far more. I actually hope that he'll come back here to share some of them with me!

On this note I'd like to conclude this letter before it turns into a novel. It must be the longest one I have ever written in my life! I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to you all for all the support you've given me. Without all those useful things my stay here would have been so much more difficult, particularly regarding the visa fees. Now I'm well set up - no need to send me anything. I would merely request if somebody could put me on the mailing list for the newsletter. Perhaps Cherry or Sally could do this as they are in Nollamara regularly - write on the margin of this letter if you have done so.

Dear Rodney, you're getting this letter first. Would you then please pass it on to one of the others mentioned below? Once they've read they can tick off their name and pass it on to the next person, if need be by mail. I have taken the liberty to include the addresses as well because I found out that people coming to the monastery don't necessarily know each other. The letter is no secret but really just intended for the people who supported me mentioned below. Feel free to drop me a line or send me a postcard but forgive me if I don't reply. If it wasn't for so many people I would not have taken the trouble of writing such a long letter. I didn't want to sacrifice much meditation time so writing this letter has dragged itself out over three weeks - it will probably be another three before it gets to you.

There are also 2 letters enclosed for Ajahn Brahm and V. Guttasila – please pass them on.

May I finally with you all the very, very best and perhaps I shall see you again some day! Be well and happy.

Yours sincerely,

 

..................…………
Bhikkhu Khantipalo