Beauty queen and American monk on Burma

SBB; Bhikkhu Bodhi on the Crisis in Burma (Insight Myanmar #61); Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

This may mean end of beauty pageants that expose dreams/dangers in Burma (irrawaddy.com)

Bhikkhu Bodhi on the Crisis in Burma/Myanmar (player.captivate.fm/episode/6b1...)

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Translator Bhikkhu Bodhi (aka Jeffrey Block)

How can a dedicated meditator maintain the Five Precepts when encountering conservative armed soldiers with orders to abduct, rape, torture, or even shoot to kill if they feel like it?

How should devoted lay supporters of the Monastic Community (Saṅgha) respond when most of their own monastics remain silent even as their country is burning around them?

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What is the best way for practitioners outside of Burma (Myanmar) to support the protest movement at this time?

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Bhikkhu Bodhi sutra anthology

These are just a few of the moral quandaries put to American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, in an interview which he later admitted was “one of the toughest I’ve ever had.”

In truth, the questions were not posed to frame an intellectual, abstract debate. Many were sent in by Burmese Buddhist listeners.

They concern real life — and sometimes life-and-death — challenges, in the context of the Burmese military’s ongoing terror campaign against them, the Burman majority now instead of the Rohingya  and other ethnic minorities.

They are from people desperately seeking spiritual answers that in many cases their own monks have unfortunately not been providing.

This interview is not your typical Dharma talk or theoretical discourse on the Buddha's doctrine and discipline.

With this in mind, Bhikkhu Bodhi emphasizes that his words “should be viewed as my personal opinions and not authoritative dicta coming down from the high seat of authority, but my opinions, the way to resolve these very difficult ethical dilemmas.” 

There are answers but no easy answers.

His sensitive and flexible approach enables the Buddha’s Teachings to be applied to a many shades of grey reality that acknowledges real life messiness. There may be no good and clean ethical options.

Not only are black-and-white, theoretical absolutes not appropriate for people facing such difficult circumstances, they can even have the effect of turning people away from the Teachings, bring unrealistic and rarified standards beyond most people’s reach in challenging life situations.

So Bhikkhu Bodhi advocates adapting the spirit rather than the letter of the Teachings to help us navigate our way through the serious challenges now facing Burma.

This discussion is wide-ranging. Other topics posed to Bhikkhu Bodhi include:

• How can Buddhist monks skillfully engage this crisis in accordance with the Monastic Disciplinary Code (Vinaya)?
• How can Buddhist communities best protect themselves against the terror state?
• How can anyone, understanding the immutable laws of karma, do anything violent?
• How can we remain sensitive to the Rohingya crisis and issues surrounding the integration of  other minorities, like Burmese Muslims, into the much larger Buddhist society.

None of these have easy answers. But this is the morass that Bhikkhu Bodhi willingly wades into, knowing there are simply no black-and-white solutions.

This makes his moral courage all the more remarkable, having lived in Sri Lanka through much of its civil war, the longest running civil war in Asia, at a time when many Buddhist leaders, especially those whose lineages trace back to Burma, carry on their teaching schedules carefully avoiding these difficult questions.

Thanks to him for his courageous willingness to engage these difficult matters without backing down and for the sensitivity and value of his words of wisdom. More