Burma's Good Deed Movement in LA (audio)

Thabarwa Sayadaw (Ashin Ottamathara), Joah McGee, Zach Hessler (insightmyanmar.captivate.fm, Episode 2, player.captivate.fm, 1/31/20); TEXT: Sayalay Aloka, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

This first Insight Myanmar interview is an autobiography of a famous living monk, a Burmese-Chinese Sayadaw. The text is a sample of his teaching, a transcript of a live Q&A session from L.A.

Wait, was is he saying? Is he speaking?

QUESTION: So nothing exists?

ANSWER (Thabarwa Sayadaw): No, no, no, not nothing. We can use the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, the mind. We can use the scene, the sound, the smell, the taste of the food. We can touch hardness, softness, cold, hot. We can also use politics, economics, education.

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Insight Myanmar (podcasts starting 2020)

The real problem is concerned with the mind not with this or that life, this or that person, black or white, male or female, young or old, educated or uneducated, rich or poor, Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim. All of these are unreal problems.

All of these are not real, not true. Accepting this is the practice of detachment. If we cannot accept this, we are using [impersonal things] with attachment.

Jason: What Sayadaw means is just like he said.

As a human being, I was taught that human beings are more intelligent than other animals, that the knowledge of human beings is right, and that we should rely on the knowledge or intelligence of human beings over the other animals.

This is what I was taught since I was young. This theory is incomplete.

Most human beings are using this theory. Humans are intelligent. That’s why we rely on scientists or doctors or politicians. This theory and practice is incomplete. The intelligence of the living beings is just a creation, not real. We all are using created intelligence, created life, created mind. We are living in the created world.

But what's he saying? Is it Maha-Thera-yana?

That’s why people in society are busy creating new products, new technology, and preserving the old products, buildings, and technology. That’s why we are all tired.

We are feeling stress and disappointment (dukkha), doubt and confusion and not knowing what is right or what is wrong (avijja).

We can be rich, we can be educated, we can be well-known throughout the world, we can have a long life, but the mind will still remain unstable and impure [and therefore unhappy].

The mind will not be healthy or wealthy even if we are rich, educated, or well-known, because we are using ignorance and attachment [clinging] in the mind.

Ignorance is wrong view, misunderstanding. Attachment is when we don’t want to let go of the idea of something or someone [given that things are empty, shunyata, and therefore impersonal, anatta], mine or yours. That is attachment. Do you agree with this theory?

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Tharbarwa Centre is nothing and everything.

THABARWA SAYADAW has had a meteoric rise in Burma (Myanmar). After weathering a series of crises that threatened the very existence of his urban meditation center, Rangoon, the Burmese monastic’s mission is now expanding at an unprecedented rate across the country and the world. Then there is his monastic center itself, which is redefining the role of monasticism and the shape of Burmese Buddhism in the 21st century. In this inaugural interview, Thabarwa Sayadaw (a title meaning "Teacher at the Nature Center") shares autobiographical details of his journey from layperson to monastic, as well as the early start of his first meditation centers. He began the same sort of center in Baldwin Park, L.A.