Five good places to practice in Asia (Go)

Avalokiteshvara, Dambulla, Ceylon

We love traveling to Asia in search of enlightenment, Eastern philosophy, and peace. For centuries, even from the time of Prince Siddhartha (the future Buddha), people have traveled East to Asian locales in search of transcendent wisdom.

That wisdom still exists there but as always is hard to find. There are dangerous places along the way, like trolls under bridges to sacred places.  And there are sacred places.

Pa Auk Forest Monastery, Burma

Pa-Auk: A Meditator's Experience

The best is Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Burma (called Myanmar by the dictatorship), protected by the country's ongoing turmoil:

Myanmar Civil War (2021-present), Rohingya Muslim oppression by Burman Buddhist majority, Aung Sung Suu Kyi's house arrests, Chinese aid, Asia's Hitler Than Shwe and his horribly named SLORC ("State Law and Order Restoration Council"), the Saffron Revolution, poverty, police state corruption by generals and strongmen following Than Shwe...

There really is a place of authentic Buddhist practice with enlightened ones.

This British nun found Pa Auk Temple

the birthplace of George Orwell that inspired him to write British colonial classics like Nineteen Eighty-Four (which could have been written about the modern British settler colonial project known as the USA), Burmese Days, and short stories like Shooting an Elephant. There's no need for a Westerner to get caught up in the intrigue like beautiful actress Patricia Arquette in Beyond Rangoon...even though we want to see and help and be involved.

This Czech monk found the light in Pa Auk

Decades of trouble created a reserve for Buddhism to be practiced, as impossible as that may sound, like the great ecosystem and protected sanctuary that resulted from South and North Korea's DMZ. Internecine war in the Demilitarized Zone keeps people out and nature in, making it thrive with nature. How else could one explain a shaft of light in darkness? Danger keeps most away, but sincere seekers find paradise.

Knowing 'n Seeing (Ven. Pa Auk)

Goenka Art of Living retreat, Pan-Asia

Private practice in a cell closet cubicle

Everyone who goes to Asia for a good while ends up on a free 10-day Goenka mindfulness retreat (dhamma.org). But that can now be done here in the West. They are worldwide, and they play tape recordings of teacher S.N. Goenka giving the instructions (in a Transylvanian accent that no one but us seems to have noticed or commented on). Earplugs are good rather than being interrupted by echoes of his Burmese Buddhist teacher U Ba Khin's words for one interpretation of vipassana (Buddhist insight meditation) among many.

Shaolin Temple, China

Quiet contemplation or international showing off?

There may not be much Buddhist instruction in the sense of learning the Dharma or even Taoism at the Shaolin Temple nowadays, but there is a lot of kung fu and physical training to ready the body if one should ever take up meditation in earnest like Bodhidharma did.

Start preparing now. Here are some poses.

But why would anybody when there's training, fighting, and defending to do? And there are international competitions and traveling demonstration tours. It's a citadel of Chinese monasticism and history. So who has time for the practice everyone is ostensibly defending? The communist regime and its capitalist motives want more "martial" (war) and less meditative serenity because the only thing worse than a Mahayana monk or nun without a serious meditation practice is one who is not out there chopping wood (with the barehanded karate chops) and carrying water (in buckets on a pole over the shoulders), striving in the way of Zen's nonstriving with and koans and sesshins catnaps.

Wat Pah Nanachat, Northeast Thailand (Isan)

Roshi, Ajahn Sumedho, George Sharp, Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Khemadhammo, Hampstead Vihara, UK

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Ajahn Chah: wisdom so powerful, it's simple.

There is a famous forest temple near the Golden Triangle, where Laotians, Cambodians, and Thais meet to do business and internationally traffic drugs. It is more famous for quiet meditation and arduous mindfulness in the tradition of Ajahn Chah (and Jack Kornfield, Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Brahm, and a whole line of Western teachers trained by the Theravada meditation master of the Thai Forest Tradition).

Fo Guang Shan, Taiwan (PRC)

Fo Guang Shan Monastery Worldwide Web (fgs.org.tw) might be a nice international place to visit for the practice of devotion Amitabha and Kwan Yin worship, light on Buddhist theory and heavy on ritual practices and repentance, very catholic and at the core leaning to a distinction few other than Alan Watts seems to mention: There are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on," Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin sings in "Stairway to Heaven." And in Buddhism those two paths would be called jiriki and tariki. This is at the core of practice -- what to practice? Self-powered or other-powered? Effort or devotion? Theravada (the teachings of the historical Buddha) or Mahayana (the teachings of many "Cosmic Buddhas")?

Japan in particular went heavy for the other-powered way, where a divine or higher power does the striving. But China followed suit to make worship of deities like Amitabha and Guanyin the top priorities for temples and lay devotees. Since no one can save oneself, we need to be saved. It's the Christian way, too, the point of Catholicism -- worldwide takeover of faith, devotion, intercessionary prayer, and anything to take the responsibility off of me for my own salvation (liberation, awakening, realization, enlightenment). It makes sense, but it is not what the historical Buddha taught.

We certainly need help (of a Buddha/Teacher, Dharma/Teaching, and Noble Sangha/Successfully Taught), but we must do it (practice) ourselves because we ourselves are responsible for ourselves. That's not the path of devotion.

We worship the Goddess Guanyin

What makes Hinduism, Catholicism, Christianity, Islam, and Pure Land (Mahayana) Buddhism so promising, inviting, and easy? It's DEVOTION over everything else. It's a popularity contest with whatever resonates, promising to do it for you if you'll only commit to worship. In this Dark Age (Kali Yuga), that's all we can seem to hope for from people is craving and faith, lust and praying for forgiveness, desire and guilt. So these will only grow stronger, as in the Nichiren Buddhist movement to pray one mantra over and over (like Hindu japa mantra-repetition practice) to get all your wishes, The Secret style. Here's the "secret" recitation: Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō. Just don't ask what it translates as because you may be disappointed.

• Eds., Wisdom Quarterly, August 2024