A Different Kind of Protest for Burma

Send your undies in protest to the Embassy at:

Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
2300 S Street NW
Washington D.C., 20008

Hattip, Jillan.

Just Call Me Paranoid

Why can't I get to this NYT article about Myamnar?
Of course, it's 'probably' a slow Internet connection.
Or it could be the time of the night.
Or maybe some ad waiting to be annoyingly loaded.
Or it could be deliberate.

OK, it's back now.

In this day and age, you have to ask the question.

They Clap for Freedom

From the New York Times

Lives
Through Myanmar Darkly
By CHARLES LONDON
Published: October 21, 2007

By that rainy Saturday, my last day in the country, I couldn’t help but follow the three young monks as they wove through the downtown crowds. I saw another group hop off a bus, sloshing through puddles, also walking intently to Sule Pagoda. I noticed a crowd forming outside the temple. I joined it. Behind me, the police at City Hall unlocked the barbed-wire gate there. They started the engine of a jeep, but no one in the crowd took notice.

Suddenly, 500 monks emerged in rows four across. They carried flags and overturned alms bowls. When the first group stopped and chanted a prayer, some people in the crowd dared to clap. It was timid at first, but as more monks emerged to begin their protest, the clapping grew louder until the whole crowd seemed overcome by it. A Burmese man leaned toward me. “They have never done this before,” he said. “They clap for freedom.” The faces in the crowd were excited, part bliss, part terror.

--Charles London, a former research associate for Refugees International, is the author of “One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War.”
Read More

Peaceful Protest Can Lead to This

UK Daily Mail: Thousands Dead in Massacre of Monks Dumped in the Jungle.

Almost makes you think that an armed population is better than an unarmed one.

Please sign this petition. It's the least we can do.

Burma and the Monks

Click on the picture for a current blog on the Burmese uprising of 2007.

This picture pretty much sums up what I love about Buddhism, particularly Mahayana Buddhism (The Burmese practice Theravada Buddhism but while some things are different, the basics are the same.) These monks are using peaceful prayer and ritual as their protest in the face of their enemies. Several monks (and a Japanese journalist) lost their lives today because of it. In Buddhism, enemies may have guns pointed at you, but a Buddhist sees no enemy, only a being who needs compassion. Buddha has given these monks the strength to become bodhisattavas, humans made divine by suffering for the benefit of all.

It's hard to live up to and takes great patience and an open heart through all obstacles that comes one's way. I certainly hope that these kind monks help free their people and restore the democracy the people of Myanmar voted on but was denied. Good luck, Burma.

All who comprise the great assemblage of Bodhisattvas are equally powerful and equally beneficial to countless beings, so that all things seem to be at their command. Sometimes beautiful lotuses and lotus trees are caused by them to grow from the middle of the ocean, or a teardrop is transformed into an ocean. Everything in nature is at the Bodhisattva's call. Fire can appear as water; water can appear as fire. It is all because of the strength of the Bodhisattva's attitude, the aspiration and action. For us this says that the practice of compassion must be given full consideration, and it must at all times be in our awareness and at all times performed." ~ 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, teaching on Compassion. (Extract of article in I K H newsletter at Ngawang Geleg's site.)