Myanmar Dhamma Diaries: An Assault on Faith

Sometimes a single moment can be so profound… or so complex… that it takes hours, or even days, following the encounter to get a handle on it. In the story that follows, that “moment” has been taking years to process.

In this case, the actual moment in question is simple enough: Yonie, an African-American vipassana meditator in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, travels to Myanmar to pay homage to the lineage of his teacher and consider monastic ordination. Several days into his stay at a Yangon monastery, he is in the dining hall awaiting lunch, when a long-standing Burmese monk aggressively motions for him to leave, and when he doesn’t, the monastic hauls off and kicks him. This disturbing incident—which in terms of time, lasted no more than a minute—is astounding in its complexity, and poses many swirling questions to untangle and process. Our conversation unfolds with Yonie and I doing our best to explore its many threads, and includes such topics as global anti-racism, how Dhamma practice can inform one’s response to prejudice, the collective trauma of Burmese given their recent history, the indirect nature of Burmese communication, and much more.

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