By ZARNI MANN 12 December 2017 MANDALAY — The Mandalay Division government is organizing a mass donation ceremony in cooperation with Thailand’s Dhammakaya Foundation for next month to strengthen relations between the two countries. The ceremony, expected to draw some 20,000 monks from across the division and 60 monks from Thailand, is schedule for Jan. 21 at Mandalay’s Chanmyatharzi Airport. The organizing committee includes the Union minister of religion and culture, the chief minister of Mandalay and other regional government officials. According to the committee, this will be the second time that Thai monks will have joined such a ceremony in Mandalay but the first time that so many local monks will have taken part. “This event will be unique for Mandalay because we’ve never done this before with so many monks,” said U Soe Lin, the committee chairman. “This event will not only strengthen relations between Myanmar and Thailand, but also preserve Buddhist culture in the c...

By ZARNI MANN 5 December 2017 In an interview with The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, ultranationalist monk U Wirathu offered his personal views on the current situation in Rakhine State and the government’s legal action against nationalist Buddhist monks. The Irrawaddy’s senior reporter Zarni Mann met with U Wirathu at the Dhama Thaharya Kyaung at Masoeyein monastery. The Army and the government have been criticized for their handling of the conflict in Rakhine State. What is your view? The government has been unreliable on this matter. So, we have had to rely solely on the Tatmadaw [Myanmar’s military]. Personally, I fully support [military chief] Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and I believe him when he says the Tatmadaw will provide full protection to minorities in Rakhine State in order to protect them from genocide. When it comes to protecting the national identity, we only have him to rely on. But the Army’s actions in relation to the conflict in Rakhine State have resulted in ...

By THE IRRAWADDY 4 December 2017 YANGON — Pope Francis, who did not publicly use the word Rohingya during his recent visit to Myanmar, said he was still able to make his message clear during his meeting with Myanmar military leader Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing. Pope Francis was in Myanmar last week as the first ever Head of the Vatican to visit the country. During his four-day visit to Myanmar, the first person Pope Francis met upon his arrival was neither the country’s president U Htin Kyaw nor State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. It was the chief of Myanmar’s powerful military Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, who has been internationally accused of his army’s human rights abuses against the minority Rohingya Muslims. Little was revealed of the details of the meeting between the two leaders until a press conference was held by Pope Francis on board the plane on his way back to Rome on Saturday. In the wake of the meeting, Vatican Radio reported on Monday that “they discussed the great...

By   ZARNI MANN / THE IRRAWADDY |   Wednesday, December 9, 2015 Sayadaw U Nayaka, principal of the Phaung Daw Oo school. (Photo: Teza Haing / The Irrawaddy) MANDALAY — A leading Buddhist educator in Mandalay, known for developing a a teaching method radically different that usually encountered in Burma’s moribund public education system, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Global Teacher Prize. Sayadaw U Nayaka, the cofounder and principal of Mandalay’s Phaung Daw Oo Monastic School is among the 50 finalists selected for the prize, shortlisted from 8,000 nominees spread over 148 countries. U Nayaka is the first Buddhist monk and the first Burmese teacher to be shortlisted for the award. “I’m glad, although I’m just a finalist. I hope this pushes me to do more for the development of our school, and helps to change the education system in the country,” he said. Unlike government schools, which are the only source of education for most of Burma’s youth, monastic...

Two-centuries-old body discovered last week, covered in cattle skin, in Ulan Bator is in meditative trance, according to some Buddhist experts-- Scientists in Mongolia are examining a 200-year mummified monk who some Buddhists believe is still alive because he is in a deep meditative trance. The preserved body of the monk, sitting in the cross-legged lotus position, was discovered last week, covered in cattle skin, in the Songino Khairkhan district of the capital, Ulan Bator. The ash-coloured mummy has reportedly been sent to the National Centre of Forensic Expertise in Ulan Bator for further study. Gankhüügiin Pürevbat, the founder of the Mongolian Institute of Buddhist Art at Ulan Bator Buddhist University, told the Siberian Times, a news website: “The lama is sitting in the lotus position vajra, the left hand is opened, and the right hand symbolises of the preaching Sutra. 'This is a sign that the lama is not dead, but is in a very de...

By  Shenali Waduge There is a common thread that runs through the histories of Buddhist countries; they have all been the victim at one time or the other of aggressive incursions made by people of Abrahamic faiths i.e. Christians or Muslims. This process has not ended. It still continues unabated and with greater ferocity. When prominence is given to “reconciliation” their incursions have yet to be apologized or compensated. One thousand years ago Buddhist  Asia  ranged from Afghanistan to Japan. Today countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and South Korea are no longer identified as Buddhist. Several other traditional Theravada Buddhist countries such as Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka today find themselves besieged by forces  more  powerful and predatory than their slender resources can match. Their appeal to the call for Buddhist nationalism is a last resort to preserve their heritage, religion and...

Burma’s leading 969-Monk Shin Wirathu landed at Colombo Airport on midnight September-26 and welcomed by  Buddhist monks organization Bodu Bala Sena (BBS – Buddhist Power Force) amid Sri Lanka Government-provided tight security personnel. U Wirathu’s speech in Colombo =Translated into English By Koko Einstein •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ______________________________________________ ႏႈတ္ခြန္းဆက္ ေက်းဇူးတင္စကားေျပာျခင္း (  Greeting and appreciating speech ) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံအသီးသီးမွ ႂကြေရာက္လာေသာဆရာေတာ္ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားအား ဦးစြာပဏာမ ဂါရဝျပဳအပ္ပါတယ္။ Firstly, I really pay respect to all Venerable monks who come here from all over the world. မဂၤလာရွိေသာ ေန႔ထူးေန႔ျမတ္ပါဘုရား ဗုဒၶသာသနာေတာ္အတြက္ အင္မတန္အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ဒီအစည္းအေဝးႀကီးသို႔ ဖိတ္ၾကားေပးတဲ့အတြက္ေဗာဓုဗလေဆန အဖြဲ႔ကို အင္မတန္ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္။ Great auspicious day to all of you! I really appreciate to Bodu Bala Sena organization for invit...

by Dyah Swastantika  After releasing the video of the beheading of American photographer James Foley, the Islamic State terrorist group – formerly known as ISIS – has begun psychologically terrorizing Indonesia. The group has pledged to destroy the Borobudur Temple in the country’s Central Java Province, although its motive was not stated in detail. The 1,200-year-old Borobudur temple, which is home to hundreds of Buddhist statues, is the largest Buddhist temple in the world.  Indonesia is home to the largest population of Muslims in the world. The threat was revealed through a post on the Facebook page “We Are the Islamic State,” which is believed to be the Islamic State’s official page. The army commander of Central Java, Major General Sunindyo, said that anyone in the country would feel awful if the threat was actually carried out and has asked all citizens to work together to prevent the IS’s plan from becoming a reality. Security for...