Episode 11, COVID-19 in Myanmar: Women's Edition
This is the second special Coronavirus episode we have released in our series. If you haven’t yet heard the first one, we encourage you to go back and take a listen.
The onslaught of the coronavirus continues to affect people across the globe, easing up in some places and getting worse in others. The media can scarcely keep up with the its impacts on health, politics, culture, economy, as well as myriad other ways it is transforming life around the world. Meditators for whom the Dhamma and inner reflection play a critical role in life are no less affected than anyone else. However for yogis for whom Burma has a special place in their hearts, one issue is of particular importance yet very challenging to find information about, aside from anecdotal encounters or the random Facebook post: That is, how are monastics, monasteries, and meditation centers in Myanmar faring in these challenging times?
In this second episode of our ongoing series about COVID-19 in Myanmar, we present the Women’s Edition. In this show, we hear from four female practitioners who describe their views and thoughts on the ongoing crisis. So often at times of crisis and at key moments in world events, it is the voices of men who make the news. This is certainly not untrue in Myanmar, where speeches from revered Sayadaws or male meditation teachers dominate the Dhamma discourse. While our current series, and our overall podcast in general, always strives for balance of voices, including gender, we wanted to create one episode to showcase the voices of female practitioners specifically.
We first hear from Katie L’Estrange, a British meditator and expat who has lived in Mandalay and Lashio with her young son for many years. A dedicated meditator who founded the charitable organization Holding Umbrellas, she recently assisted in drive to collect donations to support Mandalay’s poorest population who have been especially impacted by the pandemic. Initially planning to hunker down and remain in Myanmar, a growing concern prompted her to return to her family’s home in Wales, where she is continuing to support her community from afar.
Next is the Lithuanian nun, Sayalay Piyadassii, who speaks to us from her dormitory at Shan State Buddhist University in Taunggyi, Shan State. Sayalay shares her difficulties living under lockdown, and her realization that a greater focus on meditation practice added a sense of meaning to her day. She also offers this interesting observation, that many outsiders looked at Myanmar as a developing country with little resources and a poor medical system, and so one that would soon buckle under the tremendous strain imposed by the pandemic…yet Sayalay notes that it has not. She has seen local community members step up with greater acts of compassion and responsibility in the face of the pandemic than she has heard reports about in Western countries, and believes that it is precisely because of its limited infrastructure that Burmese people have developed an amazing capacity of looking after one another.
Then we check in with Dominica Bastrzyc, a Polish backpacker-turned-meditator, who joins us from her remote monastery north of Yangon. While traveling around Southeast Asia, she volunteered for a time at Thabarwa Monastery— now a common stopover for many Western travelers in Myanmar. While there, she heard a Dhamma talk from Ashin Sarana, which left a lasting imprint on her. After her time at Tharbarwa, she went to explore the northern part of the country, but with a yearning to someday learn meditation. This opportunity materialized right around the time that the pandemic hit. As the world was shutting down, most of her fellow travelers took the last flights out of Myanmar, and Dominica’s parents desperately pleaded with her to return. But with a growing faith in U Sarana’s guidance and seeing the benefits of her own meditation practice (which focused alternately on mettā and acceptance of death), she felt that remaining at the monastery was the very best thing for her.
Finally we wrap up our episode with Inga Bergman, a Lithuanian meditator whose life was touched by a pilgrimage she took to Myanmar several years ago, in which she visited the key lineage sites associate with the vipassana tradition of S.N. Goenka. After her trip, she continued to keep in touch with her guide, Myo Myo, who informed her of the dire situation at some Yangon monasteries who were now unable to get proper food supplies. From her home in Chicago Inga organized her first-ever donation drive, and collected $1,500 from friends and supporters, which she then transferred to Myanmar and was immediately used to purchase much-needed supplies.