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BUDDHISM AND EDUCATION IN BURMA: VARYING CONDITIONS FOR A SOCIAL ETHOS IN THE PATH TO “NIBBANA” Eugenia Kaw A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY NOVEMBER 2005 UMI Number: 3169805 Copyright 2005 by Kaw, Eugenia All rights reserved. UMI Microform 3169805 Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 © Copyright by Eugenia Kaw, 2005. All rights reserved. Abstract This is a comparative study of pedagogy in the various educational settings in which Buddhism is taught to lay persons in modern Burma: formal and non-formal, governmental and non-governmental, and lay and monastic-led. Findings suggest that the simultaneous development of faith and critical thinking skills is integral to motivating Buddhist ethics in the world. In present day Burma, it is the meditation monk teachers who can best provide that sort of education. They provide the educational conditions in which lay persons can aim for nibbana, the ultimate salvation, release from the cycle of rebirths, even as one lives and moves in the world. Central to the meditation monks’ pedagogy is the instilling of a “conscience” of the Buddha, the ability of a people to remember and be moved by ethics as embodied in the Buddha (Obeyesekere 1991). The Buddha did not create the world, has passed on into nibbana, and no longer exists. Therefore, he cannot be propitiated by prayers. As such, Buddhist ethics entail much self-responsibility and critical thinking. The Buddha modeled this path to wisdom through his practice of vipassana or insight meditation. His path to wisdom was motivated by moral awareness. In his life as the Buddha and in his many past lives, the Buddha fulfilled moral perfections including self-sacrifice. Hence, a conscience of the Buddha entails faith in his perfections and a willingness to develop one’s own ability to judge right iii from wrong. The monks’ pupils not only become acquainted with stories of the Buddha’s astounding deeds, but also gain the practical means to verify for themselves the value of the Buddha’s ethics in the world. Through awareness of the material body, feelings, consciousness, and other mental objects, they learn to gauge for themselves the wholesome or unwholesome quality of conducts and motives, their own and that of others. By helping to transform the “conscience collective (Durkheim 1933)” of the Buddha in the larger society into an ethical “conscience” of the individual, the meditation monk teachers help to prevent notions of the Buddha’s greatness from becoming a mere nationalist symbol or propaganda tool of the state. iv To Blake, Artemisia, Ellie, and Olivia v Table of Contents Acknowledgments………………………………………………………vii Preface……………………………………………………………………ix Introduction.………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1 Conscience of the Buddha in Burmese Popular Culture: Importance of the Vernacular.........................……………………………48 Chapter 2 ‘Nibbana in This World’: A History of the Lay Elite...............................……………………………89 Chapter 3 Buddhism as an Authoritarian Instrument........……………………………108 Chapter 4 Contemporary Lay Elites and Buddhist Education...............................………………………………...150 Chapter 5 Meditation Monk Teachers and Buddhist Education...............................…………………………………………..175 Conclusion Insight Meditation as Sublimation and Political Praxis: The Example of Aung San Suu Kyi………………………………………...242 References Cited……………..………………………………………...260 Appendix………..……………..………………………………………...266 vi Acknowledgments I would like to thank my parents, sisters, brothers, nephew, and nieces for being there for me. Their company has helped me to feel at ease in all my endeavors. I owe much gratitude to all my teachers, both in the United States and Burma. I have been fortunate to have invaluable teachers throughout my lifetime, beginning with my parents. It would be difficult for me to name them all here. So, please let me take this opportunity to thank those who have directly influenced my dissertation. First, I would like to thank my main advisor from Princeton University, Gananath Obeyesekere. He is a kind and wise mentor who has been an excellent source of inspiration throughout my studies, research, and writing. Because I wanted to learn about the anthropology of Buddhism, I chose to become a graduate student at the department of anthropology at Princeton. Today, I feel certain that I had made the right decision. I also want to thank Isabelle Clark-Deces for providing me with insight on the formulation and writing of my dissertation. Further, I thank Marguerite Conrad for helping to edit the final draft. I thank Gyan Prakash and Carol Greenhouse for being my readers. Finally, I would like to thank all the professors from whom I have learned at Princeton for giving me the tools to think before, during, and after my journey to Burma. I am also grateful to my teachers in Burma. They include the friends, strangers, professors, and relatives who patiently answered my barrage of questions, led me to places where I had never been, and let me become a part of vii their lives. I am especially grateful to Sayadawgyi U Pandita and his monk disciples for teaching me how to practice insight meditation. Finally, I would like to thank Carol Zanca for her helpfulness at all times, Claire Brandin for her encouragements, and Carol Fong for her understanding and giving me the time off that was necessary to finish this dissertation. Last but not least, I would like to thank my first graders in Room 13 for making me feel fortunate to be their teacher. Everyone I know has helped me along. Any shortcomings in this dissertation are a result of my own doing. viii Preface I have included words and phrases from both the Pali and Burmese languages in my text. I have used Pali instead of Sanskrit spellings for Buddhist terminologies, e.g., “nibbana” instead of “nirvana” and “kamma” instead of “karma.” I have not included any diacritics. There are some Burmese words in my text that are derived from the Pali language. When these are the titles of texts or prime Buddhist concepts, I have spelled them using Pali phonetics. For example, the Burmese word “kutho” means the same as the Pali word kusala (wholesome deeds). I have substituted “kusala” for “kutho.” When they are names of persons or places, however, I have left their spellings unchanged as Burmese derivatives of Pali words. For example, U Thukha’s name is derived from the Pali word sukha (happy). But I have left his name as “Thukha” because that is the name by which he is popularly known in Burma. ix Introduction This is a study of Buddhist education in modern day Burma. It is a comparative study of pedagogy in the various educational settings in which Buddhism is taught to lay persons in Burma today: formal and non-formal, governmental and non-governmental, and lay and monastic-led. Findings suggest that the simultaneous development of faith and critical thinking skills are integral to motivating Buddhist ethics in the world. In present day Burma, it is the meditation monk teachers who can best provide that sort of education. They provide the educational conditions in which lay persons can effectively aim for nibbana, the ultimate salvation, release from the cycle of rebirths, even as one lives and moves in the world. Central to the meditation monks’ pedagogy is the instilling of a conscience of the Buddha. Obeyesekere has used the term “conscience of the Buddha” to refer to the ability of a people to remember and be moved by ethics as embodied in the Buddha (Obeyesekere 1991). The Buddha did not create the world, has passed on into nibbana, and no longer exists. Therefore, unlike central figures in monotheistic religions, he cannot give commands, interfere in the affairs of the world, bestow favors, grant forgiveness, or be propitiated by prayers in either theory or in practice. As such, Buddhist ethics entail much self-responsibility and critical thinking, particularly the ability to gauge for oneself right from wrong. The Buddha modeled this path to wisdom through his practice of vipassana or insight meditation and the attainment of enlightenment. His path to wisdom was 1 motivated by moral awareness. The Buddha as “The Enlightened One” quelled demons, criminals, and other wrong-doers. In his past lives as different people, animals, gods, and other living creatures, he fulfilled paramitas (moral perfections) such as patience, compassion, and self-sacrifice. Hence, a conscience of the Buddha is two-fold: it entails faith in his moral perfections and a willingness to develop one’s own ability to judge right from wrong as he did through insight meditation. The meditation monk teachers are best able to instill a conscience of the Buddha in pupils as they not only tell narratives of the Buddha’s life and past lives but also encourage, through self-example, practice of his ethics and path to critical insight. Durkheim used the term conscience collective to refer to a “set of beliefs and sentiments,” shared by members of a society, which forms a defined system and has a life of its own (Durkheim 1933:79). The French word conscience is ambiguous. It entails the connotations of both English words “consciousness” and “conscience” (Lukes 1985:4). So, the beliefs and sentiments in a “conscience collective” are simultaneously cognitive and moral or religious (Lukes:4). The legend of the Buddha and Jataka tales (stories of his astoundingly moral past lives) that are told time and again in homes, at monks’ sermons, and through temple frescoes and sculptures in Burma are a “conscience collective” of this type. They create a common consciousness, a presence of the Buddha in people’s minds throughout Burma.

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