Biksu di Persimpangan Jalan Burma

Biara Theik Pan Kyaung di kawasan Bahan, Rangoon, tampak sepi ditinggal para biksu penghuninya. Kompleks biara berupa panggung setinggi setengah meter dan bangunan yang semua serba kayu itu tampak kotor dan tak terawat.

Kepala biara, U Pandavamsa, sudah dua pekan ini tidak muncul di biara. Tamu-tamu, yang biasanya antre untuk berbagai keperluan konsultasi, tak tampak lagi. Tak ada yang tahu ke mana dia pergi sejak dia ikut ambil bagian dalam demonstrasi menentang junta militer Burma pada akhir September lalu.



Sempat ada kabar ia telah menyeberang ke Mae Sot, Thailand. Ada pula kabar yang menyebutkan bahwa ia tengah berada di hutan sebelah utara, menghindari Rangoon. Tak ada kabar yang memastikan posisinya, tapi sebuah pesan telah mengabarkan bahwa ia selamat, tak kurang suatu apa.

"Biara-biara utama di Rangoon kosong. Para biksu telah pergi menghindari amukan junta," ujar Ko Swe, wartawan Beauty Magazine, dari pusat Kota Rangoon pada Senin lalu.



Sejak penyerbuan Batalion 66 ke Biara Shwe Taung Maw dan Ngwe Kyar Yan di tengah Rangoon pada 26 September lalu dan menewaskan biksu U Sendima, semua biara di Rangoon sepi ditinggalkan penghuninya.

Junta militer Burma menyebar mata-mata ke seluruh biara. Kawasan Pagoda Shwedagon, pusat orientasi spiritual Buddha Terravada Burma yang berada di Rangoon, masih ditutup lokasinya. Para peziarah dilarang masuk. Hanya sejumlah kecil samanera (biksu pelajar anak-anak) yang terlihat di pagi hari membawa mangkuk sedekah berkeliling kota.



Selain sebagai kepala biara, U Pandavamsa adalah Sekretaris Jenderal Young Monks Union (Sangha Sammagi) wilayah Rangoon, salah satu eksponen dari lima asosiasi biksu yang tergabung dalam Aliansi Seluruh Biksu Burma, yang menyokong demonstrasi menentang junta tiga pekan lalu.

"Ia telah memainkan perannya dengan gagah berani," ujar Ko Swe, yang melihat langsung biksu berusia 38 tahun itu memimpin unjuk rasa jalanan yang merenggut korban 10 orang tewas tersebut.

Pandavamsa telah kenyang asam-garam perlawanan terhadap junta. Ia pernah menghabiskan delapan setengah tahun hidupnya di penjara junta militer gara-gara pada 1997 ia memimpin aksi menolak sumbangan dari Jenderal Saw Maung, presiden dan ketua komite 15 jenderal dari Dewan Hukum Pemulihan Tatanan Negara (SLORC) di era sebelum kekuasaan Jenderal Than Shwe saat ini.

"Kami sudah tidak mempunyai harapan untuk memperoleh demokrasi di Burma. Kami hidup dalam suasana teror," ujar Pandavamsa ketika saya mengunjunginya setahun lalu di Pagoda Ah Thi Ti, masih di dalam kompleks Biara Shwe Taung Maw.



"Hampir semua aktor kehidupan sosial-politik telah dibuat lemah oleh rezim. Tidak hanya Liga Demokrasi Nasional (NLD, partai pimpinan Aung San Suu Kyi), tapi juga kelompok seperti mahasiswa, pers, lembaga swadaya masyarakat, dan komunitas para biksu," ujar Pandavamsa.

Menurut Pandavamsa, semua aktor kehidupan masyarakat sipil di Burma saat ini telah dibonsai oleh junta militer. Para aktivis politik NLD rontok satu per satu, menyatakan keluar dari partai karena beban teror yang keras dari junta.



Para aktivis mahasiswa dari generasi 1988 juga tercerai-berai. Sebagian besar dari mereka hidup dalam trauma politik yang berkepanjangan. Sebagian lagi menderita sakit jiwa karena menyaksikan 3.000 temannya dibantai di depan mata.

Sementara itu, "Para mahasiswa baru di Universitas Yangoon semakin hari semakin jauh dari politik. Mereka banyak yang mengira Aung San Suu Kyi itu bintang film cantik Burma," ujar Aye Naing, mantan aktivis mahasiswa dari generasi 1988 yang sekarang memilih mengasingkan diri di Chiang Mai, Thailand Utara.



Pers sepenuhnya juga dikuasai junta. Dua stasiun televisi, yakni MTV (Myawaddy Television) dan MRTV (Myanmar Radio and Television), dikuasai junta militer. Dua stasiun radio di Rangoon dikuasai Dewan Pemerintah Kota Rangoon. Tabloid menjadi hak penerbitan kepolisian dan koran New Lights Myanmar diterbitkan pemerintah.

Beragam media swasta biasanya hanya memberitakan peristiwa olahraga atau hiburan internasional, dan tak berani sedikit pun menyentuh masalah politik. Para wartawan kritis di Rangoon, karena frustrasi atas represi yang kuat, memilih menerbitkan majalah tentang kecantikan, yakni Beauty Magazine, agar tetap bisa menyambung hidup.



"Di kantor kami ada seorang letnan kolonel dan seorang kapten yang turut bekerja sebagai kolumnis rubrik kesehatan dan tenaga pemasaran," ujar Myo Zaw, wartawan Beauty Magazine, di Rangoon.

Sementara itu, jaringan Internet sewaktu-waktu putus selama berminggu-minggu di seluruh Burma. Harga sewa Internet di sana sekitar Rp 10 ribu per jam dan terbilang mahal.



Lembaga swadaya masyarakat pun tak diizinkan berkembang di Burma. "Karena di sini memang tak ada birokrasi perizinan. Kalau tidak hati-hati, sewaktu-waktu bisa saja kami langsung digerebek," ujar Alan Shaw, intelektual Kristen Burma yang menyukai buku-buku karya dua tokoh militer Indonesia: Jenderal T.B. Simatupang dan Jenderal A.H. Nasution. Ia aktivis LSM dari Gereja Baptist di Rangoon yang aktif membela isu minoritas suku Karen... more...

Publised at Koran Tempo daily, http://korantempo.com

Alms and the Monks

By Wahyuana

RANGOON – They are known for their peaceful and tranquil ways and teachings, which is perhaps why Burma’s thousands of monks have chosen to show their disapproval of the ruling military junta simply by “overturning the bowl.” For this, thousands of them have been arrested and jailed.

In 1990, a conclave of senior Burmese Buddhist monks decided to boycott alms from the military regime. The patam nikkujjana kamma --overturning the bowl -- as the boycott is known in Buddhist religious scripture, was in response to a military crackdown that year in the central city of Mandalay. There had gathered thousands of monks who wanted to mark the second anniversary of Burma’s August 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

A number of monks were killed and hundreds arrested during the 1990 military action in Mandalay. At least 3,000 more were imprisoned later for refusing to accept donations from military personnel as part of the patam nikkujjana kamma. Similar action would be taken on more monks in subsequent years for the same “offence.”

The alms ritual is one of the most important in Theravada Buddhism and a monk’s refusal to accept signifies moral degeneration of the alms giver.

The 1990 alms boycott has been the most radical political action by Burma’s Buddhist sangha (monastic order), says U Pandavamsa, secretary of the Young Monks Union (Sangha Sammagi) for Upper Burma that organised the pattam nikujjana kamma declaration.

“The declaration is binding on every monk in Burma,” he says. The boycott, decided by highly respected senior monks known as Auwadasariya, requires monks to refuse alms from military personnel and not to perform religious rites for them. The pattam nikujjana kamma is regulated by the Vinaya, the 227 disciplinary rules for monks laid down in the third of the three Buddhist Tipitika religious scriptures.

The monks are well aware of the harm the boycott could bring to them. But U Pandavamsa, who once spent more than eight years in jail for being among those who refused donations from the country’s military rulers, also says, “History shows that this action can topple a ruler.”
...more...

http://seapabkk.org/

The Burmese Way to Buddhism

By Wahyuana

RANGOON -- “Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu (good, good, good),” the maroon-robed monk with shaven head chants softly as he receives the offerings with a bow, not looking at the alms giver. It is early morning in the former Burmese capital and Ain Daw Bar Tha is in the middle of the daily alms ritual for Buddhist monks.

He puts the 50 kyats someone has given him in the black thabaik (alms bowl), which holds offerings from other houses. By 9:00 a.m., Ain Daw Bar Tha has visited 12 families and collected 600 kyats (about half a dollar) in alms. This will buy him a bowl of rice, curry, and a mango for lunch, which he must have by 11:00 a.m., the last meal of the day for Buddhist monks. The remaining money will be used to buy food for the next morning or donated to his monastery.

Ain Daw Bar Tha later takes a bus to his monastery or kyaung in Mya Thein Tan on the outskirts of Rangoon, where he lives and has been studying Buddhism for six years. He does not pay for the trip. Public transport is free for monks (hpongyi) as their presence is considered auspicious for the journey, says Aung San Myint, who drives an express bus between Rangon and the northern city of Mandalay.

Life may be harsh in Burma, one of the poorest nations in Southeast Asia, but Buddhism remains alive and well in the country that has 90 percent of its people identifying themselves as Theravada Buddhists. Islam and Christianity, meanwhile, each claim four percent of Burmese as among their believers, while Hindus and animists each make up one percent of the country’s population.

Yet while the sight of monks receiving alms signals the continued presence of Buddhism in a country that is better known for its authoritarian rulers, how it is being done these days also shows that the faith – or at least how it is practised – has undergone some changes to adjust to the times.

Money instead of food

The alms ritual is one of the most important practices in Theravada Buddhism. Ashin Mahinda, senior monk of Mandalay’s Mahagandhayone monastery, explains that giving and receiving alms spiritually links the layperson and the monk. It is one of 227 rituals prescribed for monks in the Vinaya, the third part of the Buddhist Tipitaka scripture. Buddhist nuns (thilashin) have to observe 311 Vinaya rituals...more...

http://seapabkk.org/