Rev. Danny Fisher

This via email from Beth Goldring, director of Brahmavihara (Cambodia AIDS Project):

The revised website is now up and running. It has a news section on the front page (the long project description is now in background); a very revised staff section; two long patient stories; a section on the renovation of the Chea Chum Neas Mortuary; two new papers; and a long photoessay on the resettlement site. I think our webmaster, Marek Dyjak, did a beautiful job.

If you’re not aware of Beth’s and the Project’s work, please visit http://www.brahmavihara.cambodiaaidsproject.org.

Our friend Erick sends us a very strange story from the Irrawaddy about the theft of the body of the late U Winaya, the Thamanya Sayadaw and a supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy. (He is pictured to the right with Suu Kyi some time before his death.)

It was a dark night on April 2 when the body of the revered U Winaya, the Thamanya Sayadaw (abbot), one of Burma’s holiest monks, was mysteriously stolen.

[...]

Four days later, monks at the Thamanya Monastery received an anonymous telephone call claiming the abbot’s body had been burned and the ashes left at Kaw Ka Dah village near the edge of the monastery grounds. At the site—a small chedi dedicated to the sayadaw—former aides discovered a small heap of ashes, together with charred bones and the handles of the abbot’s glass coffin.

For a brief time, the charred remains were put on display, but fearful they might be violated again and also uncertain whether they were indeed his remains, monks decided to put the ashes under lock and key. Authorities in Pa-an promised to investigate the strange disappearance, but after a few days the issue went quiet.

The abbot was an admirer of and spiritual adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi and often expressed his admiration for the democracy leader and criticized the military government. For some, the disappearance of the abbot’s body in the weeks leading up the referendum appeared to be highly significant. Indeed, many believed his body was stolen in a bizarre yadaya chae-inspired plot, designed to cheat fate and help the military regime win the referendum. Yadaya chae is a uniquely Burmese practice intended to reverse bad fate by taking active steps to change the future, based on the advice of an astrologer.

The abbot’s refusal to endorse the regime when he was alive was a continuing source of embarrassment for the generals. Tales are legendary of the abbot’s preference for Aung San Suu Kyi over the hapless former Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, who was reportedly subjected to a series of humiliations when he visited the monastery at Thamanya Mountain.

Bestowing high honors on the abbot in an attempt to get his public support only resulted in embarrassment to the regime. When, at last, ill health forced the abbot to move to Rangoon, Khin Nyunt gladly paid his hospital bills and a wheelchair-bound Ne Win reportedly visited him, but, maddeningly for the generals, it was to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house the monk went following his discharge from the hospital.

Senior generals and their families are well-known for patronizing astrologers such as E Thi and Daw Da Mae Thi in search of answers to political conundrums and indulging in extraordinary yadaya chae rituals to reverse the problems of state. The overnight transformation of banknote denominations in 1987 that wiped out half the country’s currency, the sudden, hysterical, nationwide promotion of physic nut (kyet sue) fields—now all but abandoned—and the astrologically approved move of the government to Naypidaw are but a few examples of the regime’s bizarre extremes of behaviour during the last few decades.

Stealing the Thamanya Sayadaw’s remains, for some, is seen as a gruesome ritual designed somehow to reverse potential misfortune. They say it is well within the realm of possibility, especially in the run up to the referendum while the regime was extraordinarily tense about achieving approval of the constitution.

Erick sends in another piece from Burma Digest that intimates the generals may have cannibalized U Winaya’s body, but there are others who might be suspected of stealing the body as well. The Irrawaddy continues:

While the Sayadaw was admired from afar by politicians and generals in Rangoon, he also enjoyed an exalted position in southern Karen State where his self-declared “peace zone” monastery was an important refuge for displaced persons in an area that has suffered from conflict for more than half a century. Sheltering more than 4,000 people in the monastery area, the abbot’s followers were a striking contrast to those of U Thuzana, the abbot of Myainggyi Ngu, whose monastery, based in northern Karen State, is fortified by Democratic Karen Buddhist Army soldiers.

Unlike U Thuzana, who is surrounded by Karen soldiers who are loyal to him and are feared for their unpredictable violence, Thamanya Sayadaw was renowned throughout Burma and Thailand for his compassion. Thousands of pilgrims visited him daily, showering the monastery with donations, which the abbot used to shelter the homeless, repair roads and build schools.

Even before his body was stolen, controversy was already swirling over his remains. According to a guide who visited the monastery the day before the body was taken, in recent months the body had begun to decompose and a putrid smell emanated from the two glass coffins.

One source said: “It was well-known in Pa-an that the Myainggyi Ngu abbot wanted the body burnt. He was unhappy it was being displayed in such a deteriorating state so that Thamanya disciples could continue raising money. He felt it was immoral. Prior to the disappearance, key supporters had reportedly held a meeting with the authorities and U Pinya, the sayadaw of the nearby Taungalay Monastery—who was a close friend of the Thamanya Sayadaw’s—to discuss the issue.”

Moreover, local people say that since the abbot’s death, visitors have been less concerned with following to the monastery’s strict principles. When the abbot was alive, everyone living in or near the monastery was vegetarian and disciples would abstain from eating meat for days prior to their pilgrimages. Reports of drinking and gambling in the area had already begun to filter back to Pa-an before the body disappeared.

Another local observer pointed to a conflict over fundraising between the two abbots as a potential cause of conflict.

The Myainggyi Ngu abbot has embarked on a high-profile fundraising drive. His followers solicit funds around central Pa-an and campaign day and night at the Pa-an monastery for donations.

“But the presence of the sayadaw’s body in Thamanya meant devotees were still visiting the monastery and donating money there instead,” the observer said. “It was the body that attracted pilgrims because the temple itself, a very simple blue-and-white tiled affair with no elaborate chedis, remarkable Buddhas or stunning artwork, was unlikely to attract pilgrims. U Winaya had spent all of his devotees’ money on feeding and sheltering the poor”.

It’s all kind of a guessing game right now, with no indication of an answer in sight. For some, though, an answer may not be needed.

Adding to the mystery, of course, is uncertainty about whether the ashes unceremoniously dumped at the entrance to the monastery grounds are really the abbot’s. Without a DNA test, we will never know.

Many aides and disciples openly admit their doubts. They point out what they believe to be the abbot’s extraordinary magical powers, which, some believe, enabled him to secretly enter Aung San Suu Kyi’s house while she was under house arrest. They intimate his body’s disappearance is a result of the abbot’s powers, and it will shortly be replaced, by the return of the abbot himself to human form.

Whatever the beliefs of some disciples, the mystery remains, intensifying the Thamanya Sayadaw’s powerful presence, even in death, while also attracting curious, confused pilgrims and bringing more money to the monastery.

Gore Vidal offers the impassioned reflection below on the articles of impeachment offered in the House of Representatives by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), which I blogged about last week in this post. (An addendum to Vidal’s piece notes that the House, on Wednesday, voted 251 to 166 to send Rep. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment to a committee. This is a move “often used to kill legislation,” in the words of the Associated Press.)

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the great engine of impeachment — he listed some 35 crimes by these two faithless officials — we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had tried to destroy it.

Although this is the most important motion made in Congress in the 21st century, it was also the most significant plea for a restoration of the republic, which had been swept to one side by the mad antics of a president bent on great crime. And as I listened with awe to Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment.

But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic, and so I turned, as I often do, to the foreign press for a clear report of what has been going on in Congress. We all know how the self-described “war hero,” Mr. John McCain, likes to snigger at France, while the notion that he is a hero of any kind is what we should be sniggering at. It is Le Monde, a French newspaper, that told a story the next day hardly touched by The New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or, in fact, any other major American media outlet.

As for TV? Well, there wasn’t much — you see, we dare not be divisive because it upsets our masters who know that this is a perfect country, and the fact that so many in it don’t like it means that they have been terribly spoiled by the greatest health service on Earth, the greatest justice system, the greatest number of occupied prisons — two and a half million Americans are prisoners — what a great tribute to our penal passions!

Naturally, I do not want to sound hard, but let me point out that even a banana Republican would be distressed to discover how much of our nation’s treasury has been siphoned off by our vice president in the interest of his Cosa Nostra company, Halliburton, the lawless gang of mercenaries set loose by his administration in the Middle East.

But there it was on the first page of Le Monde. The House of Representatives, which was intended to be the democratic chamber, at last was alert to its function, and the bravest of its members set in motion the articles of impeachment of the most dangerous president in our history. Rep Kucinich listed some 30-odd articles describing impeachable offenses committed by the president and vice president, neither of whom had ever been the clear choice of our sleeping polity for any office.

Some months ago, Kucinich had made the case against Dick Cheney. Now he had the principal malefactor in his view under the title “Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush”! “Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate.” The purpose of the resolve is that he be duly tried by the Senate, and if found guilty, be removed from office. At this point, Rep. Kucinich presented his 35 articles detailing various high crimes and misdemeanors for which removal from office was demanded by the framers of the Constitution.

I was sad to hear the news of Tim Russert’s death yesterday at age 58.

In my work as a chaplain, I have led men’s groups and done other kinds of work with men around family issues. I appreciated Mr. Russert’s writing and speaking about his father and his son, as well as his willingness to share his feelings about those relationships so openly. In his low-key, affable way, I felt that he did a lot (perhaps without even really knowing it) to let men know that it’s really OK to talk about and share their own feelings. (See his 2004 interview with Jon Stewart for a great example of this. It’s embedded below.)

I also appreciated his refusal to give any of the politicians he interviewed (those on both the right and the left) an easy pass. Whether it was Dick Cheney or Mike Gravel, you got the sense that his interview subjects knew they were in a particularly hot seat. With journalism generally not as hard-hitting as it should be these days, his was a much-needed presence on the broadcasting scene.

My condolences go out to his family and many friends.