#Amarapura

[sgiandubh]

Hi, I don't know if you understand me or go through this, I would like to know your feeling about it.

After all this circus (which I can't take anymore and after a few years in the fandom) I can't stand Caitríona anymore. I swear I try, I swear I try to get excited about her projects. I swear I try to understand her reasons, her anger, her antipathy towards us all these years. For a long time I managed to suppress this sad feeling I feel for her, but now it screams. I can not anymore.

On the other hand, I still support Sam, even more than I should, because he, along with her, plays the main role in the narrative and is not a saint. I think these feelings would be the signal to leave the ship. I no longer admire her, I no longer miss her, at least on social media, I no longer even want to see her face.

I feel bad for feeling this way, I don't know what to do. Have you ever felt like that? And before you start offending me, I'll tell you: I'm not anti, only or whatever. I am someone who paid a lot of attention to this narrative and ended up hurt, very hurt by them, by her specially…

Dear Feel Bad Anon,

I was just about to go to bed after a very, very long and dense day, but your question stopped me in my tracks. Story of my life, really: that banging on the dorm's door at midnight ('it's vile X, we just broke up, help') - ah, the memories. So, I will not let you down.

First of all, thank you for this ask. It is a genuine one, I know it. It takes a lot of honesty to write it down without cackle, hysteria and the everlasting 'they owe me' refrain (no, they don't owe anybody anything, because, Anon, do you owe anybody anything when you are that much in love? I am sure you don't give a hoot about Aunt Y and Neighbor Z, Anon, and fuck them and their curiosity, eh?). And, my goodness, you really do sound exhausted, here.

Take a good look at this pic I took in Mandalay (see post below) of a Yama Zatdaw (Ramayana) puppet show:

All these public ten years are summed up in here: the puppeteers (TPTB), the puppets (S&C) and the convenient prop ( T) in the middle.

Where are the private ten years? I could think of this Amarapura pic, taken the day after the puppet show:

And that is ok, Anon. It's them. Their lives. Their love. We are just peepers through a keyhole, in here: let's try and do it gracefully.

You don't like C anymore? S couldn't give a damn about how you feel, Anon, and forgive me if I sound brutal. He loves her and he already did the unthinkable for her. C does give a damn about you, however. Not because she cares about you, but because she probably thinks your intelligence and your questioning endanger her narrative and put at risk all the negotiated perks. This is why she thought intelligent to bark at you and publicly insult you: by a simple zealot reflex, her part of the bargain. It has nothing to do with her private truth. You are disappointed by a puppet, not the real C. Or, using this time Plato's Allegory of the Cave, you are mad at the silhouettes reflected on the walls of that cave, not at the people whose reflections you see - those people are outside the cave.

Get out of that mental cave, Anon. Stop racking your brains off trying to give definitive answers that cannot be honestly given with the amount of information we have. Stop obsessing about a visibly curated social media presence, online times and all this shit - they mean very little, especially at this point in time. Trust your heart and your intuition. Trust your life experience. Trust yourself, not me. All this side of the fandom can offer you is based on our own life paths and street smarts. Do I think it's legit? Of course, otherwise I'd not be here or I'd be a pervert. Do I think that together we'd be a step closer to what really is? Oh, by all means. But you are the only sovereign master of the course, here. You are the only one able to choose between believing or rejecting, staying on deck or jumping ship.

I chose to be interested in the puppeteers, Anon. The paper trail. The minute intricacies. The boring details Mordor does not want to see or doesn't know how to translate in simple English. That is really what keeps me going and that is something I will never publicly trade. The more I look into it, the clearer the picture is. Oh, for sure, I take great pleasure in seeing and discussing the script inconsistencies - don't we all? But to me and as I see it, this is the tip of the iceberg. The bar I set myself for public happenings, statements and all the shit show is very low. It avoids undue disappointment and even allows me to be relaxed about it. Not always. Not a perfect strategy. But it is my way of managing it and so far, it works.

Take at least a day off Tumblr. Think of it as detox. I can guarantee you will see it way clearer. I wish you well, Anon. And I really hope my long, long answer helped at least a little bit.

[hussyknee]

hi, i hope i am not crossing a line, please ignore if this is bad question. i am just curious

in one of your posts u said your caste is karava. this is the first time i am hearing a sinhalese talk about caste (i speak tamil and never really felt confident in my sinhala to make sinhalese friends)

can you explain about the castes or tell me where find information about it

Caste is a fucked up concept across the board, obviously, but Sinhalese castes are different from Tamil Hindu in that they involve the cultural and socio-political organisation of the Sinhalese community, and has no connection to religious scripture.

There are thirteen castes that still exist today. We used to be a chiefly agrarian society, so the majority of Sinhalese are Govigama ("Govi" means farming) and they're the kind of "bourgeoisie" of the social order in that few are above them and anyone else is below them. Those that rank below them are castes like Bathgama and Kinnara (who are meant to be agricultural labourers) Vahampura (something to do with making cinnamon or treacle) Navadanna (artisans, especially makers of jewelry) and Rada (launderers). Radala is the caste of the nobility, and afaik the only one above Govigama. They're all from highlands of Kandy, the last Sinhalese holdout against the Europeans for about 200 years. There's no nobility among the lowlanders (between the Portuguese, Dutch and British, they were either killed, assimilated or fled to Kandy) so the Govigama caste is the highest one everywhere else. This means Govigama used to be the only one that was qualified to join the Theravada Buddhist priesthood* and also receive education and job opportunities as government servants—right up until the mid-20th century, when the karava gentry turned into robber barons under the British Empire's demand for cash crops.

Karava people are the majority inhabitants in the Southern coastal lands, which are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhist, as opposed to the Tamil lands of the Northern coast (Eelam really) and the proliferation of sparsely-populated Muslim communities in the rest of the coastal belt. Karava is called the fisherfolk caste by the rest of country, despite their own strong objections. Caste is reckoned patrilineally. I'm Karava through my Dad and I married into a Karava family. Nearly every Karava person I know insists that we're actually the warrior caste and were given the coastal lands as reward for our service to the king. I'm sure there's a legitimate case to be made for this, (this site keeps being referred to me) but I don't care enough to find out because the Karava insistence that being called fisherfolk is a Govigama conspiracy is incredibly funny. I mean, it could be true, what do I know, but so much of the cope and seethe stem from our lingering inferiority complex and resentment at having been treated as inferior until a few decades ago. After being ground under the Radala and Govigama feet along with the rest for ages beyond record, suddenly us lowlanders were rolling in money from our toddy, coconut and rubber plantations, matching or surpassing the wealth of the nobility. We were chasing off Tamil and Muslim minorities to establish our own lost cultural capitals in Anuradhapura and Pollonnaruwa that predated the Kandyan kingdom and making our own sect of the Buddhist priesthood (Amarapura Nikaya) that would ordain Karava people. The robber baron types also got very chummy with the British colonial administration and were awarded cushy jobs in government over the Govigama, who still disdained industrialization and commerce. (To this day my mother's family looks down on business people no matter how rich. Merchants are considered grasping and untrustworthy.) By the time of Sri Lanka's independence from the British in 1948, we had two varieties of equally rich, snooty, virulently ethnonationalist Sinhalese elites who had gotten ahead by selling us out to the British, but with the highland Radala still believing they were too pure-blooded to mix with the hoi polloi and the lowland Karava resentful at being considered the polloi no matter how hoi they'd become. Post-independence, Sri Lanka's adoption of free education and free state universities saw masses of lowlanders, Karava, Durava and Salagama all, sending their kids to university to attain upwardly mobile careers in engineering, medicine and teaching. "If the boy is Karava he's probably in engineering" is a common joke. It's a clear shift away from our rural agrarian roots into urban sprawl and high socio-economic competition in place of social stratification.

We also have a caste of Untouchables called the Rodiya. In ancient times, you and all your family being stripped of their lands and titles and banished into the Rodi Rahaya was one of the punishments reserved for the noble houses that ran afoul of the monarchy. It condemned your entire lineage forever. This was such a dire fate that some would have favoured execution.

Rodiyas were not permitted to cross a ferry, to draw water at a well, to enter a village, to till land, or learn a trade, as no recognised caste could deal or hold intercourse with a Rodiya [...] They were forced to subsist on alms or such gifts as they might receive for protecting the fields from wild beasts or burying the carcasses of dead cattle; but they were not allowed to come within a fenced field even to beg [...] They were prohibited from wearing a cloth on their heads, and neither men nor women were allowed to cover their bodies above the waist or below the knee. If benighted they dare not lie down in a shed appropriated to other travellers, but hid themselves in caves or deserted watch-huts. Though nominally Buddhists, they were not allowed to go into a temple, and could only pray "standing afar off"

(Source)

Allegations of witchcraft and cannibalism aside, the Rodiyas themselves were known to be a proud folk that considered themselves the pure-blooded descendants of the royalty that were punished this way. Here's a Reddit post that expounds on them more, along with photographs. It seems that the strictures against covering up had fallen away between the turn of the 20th century and the '70s. Not much is known about their current living conditions, but I believe that, like India's own Untouchables and the low caste of Eelam's Tamil Hindus, they must have converted to Christianity to escape the stigma.

Casteism is still somewhat of a problem in the Sinhalese community, but it's lessening every generation. My maternal grandparents weren't entirely happy about my mother marrying my Karava father but conceded because he was an engineer with a stable career. My older cousin had to fight his Karava family to marry his school sweetheart because she was both poor and Bathgama caste (I think "Padu" might be a derogatory name for it). The fact that he succeeded is noteworthy because it would have been a huge scandal in my parents' time. The Radalas are still a bunch of insular dipshits who try to keel over and die if one of them tries to marry out. But many of them are also migrating abroad so Idk if it's too much to hope that they leave the caste shit behind when they assimilate into Western society. It certainly hasn't worked for the Brahmin Indians. But the outlook is better for the rest of us.

*There is no caste system in Buddhism. The Buddha in fact was an egalitarian social reformer who advocated against the Vedic caste system and ordained Untouchables as well as women. So obviously the Theravadin priesthood of Sri Lanka, that bastion of the Buddha's Word, would make sure that only high caste men could ever be ordained. Love the fact that the Karava social revolution just made sure they had their own sect instead of, y'know, pushing for anything more equitable. I always say that if we really want to protect Buddhism we have to abolish the Sinhalese.

[mahayanapilgrim]

Global Spread of

Buddhism - 04

# Buddhism in Sri Lanka

From the 10th century onward there was a decline in Buddhism mainly due to invasions from South India and then by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British. It is said that the Portuguese invaders in particular who arrived in 1505, with some assistance from the local kings destroyed Buddhist temples, libraries and art and converted the local Buddhists to Catholicism through bribing or punishments.

Although it was the Theravada tradition that was brought to Sri Lanka by Arahant Mahinda, by the 8th century there were two major divisions among the Buddhist monks, one group practising Theravada and the other group practising a mixture of Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana.

However, in the 12th century with royal patronage Theravada had again become the predominant Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka. From the 19th century there had been a revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and at present around 70% of the population are said to be Buddhists.

Currently, the Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka belong to one of three sects called Siyam Sect, originally hailing from Thailand, Amarapura Sect and Ramannya Sect, both of which hailed from Burma. All three sects practise principles of Theravada Buddhism with no doctrinal differences among them.

[adshofar]

2024년 8월 27일 미얀마 현지신문 헤드라인

The Mirror (정부기관지) – 8월 26일 민아웅흘라잉 위원장, 만달레이 Amarapura 타운십 Swe Taw Myat 파고다 방문  – 8월 21일부터 양곤 국제공항 원숭이두창 모니터링 강화 – 미얀마 선거관리위원회, Unity and Development Party, Socio-economic Promotion Party 정당 허가하면서 8월 26일 현재, 17개 정당 신청 중 14개 정당 허가  Myawady Daily (국방일보) – 8월 26일 민아웅흘라잉 위원장, 만달레이 중앙 사령부 시찰, 평화안보 조치 점검 및 군병원 방문 위로 – 8월 26일 민아웅흘라잉 위원장, 만달레이 교육진, 학생 간담회 개최 – 8월 25일 보건부, 주간 코로나 신규 확진자 38명 발생, 확진율…

[viajarelajado]

Sunset en el U Bein’s bridge de Amarapura, Myanmar 🇲🇲 en el año 2017. #alldaytraveling #amoviajar #aroundtheworld #beautifuldestinations #placestogo #discoverearth #destinationearth #travelblogger #wanderlust #phototravel #exploretheworld #photoworld #lovetravel #instatravelgram #instatraveling #instatravel #instatraveler #letsgosomewhere #instavacation #igtraveller #igworldtrip #igglobalclub #greatphoto #ubeinbridge #amarapura #myanmar

[toursandfoods]

Complete Myanmar Travel Guide

Welcome to our Myanmar travel guide video. Join us as we explore the best of this amazing country. Here, we will visit Yangon and will see its golden Shwedagon Pagoda and bustling streets. Then we will go to Bagan to see stunning ancient temples and take a hot air balloon ride. Next, we will visit Mandalay to discover sacred sites and historic cities like Amarapura and Sagaing. From rich culture to beautiful landscapes, this guide will show you all the must-see places in Myanmar. 

#myanmar #myanmartourism

[psychreviews2]

Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization by Bhikkhu Analayo

Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization

For those who have floundered in many different Buddhist traditions and want a solid foundation of Early Buddhist teachings, the following review highlights some of the works of Bhikkhu Analayo who is one of the best scholars of Early Buddhist texts. For this review I’ll focus on what good meditation practice is in this tradition. This will be mainly from Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization.

Bhikkhu Analayo

Bhikkhu Analayo is a Sri Lankan monk from the Amarapura Nikaya monastic fraternity. He was born in Germany in 1962, and ordained as a novice in Sri Lanka in 1995. In 2007 he received the Upasampada which is a marker of him “nearing the ascetic tradition” which is only available for those over 20 years of age. He became known for his work on comparing the Pali and Chinese Buddhist Canon. As instructions change with Buddhist lineages, many practitioners feel that the differences in the texts matter in defining what good practice is. His philosophy is that these early scriptures point to more accuracy and reliability when they agree.

Analayo’s thesis on the Satipatthana Sutta is dense but clearly laid out. Like most meditation manuals of this caliber, it has a lifetime’s worth of practice instructions that help the practitioner understand what good practice actually is. The way to read it is understanding the role of definition and how the differences in definition matter.

The practice of Satipatthana, as defined in the book, requires the establishment of four mental qualities which can be taken to represent the mental faculties of effort, wisdom, mindfulness, and concentration. To develop these qualities requires practicing diligence (effort), to know experiences clearly (wisdom), to be mindful, and to be free from desires and discontent (concentration and equanimity). Here is how it’s broken down:

Diligence

Diligence requires balance. Desire must be cultivated to have it, but the strange situation of creating a desire only to let go of desire seems logically circular. In Buddhism it is well known that you don’t give up desire until the mind naturally gives it up on its own. The mind strains less as the desire is naturally relinquished, but in the meantime, having desire can animate continued practice before the goal is reached.

For the practitioner the book recommends “keeping up one’s contemplation with balanced but dedicated continuity, returning to the object of meditation as soon as it is lost.” For those who have trouble with straining in their meditation I recommend looking at my review of the Anapanasati Sutta where relaxation is balanced with effort. See: The Anapanasati Sutta: https://rumble.com/v1gon6r-the-anapanasati-sutta-4-stages-of-meditation.html

In my experience, being lost in thoughts can feel like a tension bubble and with earlier practice methods there was often too much straining to bring the mind back to the object. As practice matures you can put just enough effort to come back and then resume your continuity. A good goal would be to think when you need to think and then naturally let it drop with an adequate bit of effort that increases or decreases according to how strongly fixated you are. More effort when it is required and less effort if it is enough. As practice deepens, less effort is required.

Clearly knowing

With clear knowing there are a range of definitions which include a presence of deliberateness, awareness of impermanence, and clear knowledge for overcoming unwholesomeness and establishing wholesomeness.

This clear knowing can be viewed as a progression to clearly know the purpose of progress to awakening, to clearly know the suitability of conduct that is careful and dignified, especially for one who is living like a monk or a nun. The third quality is called pasture which relates to the inappropriateness of being distracted by sensuality, compared to the sense-restraint required for the proper pasture of a monk or nun.

As wisdom is developed, clear knowledge starts losing its delusion. The typical description is to have an absence of lust, anger and delusion whereby there is an absence of "pulling in, pushing away, and running around in circles", as Buddhadasa describes. For example, if anyone looks at their addictions there is often a pulling in of what you want, a pushing away of what you don’t want leading to circular results without lasting satisfaction.

Mindfulness

With diligence and clear knowing the practitioner will require mindfulness to remember to come back to the present moment, but also to guard against improper "pastures". See: Emotional Feeding: https://rumble.com/v1gqvl1-emotional-feeding-thanissaro-bhikkhu.html

Mindfulness has this non-interfering quality to clearly observe the building up of reactions and their underlying motives. The book warns that “as soon as one becomes in any way involved in a reaction, the detached observational vantage point is immediately lost.” To me this reminds me of the psychological debate between an outcome orientation versus a learning orientation. When the goal is learning, then success is all around. When the goal is an outcome then the mind gears up to make those preferences happen, often with a lot of mental pressure. Mindfulness is humble with one’s own shortcomings and therefore reduces the energy needed to defend a self-image.

Analayo provides a good description of mindfulness in his book Early Buddhist Meditation Studies:

“Regarding the early Buddhist conception of mindfulness, a point worthy of note is that the instructions for Satipatthana meditation make use of conceptual labels to facilitate recognition. The actual instructions for contemplation of feelings or of states of mind, for example, use direct speech to formulate the conceptual labels to be used when practicing. In the case of a mind with anger, for instance, the task is to know a mind with anger as being 'a mind with anger'. This unmistakably envisions that satipatthana meditation involves the use of concepts. A practice like the labeling technique employed in the Mahasi tradition does in this respect seem to reflect quite well what the early discourses suggest actual practice to have been about.” See: Mental Noting: https://rumble.com/v1grcgx-mindfulness-nirvana.html

Freedom from desires and discontent (equanimity)

When the practitioner develops their skills to this level, they often find themselves absorbed in concentration states with progressively more freedom from desires and discontent leading to calm and contentment. This equanimity along with the prior attributes prepares the practitioner to see the futility of clinging to anything in experience until the mind surrenders the stress at arhatship.

This is represented with clarity in a figure of four cones where the four qualities are applied to all experiences.

In the book, Early Buddhist Meditation Studies, the four cones of the Satipatthana are described as follows:

“Here the body furnishes the material and spatial location 'where' I am, feelings provide the affective or hedonic tone of 'how' I am (in terms of feeling pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral), perceptions supply the conceptual appraisal of 'what' I am experiencing, formations are responsible for 'why' I react to anything that happens (in the way I actually do), and consciousness is that 'whereby' I experience.” Whereby being the cause and effect of what is happening.

Since consciousness is involved in all four cones it is a good reminder to not look at it as a solid place for the self. Look at it more as a “flow of moments of being conscious.”

Bhikkhu Analayo ends his book with his view of the importance of the Satipatthana Sutta and views it as “the direct path to the realization of Nibbana, to the perfection of wisdom, to the highest possible happiness, and to unsurpassable freedom.”

Books:

Early Buddhist Meditation Studies - Bhikkhu Analayo: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781540410504/

Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization - Bhikkhu Analayo: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781899579549/

Mindfulness: Nirvana: https://rumble.com/v1grcgx-mindfulness-nirvana.html

Credits:

Bhikkhu Anālayo By Bhikkhu Analayo, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14907622

A lute being made in a workshop By © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15104236

Contemplative Practice: http://psychreviews.org/category/contemplativepractice/

[buzzfeedblog]

The First Anglo-Burmese War

In March 1824 the first in a series of three conflicts between Britain and Burma broke out. At the outset of hostilities Burma was an independent state ruled from Amarapura by the Konbaung dynasty; by 1886, following the conclusion of a brief, three-week war (the ‘Third’) and subsequent ‘pacification campaign’, Burma was subsumed as a province of British India. The British Empire, having…

[recreational-hypnosis-resource]

Fishing nets looking like giant jellyfishes in Amarapura , Myanmar

[mothmiso]

Myanmar (2) (3) (4) by Achim

Via Flickr:

(1) Ancient stupas in Indein temple complex near Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda, Inle Lake. (2) Fisherman at work in the beautiful landscape at Inle Lake, Shan State. (3) (4) Crossing the Taungthaman Lake at Amarapura.    

[ginandnola]

Fishing nets looking like giant jellyfishes in Amarapura , Myanmar

[krugers]

Fishing nets looking like giant jellyfishes in Amarapura , Myanmar

[pronititravelagency]

Burma Days which will be happy for all

Burma is a tale set in the final years of British when Myanmar was a province of the Indian empire, by famed British author George Orwell. The adventure documents women travel in myanmar cross-country travels and encapsulates his previous feelings and thoughts. There are many adventure tour package Myanmar to have a good time with friends. Mandalay is the starting point of your adventure tour of Burma. Here, you may discover the neighborhood's famous sites, meet local artisans, and take in their works of art as well as enjoy the breath-taking views from Mandalay Hill's summit. You can travel to Hanlin, a UNESCO site noted for its traditional pottery methods, from here before continuing on to Shwebo. As you keep going, you arrive at Indaw, where you may explore the picturesque Indaw lake and the cave that is nearby and is home to bats. You go from here and journey to Katha, the setting for Burmese Days After spending time with the elephants, you will have plenty of time to retrace in Katha, which has kept its colonial charm. You return to Mandalay and explore Amarapura and Sagaing, the former capital of Ava, after spending some time absorbed in history. Everyone can also watch a stunning sunset from the U Bien Bridge. From here, you fly to Bagan, which boasts temples, and pagodas, after leaving Mandalay. Before boarding a trip to Yangon, you have plenty of time to see a few of the most important sites in the vicinity. You must climb Mount Zwekabin in order to witness the view from the mountaintop monastery with adventure tour package myanmar. Nearby, there are some incredible caves, one of which is the size of a football field. You also get to explore the town of Hpa An and the Shweyinmyew Pagoda, both of which are located on the bank of the Thanlwin River, before going to Mawlamyine.

[his-aniki]

Fishing nets looking like giant jellyfishes in Amarapura , Myanmar

[adshofar]

2024년 4월 1일 미얀마 현지신문 헤드라인

The Mirror (정부기관지) – 4월 1일부터 7일 양곤 팜유 도매 기준가 Viss당 5,250짯, 지난주 동일 – 3월 31일 코로나 중앙통제위원회, 코로나 관련 모든 정책 4월 30일까지 연장 – 3월 23일부터 27일까지 미얀마 경찰청, 만달레이지역 Patheingyi, Amarapura, Maha Aung Myay, Chan Mya Tharzi, Pyigyitagon 타운십에서 총 20억 짯 상당의 각성제 100만 정 적발, 남성 4명, 여성 2명 체포 – 농촌진흥청, 미얀마 전역 마을 주민들을 대상으로 전화, 페이스북, 바이어, 메신저 등의 다양한 채널 뿐만 아니라 건기 물부족 알림앱을 활용하여 소통할 예정 Myawady Daily (국방일보) – 제79주년 미얀마 국군의날 기념…

[pammypants]

Fishing nets looking like giant jellyfishes in Amarapura , Myanmar