Metta in Action

The people of Myanmar have already had unimaginable challenges – an increasingly violent civil war, hyperinflaton, crumbling infrastructure, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Now there is the devastation caused by the 7.7 Saaing Earthquake. In the Sagaing hills, the monastic heart of Burma near the epicenter of the quake, many houses have either fallen down or are at risk of doing so in the next aftershocks. The death toll is as yet uncertain. Our collective hearts have gone out to everyone. It seems too much – difficulty on top of difficulty – and the suffering is immense.

So, many of you have been in touch or have already sent donations – feeling the immediate wish to do something to relieve this suffering. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu! It might feel like a drop in the Pacific Ocean, but a lot of a little is indeed a lot. Special thanks to the Dutch and Belgian community of meditators who have mobilized and been so generous.

With dana in hand, we have set out to do do what we can. Of course we have been most deeply concerned about the welfare of the many people we know well in Sagaing, especially the nuns we have supported for many years. At first information was slow to come and patchy. First there was imagination, then rumor – but slowly we received more accurate information through messaging apps and phone calls.

Of the three nunneries in Sagaing that Metta In Action has supported over the last decades, one (Shwebo Nunnery) miraculously escaped serious damage. The nuns at both Thit Sein and Tusita Nunneries escaped without deaths or very serious injuries, but their buildings are much too damaged to be safe, with immense cracks in the load-bearing walls or whole sections of the building leaning precariously.

Since before the earthquake we have been in regular contact with the head nun at Thit Sein Nunnery (Daw Yuzana Theingi), so as soon as we could we sent dana to her to quickly put up a temporary structure for the nuns living there. It is a little difficult to arrange, but we intend to also send donations to Tusita. On top of everything, the rainy season is early this year – so the need for shelter had become especially urgent.

At Thit Sein, Daw Yuzana wasted no time at all. Within days of sending the dana, photos began to arrive – already the framing is up and the roof is on. Everone has been involved, nuns carrying bricks to keep costs down and move things along. They expect to be able to finish it after the New Year Water Festival. Then they can begin the herculean task of demolishing the old building and reconstruction.

Daw Yuzana also told us of another nunnery nearby in similar straits, Sasana Bein Nunnery, with 40 nuns and a building that is even more damaged than hers. We are gathering more information and will likely find a way to support these nuns as well.

There are undoubtedly many others in similar circumstances, and untold general suffering. We want to relieve the suffering of all, of course, but for the moment we feel the best use of Metta In Action donations is to stay close to our long established mission of offering to nuns – and to make larger donations to a few nunneries rather than small donations to many, thus offering a substantial relief of suffering.

Fortunately, we are not alone. There are many hands helping. In addition to the usual big international organizations, Better Burma is doing wonderful work in getting dana directly to where it is needed most on the ground in Sagaing, casting a wide net. And hundreds of ordinary Burmese people are heroically doing everything they can, neighbors helping neighbors. The one remaining bridge across the Irrawaddy River at Sagaing has been jammed with private cars – from neighborhood organizations, family groups, dana groups – laden with necessary supplies. So we at Metta In Action join a big river of metta. Our drop of help – yours – is joining many others to make an ocean of kind support.
So, heartfelt thanks to those who have sent donations. Please stay tuned for more information- we will post here as we get it so you can see the difference you are making.

May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering – in Burma and here at home, wherever home is for you. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!
Ayya Vīrāñāņī

We are happy to share with all of you that we have been able to successfully distribute all your donations from this last year. We are much more challenged in this task than usual – gone are the days (for now) of all of us convening in Yangon, each with our share of dana: Only Ariya was able to get to Burma this year. So we contacted our Dhamma friend Joah McGee of Better Burma, and his help – and that of his amazing on-the-ground coordinators – made it possible to get your dana to Ariya in Burma or directly to every one of our nunnery schools and nunneries. We are both very grateful to them, and glad to have strengthened bonds of kindness and purpose between our organizations. Offering dana together is a joy!

We are in the process of completing updates and will post them here in the Updates page for you to savor. In the meantime here are some photos so you, too, can rejoice in our sharing work, done together – every one of you who has donated even a small amount is a hand under the offering tray!

In January we offered some support to Daw Wato, one of the helpers at the monastery whose daughter (Ma Sandar Win) had undergone an operation. She had had to go into debt to pay for it and we were happy to relive her of this burden. All seemed well.

But in March, she came to me (Ayya Virañani) again with the bad news that the symptoms had returned, and worse. A local doctor had tentatively diagnosed a malignancy, and Ma Sandar Win was admitted to the oncology ward a nearby government hospital for further testing and treatment. The diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma came back, followed immediately by a round of chemo treatment.

Anyone who has lived with cancer knows the special hell realm of worry, uncertainty, and discomfort that it entails. The medical system in Burma being what it is right now, all of that is even worse. And it is expensive even here – costs quickly added up for basic tests at the government hospital, and more advanced imagery at a private hospital (where you can’t walk through the door for less than the equivalent of 100USD).

So we were very glad to be able to offer some support to ease Daw Wato’s concern about how to pay for the necessary treatment. She has been unfailingly helpful to us and now it was our turn to offer her and her family some ease and heartfelt well-wishing.

Fortunately Ma Sandar Win was discharged right before I flew to Europe. So she, Daw Wato, and a veritable posse of supportive neighbors came to say thank you. In spite of the intensity of the chemo, she was feeling better than in a long time, without the symptoms that had been bothering her. Since then, Daw Wato keeps me updated by Viber and so far so good: the blood tests are improving and she has done another round of chemo, with four more left to go. We feel for her as she does this intense treatment and cross our fingers that she goes into remission!

Her thanks to us are thanks to you. One less bit of suffering in this world is no small thing.

Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!

Just before Ayya Virañani left for Europe, we offered a wheelchair to one of the older nuns at CMMC. She has lived for many years at both Chanmyay Yeiktha and our centre, helping yogis in innumerable ways. But a few years ago she had a mild stroke, making walking difficult. All this time, through Covid until quite recently, she has bravely and patiently made a couple of rounds of the compound each day just to keep mobile. In the last months she has been increasingly weak and unable to walk much – so she has no longer been able to be part of the community. After we bought the wheelchair for the youngster from Thaleba, we realized that we could also buy one for Daw Janesei. The result has been so gratifying, a truly joyful thing. Now Sayalay Janesi is part of the wider world outside of her room, able to meet people and enjoy the garden again. It is heartwarming and beautiful to see!

As I was going through a box of files in Burma, I came across some old photos from 2008. Fifteen years have passed, and so much has changed – in large part because of all the support of Metta In Action friends from around the world. It brought so much joy, to see the tangible results of all our – your – generosity!

So for your inspiration…how it started/how it’s going:

Sasanasukhacari Laputta Nuns, 2008. The shadow in the background is the precariously leaning side of their bamboo building, damaged by Cyclone Nargis.

Sasanasukhacari Laputta Nuns, 2022, Nuns heading to high school with their schoolbags over their shoulders, in front of their comfortable and secure two-story brick building.

Appamada Nunnery, Daw Sumanacari with family and helpers with the hostel and water tank rebuilt after Cyclone Nargis, 2008:

Appamada Nunnery and the thriving school Daw Sumanacari has built there, 2022:

These changes and many more in other nunneries have come from 15 years of steady support – long may the work of these very special women prosper!

Ayya Viranani

Thanks to your open-handed generosity this year, we were able again to bring significant donations for nuns and the wider community in Burma. Given current conditions of displacement and uncertainty, that support has been even more important than in previous years – there has been a cumulative effect of recent shocks, so the amount of need and costs have risen together. More people require support, and everything is more expensive.

So we are delighted to let you know that we have just completed our distributions for 2022-23, and will be posting detailed updates soon. We wish you could see for yourself the relief and joy your generosity has caused. A few photos will have to do for the time being, coming to you with heartfelt thanks.

As I write this at the end of 2021, there seems no end to the global challenge that is Covid-19. Looking back on older posts feels like a visit to another universe, one that was freer, more open, and simpler. Conditions here are of course made even more difficult by events that began unfolding in February this year. All for this has made our work both more necessary and much more complicated. Every step is harder – from getting your donations here to the distribution of them.

Because of Covid, I rarely leave the monastery; donors come here or send someone to receive the donation. So the joy of visiting the many nunneries nearby is one that must for now be put off. But in spite of everything we are pleased to have successfully distributed the generous contributions you sent last year, and I am in the process of distributing this year’s donations. We say this every year, and every year it is true: your generosity is amazing, and needed more than ever. It is safe to say that is more true now than it has ever been.

On the updates page you will find a link to a PDF of our most recent update. We offer our profound thanks and wish you and yours a happy and healthy New Year!

Each year we converge here in Burma, bringing donations from all the corners of the world. So in October the ‘MIA Bank’ begins to fill up. And then as the year moves on, we gradually draw down the balance to zero. So yesterday was ‘Zero Day’ for 2019-2020; we joyfully offered what remained (as well as some very generous donations that had come in during the CMMC metta retreat) to Metta Yuwa School near Kyaiaklo Pagoda in Yangon.

It was a joy to ‘breathe out,’ offering every last kyat of our donations to such a worthy recipient. It seemed so apt to be kneeling beneath the enormous green Buddha in Daw Yuzana’s reception room – under the gaze of this beacon of wisdom and compassion – while remembering all the many donations this year. Each person we give to is making a tangible difference to many lives, and each works endlessly for love and kindness, rather than from a desire to make money. So every one of your donations has been food for the heart, for someone.

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Daw Yuzana was especially grateful, as she has just lost three teachers to a private school that could offer them a much better salary. She is sad to lose them, because they will be very difficult to replace: teachers who have both teaching skills and metta are rare! Both are requirements to work there, with metta being equally important as pedagogical skills

Private schools charge a lot of money and can pay top salaries, so of course free schools such as Daw Yuzana’s will never be able to compete. And as the cost of living here continues to go up, teachers will be increasingly hard to retain.

So as long as we can continue, we will keep doing our part in allowing this flow of metta, beginning now to breathe in, and come October breathing out again…

We happily offer a huge “Thank You” from our side, and are joyfully sharing the abundant merit! Together, we all did a good thing, many good things! By virtue of this, may all beings in all directions that they may have happiness and be free from suffering~

Amya, amya, amya, yudaw mukya ba koun lo, sadhu sadhu sadhu! (Sharing, sharing, sharing ~ may all beings partake of this merit! Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!!)

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We hear stories all the time when we make offerings at nunneries.
And many of them are familiar — the usual small sad tragedies followed by rescue and happy endings.

But we heard a story when we offered at Sasanaramsi Nunnery that was…well…different. And it has a happy ending.

The nuns all go out on almsround together twice a week into the city. Generally everyone is quite disciplined, walking closely together in single file. But many of these nuns are just kids — and with kids, anything can happen.

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So in this case what happened is that one of the little 7 year-old nuns became separated from the rest and got totally lost. She found a nunnery and went there for help but did not know how to describe where home was, besides “Mingaladon.”

Which is a 41 square-mile township, with hundreds of nunneries.
Within easy walking distance of Chanmyay Myaing Meditation Centre alone — in this little girl’s general neighborhood — there are almost 30 nunneries! (Here is a modified version of an old hand-drawn map I made in 2008, with the pink dots being nunneries in the neighborhood in addition to the eight numbered ones on the map. The bigger red dot is her nunnery.)

So since “Mingaladon” didn’t narrow down her address any, of course the kind stranger nuns took the little girl in — while at the same time the Sasanaramsi nuns were desperately searching everywhere for her. Unable to find her they finally went home, downhearted and very worried. They continued to make inquiries everywhere they could think of, and looked for her every time they went out.
For a whole month.

Then one day when all the nuns were out in the city on their almsrounds, just by chance everyone found each other while they were walking in opposite directions down a busy street. It was a very happy reunion, and a lucky ending of what could have been a much more forlorn story. Now the nuns laugh about the experience, but it was clearly trying for everyone involved.

Going out for alms is exhausting, and sometimes it’s a risky business (when it involves crossing busy roads). But while we could never have imagined it, getting lost occasionally happens too.

As does getting found.

Fortunately this is Burma, and she was a nun. So the little girl in the middle of this story didn’t end up sleeping on the street, nor did she meet up with dangerous strangers. She was offered shelter and kindness, and taken in by other nuns as one of the family.

And then miraculously, she found her way home.

‘Happily ever after’ is a myth. But sometimes even ‘happily for now’ is a wondrous thing.

Young nuns returning from almsrounds, safe and sound

Here is a post with a minimum of words!

As we prepare to go to Upper Myanmar to continue to make offerings up there, those of us who are taking photos have chosen our favorite ones from the last week or so to share with you — some impressions from our days of offering here in Yangon.
Enjoy!

Greg’s favorites:

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Virañani’s favorites:

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Ariya’s favorites:

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