Lama surya das naropa11/28/2023 On the contrary, Queen Victoria had issued a policy of rule for all colonial subjects that forbade help to any religion. Unlike in many areas under colonial control, the British-the kalas, or barbarians, as the Burmese called them-chose to rule directly in Burma with no monarch over them save, of course, Queen Victoria, the “Empress of India.” But the Burmese could not look to the British queen to fulfill the most vital responsibility of a Burmese ruler: the support of Buddhism. Yet the trauma of this event and the sweeping societal changes that followed would ultimately lead to the proliferation of insight meditation worldwide. Days after the British takeover, Burmese subjects watched as their king, surrounded by foreign soldiers brandishing rifles, was transported in a lowly oxcart from the royal palace (which became an officer’s club for drinking and socializing) to the steamship that would carry him into exile. Residing at the still point of the world, Thibaw, who ruled from 1878 to 1885, had as his defining responsibility the protection of Buddhism. To the Burmese way of thinking, the last king of Burma, like the kings before him, sat at the axis of a cosmos that rotated around the throne in Mandalay. The foreign soldiers who took control of the Burmese capital of Mandalay on that fateful day did not just destroy a kingdom but also the world as the Burmese knew it. Indeed, one could go so far as to pinpoint its origins to a particular day: November 28, 1885, when the British Imperial Army conquered the Buddhist kingdom of Burma. (In fact, no current tradition of insight practice can reliably trace its history back further than the late 19th or early 20th century.) Though now a global movement, insight practice had its start in a moment of interaction between a Western empire and an Eastern dynasty. It came into being specifically through colonial influence. The rise of this practice, however, was not strictly an indigenous development. The Vipassana view understood meditation as the logical and even necessary application of a Buddhist perspective to one’s life, whether lay or monastic. One must look instead to Burma to account for the ascendance of meditation to a popular practice-specifically, that of insight meditation. But they did not spark any broad-based movements. It is true that Thai forest masters, above all Ajaan Mun (1870–1949) and revivalist figures in Sri Lanka such as Dharmapala (1864–1933), played an important part in the establishment of insight practice and sounded the call for lay meditation. Prior to this time, no trend toward widespread meditation had developed anywhere. This question brings us to Burma just over a century ago. Where, then, did this now pervasive idea come from that meditation lies at the heart of Buddhist life? Aiming not toward awakening but toward a good rebirth, many Theravadins have even argued that meditation is inappropriate in our degenerate age, except perhaps for a rare few living in the isolation of jungles or mountain caves. To be sure, such folks have recognized the critical role meditation plays in awakening-in the Theravada view, you cannot become enlightened without such practice-but they have not doubted that one can live a worthwhile and authentic Buddhist life without meditating. On the contrary, instead of meditating, the majority of Theravadins and dedicated Buddhists of other traditions, including monks and nuns, have focused on cultivating moral behavior, preserving the Buddha’s teachings (dharma), and acquiring the good karma that comes from generous giving. But even counting Theravadins, progenitors of the massively popular insight meditation (Vipassana) movement, relatively few Buddhists historically have ever understood meditation to be essential. These days many assume that Buddhism and meditation go hand in hand-sometimes they are even considered to be one and the same.
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