Over the past four decades, Buddhists in Burma, mainly monks, have been brought before Sangha courts charged with heresy, adhamma, and malpractice, avinaya, under the jurisdiction of the State Sanghamahanayaka Committee. This body, established under General Ne Win in 1980, oversees the regulation and conduct of the Sangha. The religious courts that try these cases have the backing of state law enforcement agencies: failure to comply with their judgements is punishable by imprisonment. A guilty verdict has been passed in all (...) seventeen cases to date. There is no opportunity of appeal. The system not only protects Burmese Buddhism against corruption, but also stifles innovation and dissent. These cases, not previously discussed in scholarship outside of Burma, are significant for understanding the power of the State over the Sangha as well as the conservatism and antisecularism of Burmese Buddhism, which have set it at odds with the relativist approaches of modern, global Buddhism. (shrink)

The P?li Nik?yas describe a range of painful feelings that are experienced by human beings. The painful feelings are primarily divided into the categories of dukkha and domanassa. In its broader sense, dukkha covers a complete range of different types of painful or unpleasant feeling. But when it appears within a compound or together with domanassa successively within a passage, its meaning is primarily limited to physical pain while domanassa refers to mental pain. This article investigates the question of whether (...) or not the Arahant and the Buddha experience mental pain as well as physical pain. My analysis of doctrinal explanations demonstrates that the Arahant and the Buddha are subject to experience physical pain and physical disease but not mental pain. This article also clarifies why and to what degree the P?li tradition sees them as experiencing physical pain and disease. (shrink)

This article is based on interviews with U Ashin Wirathu and an analysis of Buddhist nationalist discourses of violence against religious and ethnic minorities in Myanmar. I explore a fundamental issue that continues to plague the Rohingya—the emphasis on the Rohingya as victims of nationalist systemic Buddhist violence. This chapter sets out to bring Rohingya agency to the forefront. Rohingyas are characterized as immutably foreign and Muslim—that is, they are labeled with an identity convenient to state-sangha oppression. Through interviews (...) with relocated Rohingya society members and the mentoring of Dr. Jerryson, this work is dedicated to the rehumanization and devictimization of the Rohingya. (shrink)