Shan leader wants monks to stay above politics

No.05 - 5/2007
13 May 2007
Politics
 
Shan leader wants monks to stay above politics
 
Shan monkhood should remain refuge for different sections of the Shan society and stay above politics, Shan State Army (SSA) South leader Col Yawdserk recently told a two-day assembly of Shan monks held at his main base of Loi Taileng, opposite Maehongson.
 
"They should remain nonaligned and neutral," said 50 year old Yawdserk, whose official title in Chairman, Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the political arm for the SSA. "We would like to see them as strict observers of the Vinaya (the monastic code of discipline), Pariyatti (study of the scriptures) and Patipatti (practice of the Teachings). They should also teach the people and all groups to love each other."

^{Col Yawdserk}

Involvement in politics at the expense of their own sworn mission in life ? to uphold and propagate the Lord Buddha's teachings ? would only place the cause of freedom in peril, he maintained. "Unlearned Shan monks will be replaced by learned Burmese monks sympathetic to the junta," he told S.H.A.N. on the sidelines of the meeting. "Who then could the people depend upon?"
 
A number of monks and ex-monks spoke in support of his plea. One recounted an episode during the Buddha's lifetime when the patron of his temple King Bhimbisara of Magadha was overthrown by Ajatasattu, the prot駩 of the Buddha's arch-rival Devadatta. Informed by Physician Jivaka of the coup, the Buddha immediately called a crisis meeting of the Sangha (the Buddhist clergy), where he instructed the monks to observe strict neutrality. "By observance of this neutrality principle, the Buddha in time overcame Devadatta's attempt to destroy the Sangha and also won the support of the new king," commented one of Yawdserk's advisors who used to be a much revered abbot in eastern Shan State.
 
The meeting, 9-10 May, also discussed the adoption of a Shan Pali script and the adoption of a uniform prayer system.
 
A number of Shan monks have been active in politics especially after the arrests of Khun Tun Oo, leader of the second largest winning party in the 1990 elections Shan Nationalities League of Democracy (SNLD) and his colleagues in February 2005.