Lupin D'Souza has been a monk for many years. He was born in 1960 in Burma and has been an activist at the time of the democracy movement in the late 80s and early 90s. And as a result of his activities, he spent approximately 10 years in prison. on several occasions, having been imprisoned on several occasions in very difficult conditions of incarceration. In the Saffron Revolution in 2007, he was at an unusual monastery, not so far from Rangoon, called Magin, where he and some other monks began a monastery that actually treated people, they took in people with HIV, which is a very rare thing in a monastic setting, and they took them in

[01:10]

and they have a very strong social awareness. And so it was with that awareness and with his background that he became a leader of the Saffron Revolution in the fall of 2007. Following that, he and other leaders were very actively hunted by the Burmese regime. and he was able a small number of monks and he was one of them wearing different disguises and taking off their robes and growing their hair he was able to flee to Thailand and he was there for a short while and then had the opportunity to emigrate from Thailand to the United States he and two other monks started a monastery in Utica, New York and most recently they have moved to Brooklyn the same three monks, all of them veterans of the Saffron Revolution and they have an organization, the All Burma Monks Alliance which is supporting monks and nuns in prison in Burma and those who are in exile and maintaining a dharmic

[02:39]

perspective on liberation and democracy in Burma. So, with that, I will turn things over to Pinyasata. We'll have time for question and answer. And he and Kenneth will share their, he'll share his experience and Kenneth will help us translate. I would like to thank you all for coming here today. I would like to thank you all for coming here today. I would like to thank you all for coming here today. May I first of all pray for the health and the well-being and the bliss of all the friends of the Dharma who have made this speaking engagement happen and I also like to offer my gratitude, my sincere thanks to the officials of the Berkeley Zen Center.

[03:45]

I'd like to just offer a brief summary of my life experience, but what I really prefer is actually to interact with the friends of the Dharma here, the audience members, and I would welcome the questions that will come afterwards. At age 11 I became a novice, and according to the traditions of the Theravada Buddhism, at age 20 I was officially qualified to become So roughly I've spent about 39 years of my life as a Burmese Buddhist monk. I studied in monasteries across Rangoon and Mandalay and the central districts of Burma.

[05:12]

I was a graduate of the Rangoon Pali Academy, the religious academy of the country. In 1988, I established the Teaching Monastery, a monastery where I departed my knowledge of Dharma to the younger novices and young monks, and that was in the Along district in Burma. I had roughly about 30 novices and young monks in my charge at the time. 400 young monks in my charge. In 1988, as you might remember, there was a nationwide uprising in my country.

[06:35]

And because it became nearly impossible for the monastic order in Burma to ignore the plight of their fellow countrymen, I too took to the street and took part in the protest. Because of my involvement, the security forces and the Burmese government at the time charged me with the Political Sedition Act. So I was sent to prison and I was not released from the prison until 1993. Once again I was arrested in 1998 and I was not released until 2004. So essentially the first time my sentence was 7 years, the next time it was 3 years. By the time I was first arrested in 1990, I had not practiced Dharma in depth.

[07:56]

I had only understood the principles of Dharma in theoretical fashion. In Sri Lankan language, there is a word called Tauzeh. Tauzeh is a word that is used to describe a person who is in a difficult situation. Tauzeh is a word that is used to describe a person who is in a difficult situation. At the time of my first arrest, I was roughly 30 years of age, and you might say that I was the youth. I was still rough around the edges, not exactly a seasoned monk, and a little bit stubborn as well.

[08:57]

So naturally, when I was interrogated and I was misused, I felt anger, frustration, just like anyone else would have when subjected to injustice. I was underfed, I was undernourished and I was underslept so naturally my spiritual well-being took a toll and there was a lot of frustration and anger that developed within me at the time. So, you know, I like to have a cup of tea. I was reminded then that I have learned, I have taught a lot of Dharma, and I had also learned a lot of Dharma.

[10:02]

And within that Dharma, I came to realize that the way, the option that I have to suppress my anger and my resentment towards the people who have been mistreating me, one of the options I have is actually to start practicing deep meditation. It was difficult at first, but about five days after I had meditated for a while, I began to see a marked difference in my own attitude and there was a reduction of my own resentment and anger towards my captors. I also noticed that my captor's attitude towards me changed as well.

[11:03]

They began to mistreat me less frequently as they used to. Namo Buddhaya. Namo Buddhaya. Initially I requested permission from my captors, the chief of the prison, to allow me to teach other fellow prisoners how to meditate. First I was refused permission, but eventually they granted me permission so I was able to teach my fellow prisoners to meditate with me. When I was released from prison, I went around the viharas and the different dharma centers to teach meditation to other people.

[12:07]

When I was released from prison, I went around the viharas and the different dharma centers to teach meditation to other people. After my release from prison in 2004, I established yet again a teaching monastery in the Thinganjun district in Burma, and that also became the center where we treated patients with, patients who had HIV. HIV is not a disease. It's [...] not a disease. Among the HIV positive patients that I was attending to were people who were not from the Buddhist tradition. They were Islamic people and people who are from the Hindu faith and Christian people as well.

[13:11]

And what I did was I also taught them how to meditate according to the Buddhist rules. In the beginning of the Sura, there was a man named Mawdama, who was a great teacher of the Surya. He was a great teacher of the Surya. He was a great teacher of the Surya. He was a great teacher of the Surya. As you might imagine, a lot of these patients have already been forsaken by the family members who cannot take care of them, and friends and loved ones they felt have abandoned them. So when I taught them the idea of compassion and asked them to meditate on the notion of compassion, I could see a difference in their attitude, their spiritual well-being, and their mental capacity. Sari, Nathal, [...] N

[14:35]

In 2007 in Burma there was an extraordinary price hike people to earn a livelihood, to make ends meet, so the public begins to suffer. And in the Burmese Buddhist tradition, Buddhist monks have to rely on their patrons and patronesses to be able to practice their teachings and the dharmas. So naturally, they take up the cause of the people, and they started taking to the street, and they started reciting the compassionate verses, the Buddhist verses, in order to raise awareness of what's happening to the people and to demand that the commodity prices be relieved somehow. For our participation in this uprising that was led by the monks, my previous monastery, the Mekin Monastery, has been sealed up and forcibly shut off.

[16:01]

And my abbot is currently still in prison for his involvement. And I escaped only because I was in hiding at the time and I wasn't at the monastery during the raid. In the past, when I was young, I used to go to my grandmother's house, my father's house, my mother's [...] house, my mother's house, my father's house, my mother's house, my father's house, my mother's house, my father's house, my mother's house, three months into this uprising because the authorities cannot apprehend me. What they did was they arrested my mom and my sister and my younger brother. And at that time I began to realize that I was essentially an outlaw in my own country and I would no longer be able to stay there. So I switched to civilian clothes, disrobed myself, and stayed in hiding and somehow fled to the mess of Thai-Burma border area.

[17:06]

Six months after arriving in the Thai-Burma border, the U.S. refugee management officials contacted me and helped arrange for me to get asylum status and eventually that's what brought me here to the U.S. in 2008. Because they cannot find me in the country, they have also sentenced me to 18 years in prison in absentia. In the U.S. there is a law that states that if a person is born in the U.S. they are not allowed to leave the U.S. If a person is born in the U.S. they are not allowed to leave the country. There were roughly about 37 of my fellow monks who came to the United States under similar conditions for their involvement in the Satran revolution, as the 2007 uprising is come to be known as.

[18:32]

But of us, only about seven of the monks still remain in monkhood, just because the circumstances and the new countries and the environment doesn't lend itself to having a support structure for Buddhist monks. At the moment, I'm focusing my efforts on four primary jobs for me. One of the things I'm doing is to bring support and relief for the about 260 to 270 estimated Burmese monks who are still in prison. I also provide support and logistic help for the young people and the monk who are still actively pursuing pro-democracy initiatives inside my own land.

[19:42]

The young people and the monk who are still actively pursuing pro-democracy initiatives inside my own land. [...] The young I'm also providing help to my fellow monastic brethren who are now living in exile in India, Bangladesh and other neighboring countries. I'm also concentrating some of my efforts at the Thai-Burma border to train the next generation of young people and the monks to take up non-violent activism. We have a branch office in the Thai-Burma border area and that branch office essentially is the headquarter of all our operations now.

[20:56]

In the U.S., there is a lot of talk about how the U.S. government is trying to get rid of the U.S. embassy in China. We do a lot of work in collaboration with groups like Amnesty International and for monks who have resettled in the U.S., we have the chance to go around to academic institutions, universities, and movie theaters, all of the places where we have the chance to interact with the audience. We tell the story of our homelands. I want to offer my wholehearted thanks to the audience for your attention. Thank you very much. Will you take some questions?

[22:05]

Please feel free to raise questions if you have any. You can call on people. I can only imagine the pain that you experienced when your family was in prison, when the authorities could not find you. And I suspect this happened to many families of monks who fled. What has happened to your family subsequently? Are they now free or are they still in prison? My name is Uzein. I am from Uzein. I am from Uzein. My name is [...] Uzein. My name is Uzein. My name is Uzein. My name [...] is Uzein.

[23:06]

My name is Uzein. [...] In Thailand, there is an MSF hotel. In Thailand, there is an MSF hotel where you can interview people. You can interview people there. [...] You One of the strategies that I took was, once I got to Massau, I started doing a lot of media interviews to raise awareness of the fact that I'm no longer in the country. So once the government and the security forces realized that there was no point in holding my family hostage in the hope that they can capture me, They were in prison for about 10 days, but after that they were released.

[24:08]

But the tragedy is I can no longer contact my family even though I'm here safe in the U.S. because if I try to contact them, I fear that I will jeopardize their safety once again. You've been displaced. You're a refugee. Your family is in jeopardy. I can imagine you're facing enormous difficulty trying to establish your practice center in Brooklyn. Here I am on the West Coast, in a Western country, a very sheltered life, and I can't imagine or comprehend the difficulty you and fellow monks and nuns are going through. How do you, today, tomorrow, How do you find happiness and how do you maintain your practice? And if they're going to be who are they to say, God, I think we'll be so bad.

[25:39]

They're a bar. I think I'll teach about it. And he got up here. And do they do it? Huh? I think we'll be so bad. My time in there. I think we'll ever since I need me. In Naga-Kaharigula, there is a story about a young man who went to the forest to look for a lion. He found a lion in the forest, but he couldn't find the lion. I don't want to be. I'm delighted that you raised that question because that's a very good question. My strategy is to keep my mind occupied with the present, to be in the moment, because if I cannot dwell on the past and I cannot be plagued by anxieties about my future,

[26:48]

And if I let my past or my future start to affect my mind, then I would not be able to keep my mind pure, my thought pure. So what I would advocate is that there is also accordance with the Buddhist laws that you focus your mind primarily on the present and be in the moment. So, if you want to be a good person, you have to be a good person. If you want to be a good person, you have to be a good person. If you want to be a good person, you have to be a good person. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. The mind is often plagued by anger, lust for wealth, grief, dissatisfaction, resentment towards the people who have mistreated you, and jealousy, and a host of other strong emotions.

[28:24]

And you might say that all these strong emotions are flames that burn within you. So if you concentrate your mind on the present and be in the moment, you will, in essence, be extinguishing all of those strong emotions. So I would like to encourage everybody to try the best you can. So, one question in the back. You continue to be very outspoken in this country, and I'm very courageous in speaking up for human rights and the rights of the month. And I'm wondering if you're in any danger now, do you feel that you're in any personal danger here? I don't think I'm in any danger here in America. I don't think I'm in any danger here. [...]

[29:25]

I don't think I'm in any danger here. I don't think I'm in any danger here. I don't think I'm in any danger here. I don't think I'm in any danger Prabhupāda, I do not know. SUBJECT 2 And I don't fear for my own personal safety because in my view, America is one of the few countries where you can count on the rule of law to protect me. And in other words, in addition, there are people in Burma who are in prison who are languishing without medicine, without safety, without any kind of protection.

[30:28]

So I feel that even if my own safety were jeopardized here, I'm essentially doing much better than many of my fellow countrymen who are in prison. Let's take this lady first. Will you tell us a little bit about the daily life in your monastery in Brooklyn? Does anyone from That's American, the American meditation piece. Brooklyn, my brother, who's in a town, [...] In the past, there was a Yudhidhara in New York City. He was a Yudhidhara. [...]

[31:28]

He was a Yudhidhara. [...] He was a Yudh In the beginning of the world, there was a time when there was a lot of peace and tranquility in the world. There was a lot of peace and tranquility in the world, and there [...] was a When we first came here our monastery was established in Utica that made it very difficult for many of our patrons and patronesses and the Burmese community to get to Utica so that's one of the reasons we moved to Brooklyn and what we did was we converted a rented house into a monastery and at the moment we are concentrating on offering lessons to the Burmese youth who are from the Burmese community overseas

[32:39]

There are three of us, but two of my brethren are currently going to college and studying in schools in the community area. So we are trying to hold as many religious ceremonies and events as possible, but there are still challenges that we face. Let me take one question if I may, the gentleman over there, and then we'll go to the lady in the back. Could you tell us a little bit more about the democracy building initiatives in Burma right now, and also about the training you are giving the younger monks on the Burma high border? And what are your thoughts about how we from outside of Burma can be helpful in your struggle for freedom? Yes, there is a lot of democracy in Burma. There is also a lot of non-violence training in the Netherlands. There is also a lot of violence in the United States. What do you do in Burma?

[33:42]

In the beginning of the Siddhacca, there was a person called Bhogum Nyanga. He came to the Siddhacca and taught the Siddhacca. After that, he went to the Siddhacca and taught the Siddhacca. After that, he went to the Siddhacca and taught the Siddhacca. Let me first explain the situation in Burma. Burma recently held a sham election, a great election that essentially allowed the military regime to consolidate power and convert themselves into a civilian government. So, at the moment, I would say that the authoritarian regime still persists in my homeland. The regime has been in power for a long time. In the past, we used to go to the temple to pray. But now, we don't go to the temple to pray. I am very happy to be here.

[35:04]

I am very happy to be here. I am very happy to be here. I am very happy to be here. So the training that we give at the Thai-Burma border concentrates on several things. First, we teach the young people how to use multimedia effectively to spread their message. So that consists of things that are as fundamental as digital photography and video camera usage and email and internet usage to spread your messages. And also we teach young people how to stir up non-violent movement. But the final thing, perhaps the most important thing, is that once you start a movement, it's important to keep it going and keep the momentum going.

[36:06]

So we also offer trainings to keep the momentum going once the movement is in place and spread the movement worldwide and different strategies around doing that. I have been living in America for a long time. I have been living here for a long time. In my country, we have a lot of young people, women, men, and women of all ages. We have a lot of them, and we have a lot of them. We have a lot of them, and we [...] have a A lot of the things that we have been training the young people to do may appear to be very simplistic, but there is one difference, of course, between being in the United States and being in Burma.

[37:15]

In Burma, whether you are an ordinary citizen, a monk, or a student, and anything that you say could be misconstrued as political discussion and if so you could be arrested. So it's very important for us to teach the young people to conduct these simple things like video recording and photographing events and doing so in a way that is safe for themselves. There is a lot of agents, shall we say, the Burmese government security forces that are disguised in plainclothes, loitering around in internet cafes and different places. So one has to take a lot multimedia.

[38:16]

We may have time for one more question. I think the lady is in line over there, the lady in the back. Yeah? I have a very simple question about what you teach your students, how you teach them, and what focus you use to keep their minds in the present moment, to help encourage their minds to stay in the present moment. I don't know if it's true, but I think it's true. I don't know if it's true, but I think it's true. I don't know if it's true, but I think it's true. Kuyeng-e-liligu-lo, Aravati-aum, Timba-gu-lo, Ajao-le-suyik, Turo-a-yue-a, Nene-le-nu-ne-di-re. Ajao-saa-bi-go-za-le-ye, Turo-ti-ti-ja-ja, Na-le-aum, Kuyeng-e-liligu-ti-ja-bi-wa-le-lo. Nene-se-za-sha-la-bi, Sa-ko-sa-shi-ram-ja-la-bi-suyi-no, E-kuy-li, E-kuy-ni-su-lu-shi-no, Te-ya-tha-le-ne-ha-li-ne-wa-tu-e-bi-ru-te-ne-mo, De-du-i-mo-sa-ru-mi-o

[39:28]

So for the young novices, perhaps teaching them philosophy or teaching them to control their mind might be a little bit beyond their comprehension. So what I concentrated on with the younger monks and the younger disciples and younger pupils is simply to teach them literature and Dharma. But when they get to the point where they are approaching adulthood and they feel it seems they are capable of philosophical discussions and debate, that's when I pair up Well, I think we're going to end there, but we can have discussion over tea and cookies outside. I'm very grateful to Upanisadha for coming here and for translating. If you would like to have more opportunity to be with him, he and Temple Smith and I will be doing a no fee, one day sitting in discussion, a lot of meditation and discussion, tomorrow at Spirit Rock, and that's still open, you can just show up.

[40:42]

And I think you'll have an opportunity to make a donation if you like, outside. They have their own non-profit now, Clearview Project has been supporting them since 2008, since the Southern Revolution actually, and now they can accept funds themselves directly, and the work they're doing is really, really important, as you've heard. So, thank you very much. If I may take one minute of your time, I'd like to say a compassionate prayer for you. Let me first recite the verse in Burmese and then I'll repeat it again in English. TUM MI DAS WANG KA WAL WANG YIN YANG JA WA ZI LU WEN SHIN JIN NEK SEH CHING KIN SHIN JA WA ZI TUM MI DAS WANG KA WAL WANG YIN YANG JA WA ZI LU WEN SHIN JIN NEK SEH CHING KIN SHIN JA WA ZI TUM MI DAS WANG KA WAL WANG YIN YANG JA WA ZI

[42:08]

May there be no deception of one another. May loving-kindness envelop the world and may there be peace on earth. May there be no deception of one another. May loving-kindness envelop the world and may there be peace on earth. May there be no deception of one another. May loving-kindness envelop the world and may there be peace on earth. Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

[42:52]

@Text_v004
@Score_HI