Buddhism in Myanmar: An Introduction and Part 1

March 4th, 2013

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (I'm catching up on my posts)

Song of the Day: We Are Young by fun. (ft. Janelle Monae) / the adapted version of Bubba Sparxx's 2006 top 10 hit with the lyrics, "Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha everywhere"

Mood: Happy

Buddhism in Myanmar: Introduction to the Series

Buddhism is the most popular religion in Myanmar. About 89% of the population practices some form of Buddhism and nearly all young men spend a month or two at a monastery at some point. Myanmar is the most religious Buddhist country in terms of the proportion of monks in the population and proportion of income spent on religion. (Source: Wikipedia)

I have had almost no formal training on Buddhism and so all my thoughts represented here are from walking around many different pagodas in Myanmar and may not line up with the official Buddhist teaching and practice.

Part 1: Buddhism, a brief introduction

A summary of Buddhism

The Botataung Pagoda in Yangon posted this summary of Buddhism:

Highlights include:

·         Forbearing patience is the highest moral practice.

·         Not to do evil, to cultivate merit, to purify one's mind

Buddha's appearance varies by country

The Chinese Buddha is fatter and jollier than the others:

From Mount Popa

The Indian style shows the Buddha smiling:

From Bagan. The Buddhas hand postures have different meanings
such as protection or a call to witness the Buddha's enlightenment

The Myanmar style shows the Buddha as more expressionless. The rest of the pictures here are in Myanmar style.

Buddhas vary by material

Most of the Buddhas in Myanmar are made of gold. In some places, people even add gold leaf on to the Buddha to earn merit 

This woman paid ~$1 US to add gold (Bagan)

So much gold has been added to the statue in  the Mahamuni Temple in Mandalay
that there is now a covering of gold six inches think, distorting the image

However, the Buddha can be made of other material, such as this marble Buddha from Ava, the ancient capital of Myanmar:

Marble Buddha, Ava

In China, the Buddha is often made of jade.

Housed in Pagodas

Worshipers build pagodas to house Buddha in order to earn merit. In some places such as Mandalay and Bagan, there are many, many pagodas near each other.

A sunset in Bagan, home of ancient pagodas

A sacred hill full of pagodas in Ava

The two largest pagodas in Myanmar are Shwedagon and Shwemadaw

Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon. It looks especially tall
from other parts of the city because it is on a hill

The Shwemawdaw pagoda in Bago is the tallest at nearly 375 feet.
For scale, all 6' 5" of me is in the blue shirt and khaki shorts.

The Kyaikpun pagoda shows four different images of the Buddha.
Each side is nearly 100 feet tall (Bago)

The Buddha is often placed in scenes relating to key events from his life

Siddhartha (aka the Gautama Buddha) is said to
have reached enlightenment under the Bodhi tree (Ava)

The story goes that while Buddha was deeply engrossed in meditation,
a giant snake rose up and provided share for him (Bago)

Reclining Buddha
In Myanmar, the Buddha is sometimes shown lying down.

Bago has the second largest reclining Buddha in Myanmar.
The Buddha is 180-feet long and was built over 1,000 years ago.

Botataung pagoda, Yangon

Buddha does not look like a typical human:

Buddha has long ears, possibly to signify great listening skills
or he is all hearing. (Bagan)

The Buddha is often given three lines on the neck
for beauty and auspiciousness (Bago)

The Buddha often looks very androgynous

Stay tuned to learn about how Buddhism is practiced in Myanmar...