Love!

 

“အခ်စ္ အခ်စ္၊ ခ်စ္တိုင္းခ်စ္၍၊ ခ်စ္ေလခ်စ္ေလ၊ ခ်စ္မေၿပတည္း၊ ဆားငန္ေရေနာက္၊ ငတ္တိုင္းေသာက္က၊ ေသာက္ေလေသာက္ေလ၊ ငတ္မေၿပသုိ႔၊ ေပမအရာ၊ တဏွာဖြဲ႔ရစ္၊ ထိုအခ်စ္လည္း၊ အၿပစ္မၿမင္၊ မဆင္ၿခင္ဘဲ၊ ခ်စ္လွ်င္ေပ်ာ္ႏုိး၊ ခ်စ္စပ်ိဳးသည္၊ ခ်စ္ရိုး ခ်စ္စဥ္ ခ်စ္လမ္းတည္း။”

                                                                  (ေရွးပညာရွိပ်ိဳ႔)

“Love! Love! The more they love, the more they are insatiate, just as they cannot quench their thirst by drinking salty water. Love, pema or tanha, turns a blind eye to one’s defects; expecting happiness through love, one nurtures loves. This is the way of love, the nature of love”

                                                                  (An ancient Burmese poem.)

Ashin Kovida: “Change Will Come, No Matter What.“

“The Pen is sharper than the Sword” – Martin Kovan interviews Ashin Kovida and Ashin Issariya

“The Pen is Sharper than the Sword” Interview with Ashin Issariya (aka King Zero) and Ashin Kovida, 14th March, 2011 The Best Friend Library, Mae Sot
by Martin Kovan
 

Ashin Issariya, also known by the pen-name King Zero, was one of the central architects and organizers of the 2007 Saffron Revolution, and continues his educational, political and social-welfare work in exile in Mae Sot, Thailand, via The Best Friend Library with branches which he founded inside and outside Burma. His colleague Ashin Kovida also coordinates the Library and educates the local and global audience about the ongoing Buddhist non-violent resistance movement inside and outside Burma. Martin Kovan is a writer and scholar of Buddhism currently living and working as an educator in Mae Sot.

The Best Friend Library: Education is the key to Freedom

When you pass through Mae Sots’ busy market with all it’s exotic smells and views, you arrive at a four storey building in Bua Khun Road with a banner over the entrance door saying “The Best Friend Library Free Education Center”. Founded by one of the key figures in Burma’s 2007 uprising, this library has become a safe haven for migrants and refugees from Burma and a meeting place for interested people from all over the world.

Friendship

Man is by nature a social animal; no one can live alone. We do not live for us alone. We live for each other. So without others I do not exist. Imagine that there was nothing and nobody, what would you be then? So everybody we know somehow affects our lives. I think the quality of our life depends much on the quality of our friendship with people around us.

Buddhism and Politics

                                       

               Should Buddhist monks take part in political affairs?

U Kovida: Burma has a long history of monks being actively engaged in political affairs when it comes to the welfare of the people. Because everyday we eat food donated to us by the Burmese peoples, the majority are poor and oppressed. Sure, we Buddhist monks should not be attached to anything or anyone. But we did not live in total isolation. We monks remain in contact with the other members of the society. If someone perform any action, which disturbs the peace and harmony of the society, how can you have peace and harmony within yourself?

INTERVIEW

Vesak celebration in Germany

Buddha Day was celebrated on the 13^th of May 2012 in Frankfurt by the Burmese Buddhist temple.

About 100 people from different parts of Germany were present at the ceremony. First they recited Metta Bhavana altogether in unison. After that, people offered lunch, consisting of traditional Burmese food, to the present monks. Among them U Zawana, Ashin Kovida and others.