People of Myanmar

Pictures along the way...

Golden Rock

    We visited Golden Rock about 4 hours outside of Yangon in the Mon (Hmong) province late last night and this morning. Golden Rock is a giant bolder on a ledge and the story goes that it is held in place by a hair of Buddha's head that was passed down to the former leader of the Hmong people. Regardless of the providence, it is considered to be one of the most Buddhist spiritual sites in the country. Many travel long distances to visit it once in a lifetime. It's a long way to the top of the mountaintop with the last few miles being in an open truck winding up switchback after switchback. There must have been 1,000 people up at the top in a weird mixture of intense spirituality and a fair-like family outing with families that set out blankets and food. Golden Rock is called that because believers gild the rock in gold leaf, Men can go to the rock and add their piece of gold leaf to one side of it and the rest is done by Buddhist monks every three years. It's a strange combination of kitsch and holiness. Anyway, it was worth visiting and our last outing for this trip. We are back in Yangon (Rangoon) now and had our goodbye dinner at the hotel. some are off early tomorrow morning and I'll stay on an extra day to walk around before leaving. Thanks for coming on the adventure with me...

Dave

Bagan Day 2

  Today was a rest day for me. The group is doing half day silent retreats yesterday and today, but I found myself wanting some time to myself to explore and do some photography. Laundry is done and I went to the fitness center yesterday and this morning to get some blood moving. I am finding that while it great to be here with the group and have things arranged; it just seems that we sit on the bus to someplace, walk around and then go to lunch and dinners. I have to say, some of the lunches and dinners have been really nice, but I need a different kind of nourishment in exercise and photography. That being said, we went to dinner last night with a puppet show and live music that was very nice.

   Bagan and the temples are interesting and the sheer history of the place is as well (300AD-1200AD as a religious site, 1200+ for Buddhism), but I'm finding it a bit overrun with tourists, balloon rides, temples crowded at sunrise and sunset for photo taking and the temples themselves very similar although there are many sizes. It seems like wealthier people in early times would sponsor a temple for the family and kings or rulers of the time built the largest and most grand. There are even stories about the most famous king of the era in the 1200's killing the artisans after completion so that no grander temple could be built afterwards.

 The Burmese are crazy about gold leaf and placing it on temples and Buddha images as a sign of respect and commitment. They sell incredibly thin sheets about 2" square for a few dollars for three sheets. They then place it on some Buddha images in certain temples and the bigger temples often are adorned with gold leaf on the tops by monks. In one temple we visited a few days ago, the gold leaf placed on a Buddha statue over course of 1,000yrs was estimated to be 7" thick and weight over 2 tons in total.

Carriage Ride to temple

One of the overrun temples at sunset


   Lacquerware is one of this areas special arts. I went to a small family run place this morning and while I had not appreciated the work in the past; seeing the way it is made and the artistry involved, I now think it's beautiful.

Bamboo rings that are concentrically assembled into a bowl shape

Small amounts of lacquer are applied to hold it together so they can be shaved into smooth insides and out

More lacquer is applied to make them even more stable for sanding

Color is applied and sanded

Engraving into the lacquer to add paint to the design

A lacquered and painted lid is being washed. Square shapes use teak wood as the base

Finished Lacquerware...Beautiful!

Bagan...

   Yesterday we arrived in Bagan (Pagan) which is a old town with about 3,000 Pagodas and temple built around 1250 AD. It's a valley about 20 miles log and was abandoned when the Mongolians invaded. It was in disrepair from weather, time and recent earthquakes, but starting in the 1980's, began it's restoration as a tourist destination. Some temples were just repaired and very simple brick, but a few have a very special spiritual feeling to them. We visited one of those yesterday and sat in Mediation for a while across from it. I'm off on my own today while the group does a mediation retreat for half a day. I wanted time to myself to visit the local museum and do some photography. Thanks for reading about my latest adventure...

Doing a selfie with Buddha

Ancient hair styles

Monk eying around...

Museum of Bagan

King of Bagan in 1200's

Dave

Mindfulness

  In a talk today by Stephen Bachlor, he said that mindfulness is letting in that that is welcome and keeping out that which is not welcome. 

  He said that Buddha saw this practice of meditation as a sort of medical therapy for the mind to allow kind and tolerant thoughts to come through and to minimize the thoughts that impede or get in the way.

  That we are conflicted with thoughts of greed, fear, hatred, craving and confusion which keep us from acting in a free flowing way. That this path brings us closer to humanity when we don't act on these hinderences.

  Today was a very calm day as we boarded a boat and meandered down the Irraeaddy river from Mandalay down to Bagan that we will visit in the morning. We stopped off a a Terra cotta pottery making site and then dropped by a elementary school on our way down.