Buddhist teachings that molded Madame Aung Suu Kyi’s thought & conduct-JR 177

Buddhist teachings that molded Madame Aung Suu Kyi’s thought & conduct-JR 177

Aung Suu Kyi Letter to Dawn

Mdame Kyi’s article, “How I learned from the monks, is presented below. This was posted on the Daily “DAWN”, many many years ago. Some extracts that may be of interest are also presented below:

1.       One should follow the example of the Lord Buddha, who only spoke words that were trustworthy and beneficial, even if at times such speech was not always pleasing.

2.       Hsaysdaw also urged me to cultivate ‘sati” mindfulness of the five spiritual faculties, “sadha” (faith) , :”viriya” (energy), “sati”, “Samadhi”(concentration), and panna (wisdom). It is only sati that can never be in excess. Excessive faith without sufficient wisdom leads to blind faith, while excessive wisdom without sufficient energy leads to undesirable cunning.

3.       Too much energy combined with weak concentration leads to indolence.

4.       The hermit Sumedha , who sacrificed the possibility of early liberation for himself alone and underwent many lives of striving that he might save others from suffering .

5.       Four causes of decline and decay: failure to recover that which has been lost ; omission to repair that which has been damaged ; disregard of the need for the elevation to leadership of those without morality and learning .

6.       You must lay down an investment in “dukkha” (suffering)  and you will gain “sukha” (bliss)

Religious belief

Aung San Suu Kyi’s main principle in life is to constantly strive for self-improvement. Suu kyi has a drive for perfection and wholeness and was taught from a young age to be honest with herself and that “wrongdoing never pays.” She is very against the idea of people being hypocritical or unjust and believes very strongly in the importance of compassion in our world. Aung San Suu Kyi believes that as humans the spiritual dimension of our lives cannot be neglected.

Suu Kyi also has a strong belief in equality and human rights and along with this a strong belief in freedom. She longed for a demcracy in her community to make some of her beliefs prevalent in Burma. "My attitude to peace is rather based of the Burmese definition of peace - it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So peace does not just mean putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality, poverty." This quote highlights Suu Kyi's cogent belief in the need for peace and lack of need for violence.

Being a Theravada Buddhist, Suu Kyi abides by Buddhist principles. Buddhists base their beliefs off the teachings of Buddha. Buddha's teachings were all based from the framework of the Four Noble Truths:

1. Dukkha: Discontent, stress, suffering, un-satisfactoriness;
2. The Cause of Duukkha: the cause of this dissatisfaction is the craving for sensuality, for states of coming, and states of no becoming;
3. The cessation of Dukkha: The relinquishment of that craving;
4. The path of practice leading to the cessation of Dukkha: The noble eight-fold path of right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

The ultimate goal of the Theravada is to escape samsara (the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth) and to enter nirvana (freedom from the cycle of reincarnation). To escape the samsara the first noble truth must be comprehended, the second noble truth abandoned, the third realised and the fourth noble truth is to be developed. It only through assigning to the noble truths these specific tasks, that you can gain release from samsara.

One of the main tools by which Theravada Buddhists transform themselves is meditation. Suu Kyi meditates every day, claiming it is a form of spiritual cultivation through which humans learn awareness. Following the beliefs of Theravada Buddhists, she emphasises, through one’s own efforts, attaining self liberation.

Brief biography

Aung San Suu Kyi   (born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1991). She is the leader of the National League for Democracy and the first and incumbent State Counselor, a position akin to a prime minister. She is also the first woman to serve as Minister for Foreign Affairs, for the President's Office, for Electric Power and Energy, and for Education. From 2012 to 2016 she was an MP for Kawhmu Township to the House of Representatives.

Career

The youngest daughter of Aung San, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar, and Khin Kyi, Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon, British Burma. After graduating from the University of Delhi in 1964 and the University of Oxford in 1968, she worked at the United Nations for three years. She married Michael Aris in 1972, with whom she had two children. Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence in the 1988 Uprisings, and became the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which she had newly formed with the help of several retired army officials who criticized the military junta. In the 1990 elections, NLD won 81% of the seats in Parliament, but the results were nullified, as the military refused to hand over power, resulting in an international outcry. She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest for almost 15 of the 21 years from 1989 to 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent political prisoners.

Her party boycotted the 2010 elections, resulting in a decisive victory for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. Aung San Suu Kyi became a Pyithu Hluttaw MP while her party won 43 of the 45 vacant seats in the 2012 by-elections. In the 2015 elections, her party won a landslide victory, taking 86% of the seats in the Assembly of the Union– well more than the 67% supermajority needed to ensure that its preferred candidates were elected President and Second Vice President in the Presidential Electoral College. Although she was prohibited from becoming the President due to a clause in the constitution – her late husband and children are foreign citizens – she assumed the newly created role of State Counsellor, a role akin to a Prime Minister or a head of government. Aung San Suu Kyi's honours include the Nobel Peace Prize, which she won in 1991. Time Magazine named her one of the "Children of Gandhi" and his spiritual heir to nonviolence.

Since ascending to the office of State Counselor, Aung San Suu Kyi has drawn criticism from several countries, organizations and figures over her alleged inaction to the persecution of the Rohingya people in Rakhine State and refusal to accept that Myanmar's military has committed massacres. Under her leadership, Myanmar has also drawn criticism for prosecutions of journalists. ^. She has written Freedom from Fear (1991) and Letters from Burma (1991)