Venerable Nyar Na was imprisoned for almost 16 years due to his unconventional views, which are radically different from the traditional views of Burmese Theravada Buddhism. Roughly half a century prior, he had received his monastic ordination and studied the three Tipitika texts of Buddhist doctrine. He visited prominent monks while traveling throughout Burma, having discussions on Buddhism until he came to a conclusion about his own Buddhism.
On 22 April 1981, Venerable Nyar Na attended the graduation ceremony for Dhammācariya at the headquarters of the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee. The State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee is the state-appointed supreme body known in Burmese as the Mahanayaka that represents the whole community of monks, or sangha in Burma (KYAW, 2016). At that ceremony, Venerable Nyar Na distributed some books that contained his understanding of Buddhism. That’s where all the struggles Venerable Nyar Na had to endure later started.
A few days later, Venerable Nyar Na, along with his like-minded monk named Venerable Guna, drafted a hypothesis based on their studies of the Tipitika and submitted it to the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee. The State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee was hostile to their hypothesis and demanded they retract their hypothesis. The hypothesis Venerable Nyar Na and Venerable Guna were making was that the original Buddhist teachings were indeed against the beliefs in the afterlife and pre-existence and the rebirth concept of samsara. They referred to “The Net of Brahma Sutra (Brahmajāla Sūtra)” (Berzin, n.d.) for such a claim. The State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee sued them with blasphemy laws for their acts of deviating from Theravada Buddhism. As a result, since 1983, in order to distinguish himself from monks who practice Theravada or Mahayana, the two schools of Buddhism that are most common in North and East Asia, Venerable Nyar Na started dressing in sky-blue robes (KYAW, 2016). He formally announced his departure from Theravada Buddhism and started to identify himself as a non-Theravada Buddhist.
According to the Constitution of Burma, founding a new sect of Theravada Buddhism is highly prohibited and can be sentenced to jail (Zaw, 2016). The State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee accused Venerable Nyar Na and Venerable Guna of founding a new sect of Theravada Buddhism. Venerable Nyar Na denied the accusation and insisted that he founded a new sect entirely different from Theravada Buddhism. However, Venerable Guna asked the Ministry of Religious Affairs to accept him back as a Theravada monk.
Subsequently, a year after adopting sky-blue robes, Venerable Nyar Na was arrested for the first time in February of 1983. He was given a 10-year prison sentence but was eventually released after serving seven and a half years. He was sentenced to three years in prison for his second arrest; of those years, he spent two and a half. He was most recently detained in February 2010 and given a 20-year sentence. He served six years in prison before being released in early 2016 as a result of an amnesty (KYAW, 2016). The arrests were not solely to him. A lot of his followers, including several famous writers, Abhidharma lecturers, and monks, were interrogated, and some of them were sentenced to jail.
Even after the release of Venerable Dhammavihari Nyar Na in 2016, his books and his versions of “Present Karma Buddhism (Sky-blue Buddhism)” are highly censored in Burma. U Nay Win, who is a layperson of the Sky-Blue Buddhism (in Burmese: Moe Pya sect), was warned by the head of Mandalay Division’s religious affairs department via Myanmar Alinn Daily, the state-run newspaper. The minister of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, U Aung Ko, under NLD’s government, publicly stated in 2016 that the religious doctrine and concepts of U Nya Na are banned due to its radical differences with Theravada Buddhism (Zaw, 2016).
The Buddhist doctrine of “Present Karma Buddhism (Sky-blue Buddhism)," which was founded by Venerable Nyar Na, is indeed unique to both Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Vajrayana Buddhism. Even though there are significant philosophical differences and lineages of philosophers within Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Vajrayana Buddhism, all of them still hold the beliefs in the rebirth concept of samsara, the 31st plane of existence, and meditation as a means to liberation. “Present Karma Buddhism” rejects the concept of the rebirth concept of samsara, the 31st plane of existence, and meditation as a means to liberation. Samsara, according to “Present Karma Buddhism,” is the series of “actions” and “consequences” during the time after birth and before death. For example, if a thief steals a property, the thief would face bad karma in the near future or somewhere in the timeline of samsara unless he reached the highest level of enlightenment according to Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Vajrayana Buddhism. Some folk traditions of Theravada Buddhism even suggested that the victim might have stolen someone else's property in his past life. However, according to “Present Karma Buddhism," a person having done the act of stealing itself represents the karma, and that person becoming a thief due to his action of stealing is the “consequences of his karma." Stealing is bad action (karma), and becoming the thief is the “outcome of his karma." There is no heaven, no hell, nor an afterlife involved in their Buddhism. Venerable Nyar Na insisted that his followers don’t avoid doing bad things, not out of the fear of hell in the afterlife but because of their understanding of mutual respect. In the same way, his followers are fond of doing good things not out of the incentive of heaven in the afterlife but because of their understanding of mutual aid. (Committee, 2011)
The Buddhist doctrine of “Present Karma Buddhism (Sky-blue Buddhism)” rejects the supernatural Buddha that possesses supernatural powers that are beyond normal human beings. Venerable Nyar Na also had unorthodox views upon the role of sangha (monkhood), which would essentially trigger the Theravada Buddhist monks. He believes that the monks were needed only for missionary purposes during Buddha’s time, and Buddha wouldn’t need to form the sangha if the internet were to exist during Buddha’s era (KYAW, 2016). Also, he holds several anti-establishment views and anti-authoritarian views against the ruling class. He is critical of a lot of Theravada views, such as blaming the bad karma for the current sufferings. He said that the ruling class, which includes the historical feudalist class, would happily promote such visions against the poor peasants and the working class, who were always oppressed by the ruling classes throughout history. In his analysis, he drew conclusions that Theravada Buddhism not only helps authoritarian regimes such as the military nowadays but also helped the authoritarian feudal class throughout history (Na).
According to his books such as အာဏာနဲ့ဘာသာသာသနာဂဟေမစပ် ပဋိဃာတ်” which roughly translates to “The ruling class and the dhamma are not compatible” and “ဘုရား” which roughly translates to "Buddha," his version of Buddhism is unique from the religious aspect, but more of less similar to the radical liberal type of Buddhist philosophy, which can even be interpreted as mutualism (moderate anarchist) type of libertarianism. He emphasized the value of labour, mutual aid, communalism, co-operatives, and anti-authoritarianism from the Buddhist perspective that takes Buddha as the main theorist. Even though the military dictatorships since the 1980s might not necessarily notice this, they oppressed him by not only censoring his rights to speech and his rights to freedom but also by sentencing him to prison for 2-3 decades. Even after his final release, the Cheka-styled Special Branch agents are following him and recording all the guests he met. Even after the coup, he is still under surveillance not only by the Special Branch agents but also by the nationalist Buddhist monks. He is currently living in a simple monastery near Pegu, known as Dhamma Viharri, or “Abode of the Dhamma.”.
In conclusion, Venerable Nyar Na was a revolutionary monk who happens to be a prisoner of conscience. People like Stephen Batchelor are appreciated in the West for their innovative interpretation of secular Buddhism. However, Venerable Nyar Na was indeed misfortunate to be born in Burma, where diversity of thoughts is not tolerated but instead targeted for unconformity. The oppression he faced in Burma was at its peak under the military dictatorships but was still banned and targeted even under the NLD government. So, there is no guarantee that he will regain his freedom of speech and freedom of movement even if the military junta is overthrown.
References
Berzin, D. A. (n.d.). The 62 Wrong Views. Retrieved from Study Buddhism by Berzin Archives: https://studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/abhidharma-tenet-systems/time-the-universe/the-62-wrong-views
Committee, S. S. (2011). ရှင်ဥာဏဦးဆောင်သော မိုးပြာဂိုဏ်းသားတို့၏ အယူဝါဒအပေါ် ဓမ္မ-အဓမ္မ အငြင်းပွားမှုခင်း ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက် .
KYAW, K. P. (2016, April 25). The monk in blue robes. Retrieved from Frontier Myanmar: https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/the-monk-in-blue-robes/
Na, V. N. (n.d.). အာဏာနဲ့ဘာသာသာသနာဂဟေမစပ် ပဋိဃာတ်.
Zaw, H. N. (2016), December 12. Religious Affairs Ministry to Take Legal Action Against Buddhist Sect. Retrieved from The Irrawaddy: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/religious-affairs-ministry-to-take-legal-action-against-buddhist-sect.html
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