How Amaung frolicked at the monastery 

San Nyein Oo
Translated by Thett Su San
 

1. 

‘We live in this kaba, where tanhā rules over us,

seek things as tanhā bids us, only to leave

our loved ones and belongings in the end.

Our peers, juniors and seniors have passed on.

In real danger, on death bed, even our own flesh and blood won’t save us.

We must hurry and take the magga vehicle for Nirvana.’

‘Vroom, beep, beep, beep!

Move to the side, to the side, a tad to the side!’

There may be slips of the pen in the above, but I still remember the verse as we had to commit it to memory at our monastery. The verse is an extract from a well-known sermon by Ashin Zanaka Biwuntha (1900-1978), the abbot of Maha Gandhayone monastery in Taungmyo, south of Mandalay.

The ‘Vroom, beep, beep, beep!’ was the sendup I added as a koyin, a novice monk, at the Maha Gandhayone monastery. For my cheekiness, I kowtow in prostration to the late Sayadaw Zanaka Biwuntha in deep apology. Those were the days!

2.

I called mother’s elder sister, Daw Mya Than ‘Gyitaw’ for big auntie and her husband, U Mya Sein, ‘Bagyi’ for big uncle. Bagyi managed Sein Mya Than, a shop for men’s shirts at Zaycho market in Mandalay. He also sold Meekone fried beans, as if fried beans were complementary to shirts. The shop next door was a fabric dye shop named Sin Phyu Taw. The owner was U Hla Aung. I called him Lay Hla Aung, for small uncle. His wife was Daw Shwe Tin. During summer school holidays, I would be working at Bagyi’s shop. I wasn’t born with parami or aptitude for selling. No matter how much I tried business didn’t interest me.

Lay Hla Aung’s house was next to the Mandalay General Hospital. Bagyi and his family usually visited Lay Hla Aung’s place in the evenings in their Jeep on weekends. I always tagged along with them — to watch TV.

When television service was launched for the first time in Myanmar in the 1980s, Lay Hla Aung’s was one of the very few households with a TV set. We usually stayed late until all programs finished, mostly on Saturdays. Foreign language films were aired on Myanmar TV every Saturday night.

Nowadays, Mandalay local customs, such as a whole extended family inviting or visiting their friends’ or relatives for meals or TV, are unheard of. Lay Hla Aung was one of the disciples of the learned Sayadaw Zanaka Biwuntha. Every year, to earn merit as a good Buddhist, he would send his sons to the Sayadaw’s monastery to be ordained as dullabha or temporary monks or novices. I often became a  dullabha koyin, together with Lay Hla Aung’s sons.

3.

There were ten iron rules at our monastery. Everyone, including us, dullabha novices who were at the monastery for a few weeks, had to stick to those rules.

At this monastery

1. To have a noble mind is the first.
2. To respect the Vinaya, or monastic discipline, is the second.
3. To be healthy is the third.
4. To practice personal hygiene is the fourth.
5. To dress and eat properly is the fifth.
6. To behave with decorum is the sixth.
7. To speak with decorum is the seventh.
8. To carry oneself with decorum is the eighth.
9. To be disciplined is the ninth.
10. To be learned is the tenth.

One must pay attention to the above ten rules. Exactly in that order.

I followed the rules as best I could. We usually spent our days at the monastery in the building where our teacher, Sayadaw U Kone, lived. We called him Boe Kone. His proper title probably was U Konenala. As our monastery belonged to Shwegyin Nikāya, the most orthodox order of monks in Myanmar, we wore dark maroon robes. It is strictly forbidden for Shwegyin monks to hold cash. There were several kappiya or white-robed acolytes at the monastery, charged with mundane transactions. They would run errands for monks.

At dawn every morning a kappiya will beat the tonemaung, a hollowed log, to wake us. We had to get up immediately, wash our face, hands, and alms bowls at the communal bathing space. Then time for the latrine. After that, we put on robes, placed the prayer mat on our shoulder or arm, a serviette in hand, and walked mindfully to the dining hall. Morning prayers by hundreds of monks and novices in unison were awe-inspiring. Sometimes the Sayadaw himself would deliver the sermon, followed by breakfast from a donor.

Monks did a reflection on the meal not to incur a debt before eating, and spread metta to all beings. One could have heard a pin drop when we ate. Not a single clinking of cutlery was heard as hundreds of us ate contemplatively. We did the same for lunch. In the evening, after the prayers, we listened to the sermons by senior monks. As Buddhist monks we had to abstain from solid food in the afternoons. A certain drink was served in lieu of dinner, usually tamarind juice as tamarind was abundant in the region.

Before bedtime, koyin would have to do penance for the transgressions they may have committed knowingly or unknowingly during the day. Our chores included sweeping the monastery premises, sprinkling the grounds with water to keep dust down, filling drinking water pots, collecting litter, and cleaning latrines. I happily did my chores. Having to do penance served me right.

After lunch, sometimes we took a nap. Sometimes we unwinded in the huge toddy tent, built with toddy trees and roofed with toddy palm leaves, at the back of the monastery. We read Yadana Gonye, Abhidharma, and Dhamma books. That toddy tent kept us cool throughout March and April, the driest and hottest months of the year. The tent also provided workshop space for monks to make their own slings for alms bowls and sashes for robes.

4.

Alms rounds, going out to receive food from locals, were the highlight of being a dullabah koyin. Each time I followed career monks on their alms rounds, I recalled a nursery rhyme, ‘Koyin, koyin, sighting a lass shouldn’t make you suck on your sweet.’

I had no idea how sucking a sweet had anything to do with seeing a girl. However my heart would flutter each time I had to stop for alms at the houses of pretty girls of Taungmyo. In Zaycho Girl, a novel by Mahar Swe, there was a scene where a koyin passed a love letter to a girl offering alms to him. The koyin placed the love letter in one of his curry cups or wutkhwak, making sure which curry cup was for the girl and which one for her mother. If the girl received the letter and reciprocated, alms rounds became love letter rounds. Wutkhwak served as clandestine postmen.

One day, while a monk was shaving my head, Ye Myint said, ‘Koyin, your eyebrows are quite thin. Why don’t you shave them as well?’ Shaving made hair grow thicker and faster, he said. Ye Myint was one of Lay Hla Aung’s sons, an adolescent like me. Ye Myint and others insisted I clear my brows. I thought, why not! I had always admired actor Win Oo for thick eyebrows, and thought it would come out nice. The monk shaving my head smirked and put the razor on my brows right away.

Once I entered the toddy tent, everyone burst out laughing, looking at me. I looked in the mirror, and didn’t recognise myself. A browless face was very disappointing. I was so embarrassed I didn’t dare look at my own face any more. I even picked on Ye Myint for his brilliant idea.

The alms rounds weren’t fun any more. I got weak-kneed whenever we stopped at the houses of girls. Would they notice my funny face? I just looked down, shut my eyes and kept muttering gonetaw, the nine qualities of the Buddha.

I was at an age with ‘sweet’ tooth. No sooner than I got infatuated with one of those regular alms girls, I’d lost my eyebrows. But I was a koyin who lived for his reputation. No eyebrows, no more alms rounds. I heard the girl asked other novices why I wasn’t doing the rounds. They replied, ‘Because he was browless.’ How they threw me into an abyss!

5.

I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t appropriate for a koyin to put fake eyebrows on. Every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought my face resembled that of a Chinese ghost. It was more tragic than comic for me. Before my eyebrows were gone, I would walk all the way from Taungmyo to Mandalay 18th Street, about seven miles, on a solo alms round to see Mi Cho, another girl I was obsessed with before I became a koyin. I loved that Mi Cho sat on the floor and kowtowed at me. Now that my eyebrows were gone, I stopped doing that escapade. I went to my parents’ house instead. My parents didn’t know whether to laugh at me or weep with me. They bawled me out to no end. ‘Other hairs regrow easily. But the nature of eyebrows is different. We must complain about this to Sayadaw,’ they said, but forgot their indignation the following day.

6.

Early mornings and evenings tended to induce nostalgia. I still missed my brows. Leafy longan trees abounded in the monastery compound. Squirrels foraged around them. There were also large tamarind trees as shady as longans, echoing the calmness of the monastery.

I must follow Kodaw Hmaing’s path, ‘In this afterglow, let’s breathe in the scent of mediation,’ I said to myself. I tried to concentrate on chanting gonetaw and counting the prayer beads. And yet I couldn’t stop thinking about my hairless face. Even though I was reciting gonetaw, not a single word appeared in my mind. I felt extremely out of my depth.

Going out to the nearby Taungthaman Lake in the afternoons used to be a delight. I loved the lake,  sometimes overflowed when the tide was high, sometimes dried up, and the world-famous U Bein teak bridge. The beauty of Taungthaman always made me feel sentimental. Gone with my brows, I now realised, were both my sense and sentimentality.

7.

Fast forward twenty years. Lay Hla Aung and Daw Shwe Tin have passed on. Bagyi Mya Sein and Gyitaw Mya Than are gone too. So is Boe Kone, our teacher from the Maha Gandhayone monastery. I have no idea where Ye Myint is. Mi Cho must be a mother to a number of children now.

My eyebrows never thickened or darkened again. Even after two long decades, my eyebrows, shaven at the age of koyin, wouldn’t grow back well.

Sometimes I still feel like I am a browless person. Every time I look in the mirror, I still can’t help but notice my thin eyebrows. My eyebrows, or rather lack of them, always remind me of my time at Maha Gandhayone monastery. They still make me smile.