The Myanmar Buddhist Meditation Society is a Theravada-based monastery in Windsor Mill, Maryland, meant to serve the spiritual needs of the surrounding community, particularly its Burmese residents. The monastery has been active since 1997 and hosts a variety of classes, the most recent being centered around the abhidharma, and meditation retreats.
The monastery itself consists of a main temple with a large Buddha altar that is mainly used during meditation retreats. Next to the temple is the monks’ house. Two monks live in the home year-round and maintain upkeep of the facilities and lead classes and retreats. There are also additional rooms in the house for visiting monks. In the basement, there is a large kitchen and communal space where many events, such as festivals or meals, take place. Upon exiting the back door of the basement, one arrives at the dorms used for practitioners on a meditation retreat.
The property was first scouted in 1979 by the monastery’s founder, Sayadaw Ashin Kelasa, an accomplished lay monk from Myanmar. Sayadaw Ashin Kelasa was born on September 21st, 1936 in the Thae Pon village of the Meiktila District of Myanmar. At age 11, he began to study Buddhist scriptures. Then, at the urging of another monk, he continued his education in Mandalay. He was an exceptional student, earning honors for his examinations. Not long after this, at age 21 he became a monk and went to study Nikaya scriptures. Following this, he “mastered the Pitaka” and decided to learn how to practice mindfulness meditation under the guidance of the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw in Yangon. When the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw went to the United States, Sayadaw Ashin Kelasa traveled with him as a disciple and was assigned to spread the Dharma in the D.C. area. As a result of this, he was stationed at the Mingalara Monastery in Silver Spring, MD, and lived there for seventeen years. It was on an outing from this monastery that he saw the property of MBMS. Sayadaw Ashin Kelasa never lived at MBMS nor was there for its official establishment in 1997, but irregardless the members of MBMS consider him to be their founder and even celebrate his birthday as part of their New Year festivities (“BIOGRAPHY OF SAYADAW ASHIN KELASA”).
It was Sayadaw Ashin Kelasa’s pupil, Sayadaw Kitsayana who eventually became president of MBMS. When he unfortunately had to step down, the current president, the Venerable Kusala took his place and has led the monastery ever since.
The Venerable Kusala is also in charge of a monastery in London and another in Myanmar, thus demonstrating how connected MBMS is to other Buddhist communities. In general, MBMS does not have many connections to western Buddhist communities, but is instead highly connected with other Burmese monasteries from around the world. MBMS is one of fifteen Burmese temples in the United States and around two hundred globally, with all the temples tying back to the main temple in Myanmar, which is a great deal larger than MBMS. While MBMS has quite a global presence, they also have a local connection with a monastery in Silver Spring. While they do not gather together often, they do maybe twice a year for special occasions, as the MBMS community is relatively small, with about two hundred members. The majority of regular attendees are older, but the youth do attend the festivals. Additionally, the majority of members are from Myanmar, including the resident monks, but there are some people from Thailand, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. These people often come for meditation retreats, as they are open to everyone, no matter their background.
In addition to meditation retreats, the monastery also hosts meditation classes every so often, taught by the Venerable Kusala. He said that he teaches a variety of meditation methods, but believes that the most important part of meditation is mindfulness. In our conversation, he kept coming back to mindfulness and stressing just how significant it is in all forms of meditation, such as sitting, sleeping, or walking meditation. When he led me through a meditation, he emphasized how it was important for me to focus on one object at a time, even if that object changed. For example, I was supposed to focus on the rising and falling of my abdomen when breathing, but if my attention wavered and wandered towards the sound of the heater, I was to focus on that sound before subtly redirecting myself back to the main focus of meditation. My experience doing meditation is an average practice for MBMS, as people regularly come to meditate there in either one of two meditation spaces. According to a member, some people go as early as 4 AM to meditate before their day starts. Additionally, members will arrive at 4 AM to cook breakfast for the monks, who according to my uncle enjoy his knock-off McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches. This breakfast that they eat is one of two meals a day, with the other meal being had around 11 AM, as they believe that it is more efficient to only eat twice, as the time spent preparing, eating, and cleaning up after a meal can be redirected towards other practice, like meditation. The last practice mentioned in my interview was how the Venerable Kusala will preach every Saturday on various teachings of the Buddha, such as how to do good and not stray towards evil.
As maintained by the Venerable Kusala, the members of MBMS understand doing no evil, doing good, and purifying the mind as the core part of the Buddha’s teaching, and therefore Buddhism itself. They see evil as desire, anger, and delusion. These three evils, known as the Three Poisons, cultivate suffering for an individual, as when you desire something, yet do not gain it, you cause yourself mental stress. Anger causes emotional torment and delusion prevents one from acknowledging existence truly is. As stated before, the Three Poisons cause suffering, but the suffering caused can vary, as according to MBMS, suffering can be mental, emotional, or physical. In addition to the Three Poisons, which are spiritual evils, there are also ethical evils like murder, stealing, and consuming intoxicating substances. The Venerable Kusala stressed that intoxicating substances, such as alcohol, are evils because they prevent an individual from practicing mindfulness, as one loses full control over themself.
It is this control over oneself that is a very important part of Buddhism, as purifying the mind via control over one’s thoughts helps eliminate the spiritual evils that lead to suffering. This control is cultivated by both practicing meditation and following the five precepts, or eight if you are on a meditation retreat. Meditation works on spiritual evils while the five precepts help with ethical evils. As for monks at MBMS, they have to follow around two hundred precepts every day.
The idea that suffering exists and control is needed to conquer it is taught via the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path, the two main concepts that can summarize the Buddha’s teachings. The Four Noble Truths say that suffering exists, desire causes suffering, suffering can cease, and that the way to end suffering is through the Eightfold Path. Members of the community see the Eightfold Path as being ethical, developing good control over the mind, and having wisdom, or in the words of the Venerable Kusala, “cleverness.” Through this, suffering can end, but there is no reference towards the end of suffering meaning achieved nirvana. Furthermore, when considering the more cosmological beliefs regarding Buddhism, MBMS members recognize karma as the effects of your actions in this life and others, but place much less importance on the other lives aspect.
A number of events occur throughout the year to help support the members in growing their mental control, or to provide a respite from the effort of it. MBMS has nine events that occur throughout the year on their lunar calendar. They have a new years celebration, birthday ceremonies for the founder of the monastery and the founding of the monastery, a Buddha’s Day ceremony, 2 meditation retreats, robe offering ceremonies, and more. Events like the Buddha’s Day ceremony or the Birthday ceremony are commemoratory of important individuals and allow for reflection and celebration. Meanwhile, the meditation retreats, one which is ten days and the other which is seven, help practitioners to hone their mental control in a completely serene environment, as the monastery is set back from the road in the woods.
Some of these events come at no expense to the attendees; oftentimes, someone will bring is a dish of food. In general, MBMS is mainly funded by a Buddhist association. Community members are under no obligation to donate money, but some do. Meanwhile, others donate food, their time, and maybe household supplies.
The MBMS community members have created a space that is just as welcoming as they are close to each other. It truly is a very serene and comforting place to practice Buddhism.
Information from:
- http://www.kelathavihara.org/kv/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ashin_kelasa.pdf, translated with Google Translate.
- http://www.kelathavihara.org/kv/home/
- Personal Interview with the Venerable Kusala.