Insight Myanmar

Episode #440: Rick Hanson and Brang Nan engage in a moving conversation on Myanmar's ongoing struggle for democracy, focusing on psychological resilience, Buddhist practice, and activism. Rick begins with a powerful statement: “No one can stop you from claiming the power of your own mind, but only you can claim it.” He underscores the importance of mindfulness and mental autonomy as tools to resist oppression, emphasizing, “To put it really bluntly, get the assholes out of your head.” He adds, “If I may use a phrase, fuck them. Live well, meanwhile, as best you can.” This revolutionary act of reclaiming mental freedom, Rick asserts, is foundational to individual and collective empowerment. Brang Nan shares his experiences living under military rule, speaking of survivor guilt, loss, and emotional isolation. He describes the 2021 protests as an initial “high,” followed by withdrawal and numbing as repression intensified. Despite these challenges, he finds moments of connection transformative. “If we allow ourselves to be a little bit brave, a little bit open to sharing, then what I’ve realized is that we’re all in the same boat,” he reflects. Such openness fosters solidarity, countering the isolation imposed by fear. Rick uses the metaphor of tending a fruit tree as a guide to self-care.  He says that you can have good soil, water the tree appropriately, etc., yet you can’t make it yield fruit, concluding, “You can tend to the causes, but you cannot control the results.” This teaching resonates with Brang Nan, who finds empowerment in focusing on small, meaningful actions. Rick further emphasizes the value of savoring “ordinary jewels”—small, positive moments—to build resilience.  Brang Nan offers a poignant reflection as the conversation concludes: “Once you get out of that fog you keep yourself in, you start to open your eyes. And when you do, you see others around you doing similar things, surviving, contributing, caring. It’s this openness and connection that nourish us and give us the strength to move forward, even when everything feels impossible.” 

Episode #439: “The key human rights issue within Thailand and more broadly within the region is migration related,” says Ben Harkins, a veteran labor rights and migration expert who has spent over seventeen years working across Southeast Asia. From refugee camps to industrial zones, Harkins has witnessed how migration has become both a lifeline and a trap—an act of survival in systems built on exploitation. He began his career along the Thai-Myanmar border in the 2000s, where tens of thousands of Karen and other ethnic minorities lived in sprawling camps after fleeing conflict. “It's only been this year, in fact, that we've finally seen a major transition in refugee policy in Thailand,” he notes, referring to new measures allowing some refugees to legally work outside the camps for the first time. For Harkins, this small policy shift represents freedom long denied. Over the years, he has researched the migration that sustain Thailand’s economy. “The flows from Myanmar are so complex,” he explains. “These are very heterogeneous flows of migrants.” His work with the International Labour Organization (ILO) has exposed forced labor, human trafficking, and modern slavery in sectors like fishing, manufacturing, and agriculture. When Myanmar’s 2021 coup dismantled years of fragile progress, Harkins says it upended everything he had worked for. “Just overnight, my entire world was turned upside down, basically,” he recalls. Colleagues and partners he had collaborated with for years were suddenly arrested, in hiding, or silenced. The military junta publicly denounced his research in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, accusing him of spreading lies about labor conditions. “Migration itself has sort of become weaponized in many ways by the military junta,” he explains of the current reality, describing how the regime taxes overseas workers, manipulates remittances, and uses migration control to punish dissent. Now based in Bangkok, Harkins rejects claims that international businesses can operate responsibly under dictatorship. “You just can't have responsible business if you don't have fundamental labor rights for workers,” he insists. Despite everything, he continues his work with the ILO. “The least I can do is make use of the voice that I have within the UN system to try to support these principles of social justice as much as I can.”

Episode #438: Jonathan Crowley shares his journey as a practitioner and teacher in the Goenka Vipassana tradition, highlighting the conflicts that eventually led him to step away after 35 years of dedication. He describes his gradual disillusionment with the organization's rigidity, particularly its failure to address structural racism in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing—unlike many other spiritual organizations, which undertook meaningful changes. Alongside his wife, Jonathan wrote to the North American Acharyas, advocating for meaningful engagement on racial issues and emphasizing that the teachings of the Buddha support addressing social injustices. Their letter called for transparency, change, and inclusivity, yet received only two responses, one of which was completely dismissive, which further isolated them. Jonathan also questioned the tradition's claim that their Vipassana technique was the only method preserving the “pristine purity” of the Buddha's teachings: a very questionable claim, at best, which he feels fosters an environment resistant to change or critique. The emphasis on purity, combined with a fear of deviation from the prescribed path, discourageseven Senior Teachers from asking questions, voicing doubts or exploring new ideas. Jonathan felt that this rigidity ultimately hindered his spiritual growth. As he experienced deeper states of meditation, he realized the tradition's approach was too narrow, with no space for discussing experiences outside the standard teachings. This further compounded his sense of frustration and alienation. Leaving the tradition was painful for Jonathan, given his respect for Goenka and the community's significance in his life. He struggled with feelings of loss and confusion, recognizing that while the practice had transformed him, the organizational structure was now limiting his growth. Despite this, he maintains a deep appreciation for the tradition and Goenka, acknowledging their role in his spiritual journey while also embracing new paths in Dhamma that align with his continued evolution.“I am wanting to hold this deep reverence, appreciation, gratitude and a deep sense of benefit that I have received from Goenkaji and from the tradition; with a need to speak out and to be critical, and to hope that the organization will become a more open system and invite civil discourse and dialog and conversation and questioning, and not think that that's going to be a threat to the path of Dhamma.” 

Episode #437: Researchers Myat Su Thwe, a human-rights scholar, and Kyaw Lwin, a socio-legal specialist, examine how Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) operates digitally after the 2021 coup in their study Digital Governance in Exile. They describe a government forced online by warfare and displacement, assessing whether its services genuinely meet citizens’ needs through a “socio-technical framework” that weighs technology against inclusivity, language, and security. Myat Su Thwe explains that ministries of Health, Education, and Finance deliver essential services through tele-medicine, online schooling, and blockchain-based finance. Tele-Gemar connects volunteer doctors abroad with ethnic-minority patients via local interpreters; digital schools issue the Basic Education Completion Assessment; and the Spring Development Bank and Aung Pay wallet allow secure, anonymous transactions outside junta control. Kyaw Lwin notes progress but warns of weak internet, cyber-attacks, and low digital literacy. Both describe volunteers countering hacks, phishing, and state surveillance, stressing that literacy determines whether digital tools “are weaponized or contribute to society.” Survey data show moderate public trust, limited mainly by fear of surveillance. The researchers also highlight cooperation between NUG ministries and ethnic armed organizations in health, education, and local finance, along with experimental AI-based counseling and humanitarian databases. They call for interoperable systems, stronger privacy laws, and a roadmap for digital justice, arguing that courts and records must be modernized despite the war. Myat Su Thwe extends the discussion to food security, urging digital mapping and cross-border coordination with Thailand and India to address famine conditions. In closing, she asserts that NUG legitimacy depends not only on its constitutional origin but on its performance and capacity to lead. Kyaw Lwin concludes, “While others debate artificial intelligence and life beyond Earth, we are still fighting yesterday’s war,” capturing the resilience of a society rebuilding governance through code and conviction. 

Episode #436: “We feel like we are not a useless person. You know, even [if] we have to flee our country and come to other country, we are still a valued person.”  Dr. K, a Rohingya general practitioner, shares his journey from Myanmar to the Thai border, where he now supports the resistance by training medics and running makeshift clinics. He recalls how, as a child, his family moved to Yangon from Rakhine, but had to travel in secret because the Rohingya were barred from legal travel. After achieving high grades at school, he was accepted at medical school in 2013 because his family was able to obtain the necessary documents—that otherwise would have been denied to his as a Rohingya— through bribes; even so, he callshimself “lucky” that the admissions office did not demand a birth certificate. After graduation, he worked very hard, holding posts in a private hospital by day and running his own clinic by night. Following the 2021 coup, he quietly aided the resistance while avoiding registering his clinic. But in February 2024, Dr. K was flagged as a CDM doctor at Yangon airport, detained, questioned, and later coerced into signing an agreement to join the junta’s health service. Fearing the loss of all he had built and saved, he fled in March with his wife and child, crossing illegally into Thailand. Starting anew was difficult, but he eventually focused on volunteer medicine, shuttling across the border to treat malaria, gastritis, and injuries in bamboo-walled clinics. He admits to fear—especially of aircraft— at the front, describing the psychological toll it takes even when he is safely back in Thailand.  In Thailand, he is finally able to fully embraces his identity as a Rohingya. He hopes the openness he feels in resistance circles that allows this freedom of identity and expression will enable hischildren to grow up in a society free of discrimination. “I am 100% human, because I don't need to hide anything of my background, my personality.”

Episode #435: “There is a person behind every piece of policy,” says Nandar, a senior digital security expert at DigiSec Lab, reflecting on Myanmar’s transformation into a digital prison since the 2021 military coup. Along with researcher and trainer Vox, journalist and consultant Myat, and political researcher Candle, they discuss how the junta’s technological control has reshaped daily life, eroded freedom, and forced citizens to adapt in order to survive.  Nandar, who leads digital safety training and emergency response, describes Myanmar’s “digital siege” as an Internet that works but no longer grants freedom. Layers of control filter access, monitor behavior, and instill fear. Through deep packet inspection, metadata tracking, and the 2025 Cybersecurity Law, the state monitors every interaction and compels service providers to surrender data. The result, she explains, is not disconnection but silence—an online world where communication feels dangerous and self-censorship has become instinct. Journalists, activists, and youth face the worst effects, yet resistance endures in small, encrypted acts of persistence. Vox, a digital safety researcher, recalls how after the coup, blackouts became “Internet curfews,” and police raids and digital fear merged into everyday life. With no protection from global companies, he and others learned that tools like Signal or Telegram could not guarantee safety. Every conversation required verification; every contact might be compromised. Digital survival meant learning espionage tactics in civilian life. Years later, he says, surveillance has become total. What began as emergency control has evolved into permanent monitoring, leaving an entire generation living cautiously under a digital authoritarian state. Myat, a journalist and media consultant, says that while before the coup, Myanmar’s independent press was expanding, after the coup, licenses were revoked, reporters jailed, and websites blocked. Exiled media outlets now depend on fragile networks inside the country. Online activity itself has become perilous: VPN use invites arrest, encryption offers no safety when authorities demand passwords, and surveillance reaches into every newsroom. Myat works to train journalists in digital hygiene and security awareness, yet she warns that technology alone cannot protect them. Financial collapse and fear have made survival uncertain, and she insists that the culture of safety—and courage—must now define journalism in Myanmar. Candle, a political researcher leading DigiSec’s “Duty of Care” project, focuses on how scholars must adapt research ethics to extreme risk. Fieldwork, interviews, and data collection can expose both researchers and participants to danger, so her team developed a Risk Assessment and Mitigation Plan for every project. Integrating encryption, anonymization, and storage security has become an ethical duty, not a technical choice. She explains that fear now shapes participation—many citizens decline interviews or refuse to share information. By embedding safety into research design, Candle argues, social inquiry itself becomes an act of protection as much as discovery. Together, their voices reveal a single truth: in Myanmar, speaking, writing, and researching have become acts of resistance sustained by vigilance and quiet resilience.

Episode #434: “I don't see how there could be a new social contract for a post-war, post-conflict Myanmar.” With this stark observation, Henning Glaser sets the tone for his analysis of the country’s turmoil. Glaser is a German legal scholar based at Thammasat University in Bangkok, where he co-founded the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance. His work spans Asia, but Myanmar has become one of his deepest commitments. Since the early 2010s, he has organized dialogues and seminars on the country’s political transition, and after the 2021 coup, his institute shifted to documenting and analyzing the descent into conflict. Glaser describes the future in bleak terms. The junta shows no sign of collapse, while the opposition remains fragmented. Ethnic armed groups pursue divergent roadmaps, preventing unity around a federal constitution. Glaser admires the energy of younger activists and local governance experiments, yet doubts these can form a coherent national framework. He cites Kurdistan in Iraq as a warning: local stability without broader resolution. Geopolitics, he stresses, makes matters worse. “It is inevitable that a primary focus on geopolitics is creating tension and border conflicts and wars. We see that everywhere,” he says. Myanmar, he argues, is reduced to a pawn in a larger contest between China, Russia, India, and an increasingly disengaged West. The result is proxy struggles that entrench the conflict. Organized crime further compounds the chaos. Scam centers, narcotics, arms smuggling, and trafficking create a criminal economy that fuels the war. “If you have this involvement of organized crime and an organized criminal economy, then you can sustain that for a very, very long time. And that is also why a long stalemate,” he warns. Glaser dismisses upcoming elections as hollow and recalls Myanmar’s earlier transition as a “democratic façade with a military heart.” Despite his dark assessment, he ends by saluting the resilience of activists and diaspora communities, whose determination to master law and policy remains, in his view, remarkable. “I totally admire all the young people, middle-aged people, and older people in the diaspora who put incredible efforts to keep up and to gain legal knowledge, to draft laws, to understand how to translate policies into law, how to interpret laws. That is remarkable.” 

Episode #433: Raul Saldana's journey began in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he grew up in a Catholic household. As a teenager, he questioned the rigidity of Catholicism and turned to nature, finding inspiration in the vastness of the outdoors. Music also became a powerful part of his life, leading him into diverse spiritual practices. In his twenties, Raul joined an ecological community and was introduced to Native American rituals like the Vision Quest; he later explored Sufism, Hindu meditation, and, ultimately, Buddhist practice, which provided the answers he sought. Under the guidance of S.N. Goenka, Vipassanā became a major turning point for Raul, fostering personal insight without blind faith. During a world music tour that stopped in Macau for a performance, Raul met his future wife, Heidi, and they together they became serious Vipassanā meditators. They traveled to Myanmar for deeper spiritual exploration. There, they began to practice under Sayagaw U Tejaniya. Raul felt pulled to become a monk, and ordained (and then disrobed) three times before finally choosing to remain a monk after the fourth ordination. He is now Bhikkhu Rahula; his wife supports his decision, though it changed their relationship in many ways. Their partnership has shifted from marriage to one of spiritual camaraderie, with Heidi continuing as a lay practitioner.  Bhikkhu Rahula’s current plans include the establishment of Paññābhūmi Monastery in Mexico, a center aimed at sharing Dhamma practice and teachings. “What happens with Buddhism, this faith, I could hold it! Otherwise, I would have run away very quickly. I love it.  Buddhism does a different approach: It tells you the reason from A to B, cause-and-effect, cause-and-effect, cause-and-effect, and you arrive here. Finish! With the faith that arises from it, it is because of the understanding. Faith has no questions anymore. Faith is not vague. Faith is based on the fact. Man, do I love that faith, because that is powerful.”

Episode #432: Myanmar researcher Lin Jin Fu investigates the rise of scam compounds that blend human trafficking, digital fraud, and organized crime. His study, Scam haven: Responding to surging cyber crime and human trafficking in Myanmar, traces their expansion from Chinese “scam houses” into a transnational industry stretching across Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Originally rooted in China’s underground economies, these groups migrated outward as Beijing cracked down and the pandemic restricted domestic activity. They flourished in lawless borderlands such as the Golden Triangle and northern Shan State, where weak governance allowed them to create fortified compounds that combine physical captivity with online deception.  Scam centers now anchor wider illicit economies— drugs, gambling, black-market banking, and prostitution— worth at least $37 billion a year. In 2023, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, with apparent Chinese backing, attacked major compounds in Laukkai during Operation 1027, rescuing trafficked Chinese nationals and handing over several ringleaders who were later sentenced to death. At the same time, Beijing launched a domestic campaign, flooding WeChat and Weibo daily with anti-fraud messages. Yet the system persists. Frightened operators briefly suspended work elsewhere, then reopened on the condition that they avoid targeting Chinese citizens. Every compound, Lin Jin Fu explains, survives by securing protection from an armed host—usually the junta or allied Border Guard Forces— while some ethnic armies tolerate or tax them. These networks adapt easily. Big bosses flee by helicopter; smaller scams need only laptops, generators, and internet. The old “pig-butchering” crypto fraud now employees sophisticated AItools, and online-gambling scams targeting countries across South America dominate Tachileik. Sadly, for many impoverished young Burmese, scam centers are the only escape from conscription and joblessness. Meanwhile, inside the compounds, workers endure coercion, sexual abuse, and debt bondage. Surrounding towns boom briefly, then collapse into ghost cities once crackdowns hit.  Lin Jin Fu warns that for scam centers to fully cease operations across Myanmar, the military junta has to go. Beyond that, he emphasizes that absent legal migration routes and alternative employment, the industry will continue to endure. “For drugs, people had an alternative— grow coffee instead of poppy,” he says. “For scams, what is the alternative?”

Episode #431: “I’m a sniper,” says Maui, deputy commander of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF). He and four top commanders describe being pushed from peaceful protest into armed resistance after the 2021 coup. They say nonviolent methods failed when the military answered with bullets, mass arrests and village burnings, leaving youth to choose between submission or taking up arms. Maui—once an organic farmer and environmental activist—explains the moral conflict: killing is deeply uncomfortable and can become addictive, yet they fight to prevent future generations from inheriting tyranny. The KNDF emphasizes discipline, training and strict protocols around weapons and landmines to limit civilian harm. Recruits start with bamboo-stick drills and brief, intense training between frontline rotations. Command structure, community support and unity among groups transformed disparate volunteers into a more effective force. Khine Sitthu, the drone operator, recounts improvising an air capability from agricultural drones, adapting online resources and AI tools to rig and navigate munitions. Drones shifted the battlefield, offering local “air support” and enabling strikes that conserved scarce ammunition, though the military later fielded jammers and heavier equipment. Innovation, resourcefulness and local backing explain KNDF’s tactical successes, including downing military aircraft and overrunning battalions—despite persistent shortages of weapons and ammunition. The commanders stress ethics: they target military forces, avoid indiscriminate bombing, and maintain post-conflict responsibilities (clearing mines and humanitarian support). They call on the international community for noncombat material support, including sanctions on military supply chains, while arguing that external assistance could shorten the conflict and reduce civilian suffering. Above all, they insist their struggle aims to build a democratic, nondiscriminatory Myanmar, not perpetuate violence. They remain open to negotiated outcomes if the military permanently relinquishes political power, insisting any settlement must guarantee civilian rule and institutional reform.  

Episode #430: Ngu Wah is a Research Fellow at Knowledge Circle Foundation and a PhD candidate at Chiang Mai University focusing on migration and political economy. In this episode, she speaks about the struggles of Burmese migrant workers and the crucial role of remittances in Myanmar’s economy, shaping the vision she has for her country’s future. She explains that Myanmar remains largely resourcebased, dependent on extractive industries and agriculture. The State Administration Council (SAC) controls the formal sector, while a significant informal sphere involves both state and nonstate actors. Weak infrastructure—roads, transport, and telecommunications—continues to weigh heavily on national development. Migration, she stresses, is “in [her] heart,” a personal commitment rooted in family background and her belief that migrant workers are the “unsung heroes of Myanmar.” Before her PhD, Ngu Wah studied returnees to learn how families managed remittances and supported rural agriculture. Later, while conducting research in Thailand, she uncovered evidence of a gender wage gap: women earned less but remitted more. She attributes this to side income, skillssharing, digital networks, and community living that help women stretch their resources. Yet, women also face greater obstacles than men in finding jobs when contracts expire and in reintegrating once they return to Myanmar. Many hope to start small businesses, making remittances essential as savings and seed capital. Documentation remains another critical burden. Although official fees are low, bureaucratic hurdles and language barriers push workers to use costly agents. Some fall into debt, while others risk working without papers. Yet documentation is vital for protection, services, and bank access. “We need to be very practical to solve that issue,” she says. “We need to think for the migrant workers.” Remittances accounted for about 4% of Myanmar’s GDP in 2018 and have only grown since the coup. But scams and tightening controls make safe transfers harder. She calls for flexible, secure mechanisms that also consider migrants’ habits. While many describe the Burmese as resilient, she cautions against romanticizing hardship. Survival, she insists, comes at a cost. Still, after recounting these struggles, she closes with her most powerful reminder: “[the Burmese] always find a way to survive.”

Episode #429: Emmanuel Flores' journey into meditation began at the age of nine in Rio de Janeiro, seated before a candle. His formative years were marked by a quest for positivity, but without a solid practice. This changed at 20, when a friend's recommendation led him to a vipassana meditation course in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. This course was transformative, and sparked an interest in the histories of Ledi Sayadaw, Saya Thet Gyi, and Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Emmanuel's fascination with Burma's spiritual heritage deepened, and he decided to travel to the Golden Land, staying with an uncle who had just been appointed as the Brazilian Ambassador. After a course at Dhamma Joti, Emmanuel chose to ordain. He felt a special gravitas and protection once he put on the robes, which intensified his conscientiousness and dedication to the practice. Guidance from an elder monk expanded Emmanuel's understanding, stressing the importance of scriptural wisdom alongside meditation. His teacher's memorization of the teachings inspired Emmanuel to internalize the Dhamma himself. The 2021 coup was a jarring contrast to his spiritual growth, the distress of his teacher conveying the gravity of the situation. Although Emmanuel left later that year, his warm memories of his time in the Golden Land remain strong. “I'm left with a thankful feeling, with lots of love towards all the people of Burma that I met, because it enriched my life, and it enriched my practice!When practicing mettā, I always try to remember them… Burma is still in my mind, and I really wish I can go back there again, and learn from that place more.”

Episode #428: This panel gathers five voices from Myanmar’s unraveling present—specialists in food, economy, energy, education, and digital life—who together trace the anatomy of a country still fighting to exist. Their stories intertwine across fields once filled with promise, now marked by loss, adaptation, and the quiet persistence of rebuilding. Thin Lei Win, a journalist and food systems expert, bridges the elemental links between nourishment and truth. She describes a nation abundant in resources yet starved by political neglect, where conflict and inflation have turned meals into measures of survival. For her, recovery begins with food sovereignty and regenerative farming— but also with journalism that insists on accountability, exposing the human costs of repression and keeping the language of truth alive. Economist Sean Turnell, once an adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, recalls the fragile optimism of Myanmar’s reform years before the economy imploded. The coup, he says, erased progress overnight, returning the country to extraction and scarcity. Yet he believes that when democracy returns, stability and investment will quickly follow, because the will to rebuild already exists. From the energy sector, Guillaume De Langre describes stalled electrification and broken trust, yet sees in renewable technologies and decentralized grids the outline of a fairer, more resilient future. Education reformer Thura echoes that belief in renewal, recounting how teachers and students who refused the junta reimagined schooling underground and online— an act of defiance that made learning itself a form of resistance. And in the digital realm, Bradley charts the turn from openness to surveillance, yet also the rise of encrypted communities that protect connection and expression. Together, these voices reveal that even in collapse, Myanmar’s pulse endures— in food and light, in words and classrooms, in the stubborn will to begin again. 

Episode #427: Daniel M. Stuart describes his newest work, Insight in Perspective, as the product of decades of scholarship and meditative practice, aimed at practitioners and academics alike. The book, a follow-up to his earlier Emissary of Insight, examines the historical and cultural formation of the S. N. Goenka Vipassana lineage. He says it began as a short academic critique, but grew into a comprehensive study seeking to bridge lived religious experience and historical analysis. Stuart situates his work partly in dialogue with Eric Braun’s The Birth of Insight, which links modern Vipassana to “Buddhist modernism,” a rationalized response to colonialism and ongoing Western influence. While acknowledging the general acceptance of Braun’s influence, Stuart contends that this model is too narrow, overlooking the hybrid, lay-based traditions that complicate the monastic-centered story. Figures such as U Ba Khin and Goenka, he argues, cannot be reduced to the rational and secular; their teachings blend the scientific, the mystical, and the cosmological. Stuart identifies a central tension between scholarly critique and devotional participation, describing the scholar-practitioner’s task as being willing “to complicate things” with remaining loyal to the tradition. But it’s not easy uncovering all the threads of this complex story. For example, he notes that many witnesses to early Goenka history have remained silent, while other informants, such as Friedgard Lottermoser, only shared guardedly, out of a wish to protect what they saw as esoteric knowledge. Stuart challenges Western scholars like Braun for “thinning out” the richness of Burmese Buddhism by forcing it into modernist categories, which also results in erasure. He emphasizes that elements like spirit consultation, protective rituals, and supernormal powers are not anomalies but continuations of Burmese cosmology, and still exist today in many “modern” mindfulness traditions. While Goenka’s public-facing dialog emphasizes the rational and secular nature of the practice, meditation hall arrangements, and the playing of protective chants such as the Patthāna, at Goenka centers, reveal a much more rich and complex reality. For Stuart, modernization in this context means reorganization, not disenchantment. The global Vipassana movement, he concludes, was not born of one or two events, but emerged through an evolving genealogy, one that joins textual scholarship, colonial encounters, lay experimentation, and enduring cosmological belief into a single, multifaceted birth of insight. 

Episode #426: The Karenni Interim Executive Council was formed in 2023 to provide services to people in dire need, with an estimated 80% of the civilian population displaced by the conflict. As people return to their homes, landmines placed by the military pose a multi-layered threat, causing injuries and deaths, creating a climate of fear for people on their own land, and making normal life dangerous on a daily basis.“Fear now makes the land become evil so they are afraid to even to step on the area where they are used to play happily,” Banya Khung Aung says. “Force people to flee their lands and ensure they cannot return. This is a crime against humanity.”Civilians returning to their homes cannot wait for permission for de-mining according to international standards, Banya Khung Aung says. People need to grow food and maintain their livelihoods in already challenging circumstances. In the absence of major international support, the Karenni are using their own model and local knowledge for mine risk education and to conduct de-mining. Methods include disarming mines with knives or bamboo sticks at great risk, clearing areas with tractors, and controlled fires to detonate or damage explosive devices.The landmine threat cannot be viewed in isolation. The military’s persecution of civilians in ethnic states is a strategic campaign of fear, Banya Khung Aung says, intensified amid the widespread resistance triggered by the coup, with airstrikes and targeting civilians central to military operations. The immense challenges to people’s ability to grow food and sustain themselves, combined with long-term trauma and psychosocial impacts, are shared by the Karenni and many other populations across the country.

Episode #425: Dr. Lalita Hanwong, a Thai historian and analyst, has dedicated her career to understanding Myanmar and its ties to Thailand. “I’m morally attached to the peoples of Myanmar,” she says, summing up a lifetime of scholarship and advocacy that spans from the archives of colonial Burma to the war-torn Thai-Myanmar border. “I just want to talk to everybody.” Trained at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Lalita’s research explored how British rule relied on racial hierarchies to govern Burma. “The British were pretty paranoid and suspicious of the Burmese… the specific race that they found the most difficult to rule and police was actually the Bamar,” she explains. “Their solution was pretty simple: let’s bring somebody to scare the Burmese—hence the presence of the Gurkhas, the Sikhs and so on.” These studies taught her how old systems of mistrust shaped modern Myanmar. Her work later shifted from archives to activism. Returning to Thailand, she began advising parliament and the army on border affairs, refugee policy, and Myanmar relations. “There are some really good-hearted [Thai] soldiers who mean well, who want to help Myanmar as well,” she says. Mae Sot, the border town she calls her second home, has become central to her life: “Mae Sot is a really fascinating place. There’s no place like Mae Sot… Thailand has been the hub of resistance from Myanmar for generations.” Lalita argues that Thailand must take a more active role as mediator and humanitarian partner. “Thailand could do a lot more,” she says. “The border is a gray zone… we cannot use the urban mindset to get the border fixed however we like it.” She rejects isolation of the junta—“you need somebody who can still negotiate and get access to Naypyidaw”—and believes dialogue is the only way forward. “War is never good for anybody except war business people.”

Episode #424: This episode opens the first of a three-part Insight Myanmar Podcast series recorded at the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University. The gathering brought together scholars, activists, and cultural workers exploring how colonial legacies continue to shape scholarship, storytelling, and identity in the region. In this opening episode, we hear from Jules Yim and Jochem van den Boogert, two voices who approach decolonization from distinct yet deeply connected directions. Jules Yim treats decolonization as a living practice rather than a theory—something expressed through art, performance, and community. She describes her concept of “seapunk” as a movement grounded in rebellion and creativity, a Southeast Asian counterpart to cyberpunk or steampunk. “When we refer to punk,” she explains, “we’re referring to the outsider... the ungovernable, the unserious.” For Jules, this spirit of irreverence opens space for experimentation beyond political or academic boundaries. She contrasts the state-backed Korean Wave of pop culture with independent, community-based artistic movements that thrive on informality and collaboration. Jules also expresses an optimistic view that imagination itself is an act of resistance—a way of reclaiming voice, joy, and collective power. Jochem van den Boogert approaches decolonization through scholarship, tracing how colonial and Cold War frameworks continue to shape Southeast Asian studies. “The main task of decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies,” he says, “has to do with getting a good grasp of that framework... and only then can we come up with alternative explanations.” His research on Javanese Islam explores how religious practices coexist in fluid, negotiated forms. “It’s about the practices,” he notes, not rigid belief. Drawing parallels to Buddhism in Burma, Jochem observes similar adaptive patterns, where communities integrate multiple truths into daily life. Both, he argues, reflect Southeast Asia’s remarkable coherence within complexity—an enduring, relational way of understanding the world.

Episode #423: Ian Taylor is a Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia. His first experience was with a government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s. His early visits to Burma during the junta’s “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved for a short time in advertising there.By the late 1990s, Taylor had left advertising for photography, focusing on family portraits and NGO assignments across Asia. A formative volunteer trip to Bangladesh further deepened his commitment to humanitarian work, and led him back to Burma.Taylor left the country in 2015, but reconnected in 2023 through the Thailand-based Border Consortium (TBC). He soon embarked on a volunteer photo project in five refugee camps, describing them as “an active, bustling town with everything.” His photography resists exploitative “poverty porn” and favors portraits that reflect dignity and agency. “Every portrait, in some way, it’s a collaboration.”Critical of the tourism industry’s distortions, Taylor remains focused on authenticity, connection, and service. In his words: “If you could go to a holiday in the Maldives or something... well, I’d rather go [to a refugee camp]!”

Episode #422: “There is beauty in owning one's racial identity. There's beauty in owning, valuing, and respecting one's heritage, ancestors, sexual identity, and gender identity. But on the other side of the coin, there can also be imprisonment there.”So says Bhante Sumano, an African-American monk at Empty Cloud Monastery. This is the 6th episode in our ongoing “Intersections of Dhamma & Race” series, in which we examineentrenched protocols, practices and biases within the vipassana and mindfulness communities.Bhante Sumano begins by telling us how he came to take on the monk’s robes. Originally from Jamaica, he moved to New York City for college and has stayed there ever since. Bhante Sumano trained under Thich Nhat Hanh and Thanissaro Bhikkhu before ultimately deciding that Empty Cloud was the best fit for him, as he appreciated the flexibility and openness in how the monastery embraced different Theravadin traditions.Bhante Sumano goes on to describe how the Buddha’s teachings have guided him in understanding and responding to racism. He expresses disappointment with how he has seen the wider Buddhist community respond to the recent social justice movement, and feels that even many experienced teachers have “blind spots” that prevent deeper understanding. Finally, he shares the value in providing safe spaces where practitioners of color can come to practice the Dhamma.

Episode #421: Saijai Liangpunsakul, whose first name means “the link between two hearts,” speaks of her journey through the turbulent conflict of Myanmar, and how the kindness and resilience of the Myanmar people continue to inspire her. Now a recognized expert on digital trauma and rights, she has come a long way from her small southern Thailand village. She travelled to Costa Rica on her own at 15 years on a student scholarship, and continued her global education in Canada and the US.The spark for her defining work ignited during the Arab Spring in Egypt, where she was on an exchange program from college. She witnessed firsthand technology's power for social change. This fascination changed the trajectory of her thinking about a career, and she initially joined an organization that utilized digital technology for healthcare access around the world. Then a stopover in Myanmar between work-related destinations in 2014 changed her life. She became captivated by the country and its digital revolution, and her planned two-week detour turned into six years.However, her initial perspective on the promise of technology in Myanmar hid technology’s darker underbelly. Saijai saw it transform into a “digital battleground” used for hate speech and oppression, notably against the Rohingya. She recognized Facebook's complicity in this growing problem, noting that it only had two people at that time to do all of content moderation for Myanmar. Saijai also describes a “devastating” situation now unfolding in Myanmar, one that combines real-life sexual and gender-based violence with tech-facilitated abuse. To combat this scourge – and coupled with her own terrible, personal experience of being harassed online –  she felt compelled to act. She co-founded Myanmar Witness to document abuses, and also Stop Online Harm, an “online ambulance” providing crucial technical, psychosocial, and legal support for survivors of digital trauma.“The answer was the community,” she says. “It is to hear the story of another woman go through abuse, how another woman can survive, and that makes me feel like I can be that too,” she affirms.