Insight Myanmar

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.

Episode #420: “This is this shit is real. This is not a dream. This is real.”  Burmese actor and public figure Khar Ra recounts a path that runs from Mogok to Yangon, into entertainment, and then—after the 2021 coup—into public dissent, displacement, and ongoing advocacy. He grew up on Mogok’s west side. Money was tight; his father died from alcohol; his mother remarried and left; with no siblings, he lived among relatives and kept one house rule: don’t drink, don’t smoke. Before leaving he told a friend he would not return unless he had become an artist. In Yangon Khar Ra studied English at Dagon University while translating, working restaurant shifts, and taking shortterm jobs. A friend urged him into a modeling contest; he arrived in borrowed clothes, learned fast, and in 2014 was named Mr. Asia Myanmar, then placed second runnerup at the regional Mr. Asia pageant. Work followed across modeling, music, and film. He notes the limits of precoup censorship—no profanity even in gangster scripts, intimacy restricted.  On January 31, 2021, Khar Ra was planning his next series of films; by morning the coup began. Within days he joined rallies with ’88 Generation figures, raised the threefinger salute, shared inthe 8 p.m. potandpan protests, and posted blunt messages against the regime. He also redirected his platforms to verified needs— medicine, rent, transport— adding, “We must carry on what we are doing. We can’t waste their sacrifice… We’re in this together, and we will fight until the end. We can make it happen.” After a fellow celebrity’s detention, his own name appeared under Section 505(a). Khar Ra hid with relatives, then left Yangon in a longyi and glasses, passing seven checkpoints. He moved toward the Thai–Myanmar border and into ethniccontrolled areas, met displaced families, and says the shift was clear: “I am on a path of revolution… It is happening.” The next phase took him to the United States. He joined fundraisers (including a San Francisco night he says raised over US$90,000), acted in a UCLA student short—his first screen role in nearly five years—and assembled a small documentary from an elevenday Karen trip. Exile, he says, cost him identity and purpose, yet his pledge stands: “I will keep supporting the movement.I’ll fight until the end.” 

Episode #419: “I’m just doing what is right, what is wrong, what’s the matter? What should I do as a human being?”After medical school, instead of choosing comfort, Dr. Myay Latt went to the Naga Self-Administered Zone — a place with no roads or electricity, where he was often the first doctor anyone had seen. He built bamboo clinics, trained villagers, and survived falls off cliffs while fighting malaria and tuberculosis. “They think I’m a strange person,” he says, laughing, “but they thank me.”His work took him across Myanmar’s forgotten corners — from Chin to Rakhine, where he ignored warnings and treated patients in areas marked No Entry for Rohingya. “I just want to heal people,” he says. “Not take sides.” In Putao, near the Kachin mountains, he reached villages by boat and foot, sleeping in leech-infested huts and learning the depth of his country’s suffering.When the coup came in 2021, he and friends spent the night awake in Yangon, drinking whiskey and waiting. “It’s like slapping our face,” he says. Out of that shock came an idea, inspired so many decades ago by Gandhi’s nonviolent crusade against the British: What if we stop their machine? He and other doctors decided then and there, to refuse to work under the junta. By morning, the Civil Disobedience Movement was born. Within days, hospitals, banks, and ministries stood still.The regime answered with bullets and airstrikes. “They’re so inhumane,” he says. “Hospitals, schools — they don’t care who’s inside.” He calls the attacks a clear breach of international law and urges only one thing: stop bombing civilians.Today, Myay Latt leads Heartland Union, bringing medical aid to Myanmar’s war zones. Many of his colleagues are gone. Still, he meditates and carries on. “Sometimes I cry at night, just hearing a Burmese traditional song,” he says softly. “But I will do whatever I can to win this revolution.”

Episode #418: Lorraine Pan is a 21-year-old queer, autistic, immigrant from China who now studies Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto (note that Pan’s preferred pronouns are they/their/them). Growing up in a small town, Pan felt alienated in a conservative school system that stigmatized neurodivergence. Their politicization began in high school during the Hong Kong protests of 2019: Chinese state media glorified police violence while censoring dissent, a contradiction that unsettled them. With friends’ help, Pan became more internet savvy, and soon learned to navigate China’s vast surveillance and censorship system, encountering authentic voices from Hong Kong and Taiwan. This experience, combined with exploring their queer identity, convinced Pan that remaining in China was impossible. Canada offered relative safety, but Pan faced new struggles as a racial minority and first-generation immigrant navigating academic rigor, visa pressures, and financial uncertainty. They describe themselves as an “in-betweener,” belonging fully neither in China nor abroad. Online, they built a platform linking movements across Asia, with solidarity for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Myanmar, and LGBTQ rights. But harassment eventually forced them offline, shifting their activism toward speaking and community work. Pan emphasizes intersectional solidarity, noting that movements must center marginalized groups—such as LGBTQ individuals within ethnic or displaced communities—rather than deferring their rights until after “democracy.” For Pan, democracy without equity is hollow. They reject hierarchy and leader-centrism, advocating decentralized organizing and valuing intergenerational exchange despite tensions with older activists. Pan’s internet experiences in China, and conversations with friends still there, deepened their empathy for activists in Myanmar. The parallels were clear: Myanmar’s regime shuts the internet down entirely, while China keeps it open but tightly censored and monitored. Both methods silence dissent and inflict lasting trauma. Seeing this connection reinforced Pan’s conviction that authoritarian repression is shared across borders and that transnational solidarity is essential.

This bonus episode features the recording of a special online meditation fundraiser hosted by Better Burma in partnership with Vipassana Hawaii. The event combined meditation, reflection, and stories from the ground in Myanmar, highlighting how monasteries and nunneries have become lifelines—providing shelter, food, and education for displaced families amid crisis. Mora, who leads our monastic support team, shares firsthand accounts of resilience and need, while Vipassana Hawaii teachers guide practice and reflection. Donation links mentioned in the session remain active, with contributions continuing to sustain these monastic communities and their vital humanitarian role.

Episode #417: “There has been a massive lay critique of leading Buddhist monks that have been seen as pro-military… but to conclude that monks are either silent or pro-military is too hasty! What we actually see is polarization and division within the Saṅgha,” says Iselin Frydenlund, a professor of religion in Norway who has spent decades studying Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.   One of her arguments is that the Saṅgha has never been truly unified. The coup simply shattered public illusions of unity, and that diversity and division have always marked monastic life in Myanmar. Frydenlund’s second main point concerns a popular perception that the Saṅgha has been “captured” by the junta. She does admit that pro-junta monastic voices have drawn strength from decades of state patronage, forming what she and her colleagues call the “military-monastic complex.”  But the reality is far more complex: not all monks are under the military’s sway, and she stresses that even the reasons that pro-military monks support the junta are not monolithic. Some are certainly rabidly militaristic, but others simply fear chaos more than dictatorship; there are many others alleged to be complicit through their silence, but are just afraid, and others who resist quietly, sustaining the Vinaya and supporting the displaced.  In the end, Frydenlund expresses concern that dismantling institutional Buddhism in a post-junta Myanmar would impoverish the Sāsana. She emphasizes that it has “has not gone away” even during the revolution, and remains central to its networks, ethics, and resilience. The future may bring new schisms, reforms, or survival strategies, but she insists that Buddhism will be an integral part of whatever shape the country takes. “Don’t buy into this narrative that we all lose faith in Buddhism now, because it’s a revolution,” she says. “Buddhism is still with us as this kind of personal practice, but it’s also the realization of the Dhamma and the need for social justice that informs this societal engagement.”

Episode #416: In the early 1990s, a chance encounter with Burmese student exiles in Bangkok sparked Nic Dunlop’s enduring interest in the country. His initial ignorance of the country developed into curiosity, empathy, and visual storytelling. As a photojournalist, Dunlop has spent years documenting the “invisible dictatorship” of Myanmar’s military regime, focusing on the mechanisms of social control, forced labor, and repression. His 2013 book, Brave New Burma, aimed to educate Western audiences about the complex realities behind simplistic narratives. Rather than reinforcing the myth of Aung San Suu Kyi as a saintly figure, he presents her as a tough leader shaped by privilege, critiquing her understanding of marginalized communities alongside a limited understanding of the country’s peripheral conflicts. He also challenges the Western romanticization of both Suu Kyi and Myanmar, arguing that it led to performative policies and a blindness to the structural conditions that enabled the 2021 coup. Dunlop documents not just brutality, but structure—capturing how indoctrination, poverty, and coercion shape Myanmar’s military conscripts. From refugee camps to prison quarries, his work illustrates repression both subtle and overt. His photographs, including one of Suu Kyi herself, offer visual testimony to the country's contradictions. In the end, he emphasizes humility as essential to understanding Myanmar: “The more I learn about Burma, the less I know.”

Episode #415: U Jāgara's spiritual journey is a fascinating exploration of monastic life, creativity, and the transformative power of the Dhamma. Born in Quebec, his introduction to meditation set him on a path that would span traditions and continents. His spiritual journey was initially shaped by his time in the Goenka tradition, where he valued the rigor and structure of its method. He later practiced Mahasi Sayadaw’s teachings in Yangon, which introduced him to the nuanced and adaptive approaches of Burmese monastic practice. Then in Sri Lanka, he immersed himself in rich Theravādatraditions of scholarship and meditation that expanded his understanding of the Dhamma, affording him both intellectual depth and the opportunity to live a solitary monastic life for a time. Appointed as a teacher within the Goenka tradition, U Jāgara eventually grappled with the organization’s growing rigidity. For example, he felt that the pre-recorded discourses limited the opportunity for creative and responsive teaching. He also noted how the exclusion of alternative meditation techniques narrowed practitioners' understanding of the Dhamma’s diversity. In addition, he strongly believed that the discouragement of interaction with monks and traditional Buddhist rituals created a sense of separation from the broader, Buddhist spiritual community. Though valuing its teachings, he transitioned away from the Goenka organization, seeking a more integrative approach to the Dhamma,. A transformative chapter unfolded for U Jāgara when he left monastic life temporarily to explore lay life in France. Balancing personal aspirations with the needs of others, he gained insights into the richness of human relationships, responsibilities, and shared growth. Yet, the call to monastic life drew him back to Myanmar, where Pa Auk Sayadaw’s individualized and methodical guidance reshaped his meditation practice. Under this mentorship, U Jāgara refined his focus on jhāna meditation, achieving profound clarity and insights.“We have to remind ourselves that the monastic life is not for everybody, and it's a question of choice. It's much better if you if you are able to be monastic, and it's cool because you don't have responsibilities, and you just devote yourself to the Dhamma! But it does not, by itself, integrate the lay life, and lay life can be very rich.”

Episode #414: “They just didn't believe me at first. So I had to prove to them.” With these words, Xiao Yar Yar captures his struggle for recognition— a struggle that has defined both his personal life and his role in Myanmar’s revolution. When the military staged its coup and dismissed the election as fraudulent, Xiao Yar Yar knew the generals were lying. He had collected votes and seen the results himself. Watching peaceful protestors shot down shattered any remaining illusions. A student training to be a teacher, he set aside his future and stepped into the jungle as a medic. “I received medical training after the revolution. Before the revolution, I was just a young man trying to be a teacher,” he recalls. His medical knowledge was born not in classrooms but on the battlefield— learning to stop bleeding, improvise tourniquets, and stabilize the wounded. Later, he trained others, equipping them with lifesaving skills. Disease and exhaustion ravaged fighters as much as bullets, and Xiao Yar Yar became both medic and counselor, keeping morale alive with humor, food, and small gestures of care. Support extended further through his initiative, “Owl Company.” He delivered hammocks, backpacks, food, and small comforts like soft drinks to the frontlines, filling gaps that larger groups overlooked. Yet the suffering also stretched to IDP camps, where families displaced by bombings endured hunger, dirty water, and trauma. Xiao Yar Yar provided what he could—food, filters, encouragement. Yet he warned that mental health, especially for children, was dangerously neglected. “I think the NUG has to take an action about the IDP and the civilian mental health issue,” he insisted. But as an LGBTQ man, discrimination followed him everywhere. He was mocked, underestimated, and even forced into weapons training by mistake. But he proved his worth as a medic leader. “I have faced the discrimination for my whole life,” he acknowledges. Years later, he sees a stronger resistance with better weapons and training, but unity remains essential. His final words are simple and sharp: “We have to unite very well... all of the EAOs and all of the PDFs.” 

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the center of Bangkok’s protests has made her one of the country’s most visible young voices for democracy and feminist struggle. Born in Mahasarakham province in Thailand’s Isaan region, a place long tied to grassroots democracy but often dismissed by elites, Memee grew up in a politicized household, as her father, a staunch Red Shirt supporter, constantly encouraged her to question authority. At sixteen she moved to Bangkok, and when dissident Wanchalerm Satsaksit was abducted in Cambodia in 2020, she joined her first street protest. She recalls it as the moment the curtain lifted on authoritarianism.  Around the same time, having faced harassment and “slut-shaming,” Memee’s feminist awareness deepened. With the Feminist Liberation Front Thailand, she adapted the Chilean anthem “A Rapist in Your Path” into Thai, sparking both solidarity and backlash. “For me, feminism is not just…a theory with big words or vocabulary, but how we are really living our life,” she says. Memee’s activism quickly put her in the crosshairs. At just sixteen she was arrested for a speech about women in prison; over the next two years she faced seven more cases. Authorities subjected her to symbolic punishments, which she wryly called “certificates of activism.” In 2021, she shaved her head at a rally, declaring, “I will shave my head until this Prime Minister quits!” It became a shocking but powerful symbol of resistance. Despite repression, Memee expanded her reach, and became involved with the Milk Tea Alliance. “It gave me the privilege to be able to listen to broader perspectives and border experiences,” she says. She has worked tirelessly to support Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle, building bridges through “Thai Students for Burma.” For Memee, activism must also include joy. “Fun has two benefits,” she explains. “It is good for mental health in the community, and it attracts more people to join.” Humor, memes, and play, she insists, are weapons against fear.  

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.”Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar’s war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United Wa State Army, a thirty-thousand-strong force running a state the size of Belgium. “It would be entirely wrong to see the Wa as simply Chinese puppets or Chinese proxies,” Davis insists. The Wa have scaled back arms transfers under Chinese pressure, but they remain determined to expand their autonomy. Their ambition is recognition as a state, linking their territories along the Chinese and Thai borders. If the regime collapses, Davis argues, the Wa will act swiftly to unite and consolidate. He calls them “a critical player in the overall struggle for Myanmar.”The Wa’s influence now extends west of the Salween, through ties with the Ta’ang, leverage over the Shan State Progress Party, and neutralization of rivals like the Restoration Council of Shan State. This, Davis notes, is ascendancy rather than reckless conquest—a quiet dominance shaping the conflict’s direction.Davis also identifies drones as a decisive factor. Initially dismissed, they became central to resistance victories in late 2023. The junta responded by creating a drone directorate, importing Chinese systems, and applying Russian expertise from Ukraine. By 2025, drones, artillery, air power, and conscripts are integrated into an operating machine. “It’s an army in the way the resistance, by definition, is not,” Davis observes.Resistance morale remains high, but Davis stresses that spirit alone cannot sustain the fight. “They have got plenty of morale. They’re not short of guns. But if you don’t have enough ammunition, then you’re in trouble.”Elections, he says, “will happen come hell or high water,” yet will not bring peace. China’s backing of the junta complicates everything, while the Arakan Army’s rise in Rakhine could change the board entirely. Davis closes with a warning: “The bottom line is, you can have a ceasefire today, but [the Burmese military is] going to come back, they’re going to rebuild, they’re going to re-equip, and they’re going to come back at you.”

Episode #411: This is the second part of our interview with the meditation teacher, Tempel Smith, and it starts off with his decision “to commit to deep intensive Burmese-style meditation, break through some of these habits, and then find a more integrated lifestyle.” With this in mind, he boarded a flight to Myanmar with his friend Diana Winston, and ordained under Sayadaw U Pandita.Although U Pandita’s reputation as a stern and very demanding teacher caused him some concern, he went to the Sayadaw’s monastery and began to practice. Tempel describes U Pandita’s style as a “ruthless investigation” which was uncommon among Western teachers, and which ultimately led to a deeper understanding of the second foundation of mindfulness.After some time, Tempel became concerned about the intensity of the practice, and when he heard about the newly established Pa Auk Monastery, he decided to try it out, as he was especially keen to practice mettā intensively through jhāna meditation.At Pa Auk, he would find a very different style of monastery. The monastics and lay meditators were more relaxed, and openly discussed scripture and practice between meditation sittings. Tempel also found the actual practice to be quite different, particularly the absorptive states that Pa Auk taught. As he progressed in samathā, he began to see lights, considered a positive sign that one’s practice is going well,. He even began to develop psychic powers, such as predicting the future. This, in particular, shook him to his core, and caused him to question Western notions of “the real world.”This paradigm shift of reality began to affect his faith as well. “I was feeling that devotion to the Buddha, his teachings, the centuries of people practicing it, people rediscovering it at different times and re-encouraging that level of practice,” he says. “And then to see that it wasn't mythology, that it actually could be possibly more true than you might have imagined.”In the next segment, we explore how he took these teachings from Myanmar back home to the US with him.  

Episode #410: “We’ve got to find a way from surviving to thriving again.” With this vision, Jue Jue, a social worker and founder of Jue Jue’s Safe Space, seeks to transform Myanmar’s mental health landscape. Raised in a politically engaged family—her father an 88 Generation activist and her mother a frontline social worker—Jue Jue’s early exposure to trauma and resilience shaped her lifelong dedication to social justice.Her understanding of inequality deepened upon moving to the U.S., where her accent and ethnicity led to discrimination, mirroring the systemic exclusion ethnic minorities face in Myanmar. This caused her to reflecting on her own Bamar privilege, which exposed her past biases, especially toward groups like the Rohingyas and Indian-Burmese. She committed herself to building inclusive, respectful spaces.Jue Jue’s Safe Space, launched in 2019, evolved from a Facebook page into a critical mental health platform for Burmese communities. Inspired by personal struggles and intergenerational trauma, the initiative counters stigma by offering culturally grounded, clinically sound services. Jue Jue emphasizes that mental health suffering often stems from systemic injustice, not individual weakness.She challenges her country’s romanticized patriarchy and calls out its political misuse, while urging a return to Buddhist principles of compassion. Despite operating without steady funding, her initiative has supported many during Myanmar’s cascading crises—pandemic, coup, earthquake—while promoting agency and emotional resilience.Though not yet ready to treat oppressors (those who are currently in the military perpetuating abuses), she hopes for a future where reconciliation is possible. “We’re going to shine again,” she affirms, envisioning a Myanmar rebuilt through inner peace, inclusion, and empowered healing.