Ingrid Jordt. Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction ofPower. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007. xxii + 265 pp. + 14 pp. of plates. $28.00 (paper), ISBN978-0-89680-255-1.

Reviewed by Erik Braun (University of Oklahoma)Published on H-Buddhism (January, 2012)Commissioned by Thomas Borchert

Meditating on Legitimacy and Power in Burma

In 1999, the military junta that ruled Burmasponsored the installation of a new finial (hti) on thetop of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. This wasa portentous and risky move, for the Burmese com-monly believe that only a legitimate ruler can suc-cessfully put a new hti on the structure. When thework was completed without incident, the generalswere reported to have exclaimed, “We won!”[1]

As Ingrid Jordt argues in her fascinating andhighly valuable book Burma’s Mass Lay MeditationMovement: Buddhism and the Cultural Constructionof Power, to properly understand such a jubilant crywe must go beyond the assumption that the juntasimply used Buddhism as a cynical means to jus-tify its rule. Jordt shows how the logic of the mil-itary government’s behavior emerged from a Bud-dhist cosmological vision revealed in and shaped bythe mass meditation movement that developed afterWorld War Two. Many scholars have taken med-itation to be, at root, an individualistic and pri-vate activity. Jordt makes the astute argument that,while the practice may be important to the individ-ual, modern mass meditation in Burma is a commu-nal endeavor that knits the Burmese people togetherby creating a shared worldview. In this setting, plac-ing a new top on a pagoda was not just a religiousact for political ends, but a political act for religiousends. However much the junta relied upon violence–shown clearly to the world, once again, in the brutalcrackdown against the Saffron Revolution in 2007–they also depended upon a legitimacy shaped by massinsight (vipassana) meditation. Although in March ofthis year the military ostensibly ceded control to anelected government (albeit one weighted toward mili-tary influence), this transition of power hardly makesJordt’s study irrelevant. On the contrary, the new po-

litical structure–still very much a work in progress–shows the military’s ability to manage change, andthus only underscores the value in her nuanced pre-sentation of the Buddhist logic for such power formedin the milieu of mass insight practice. In particular,Jordt examines the influence of the meditation move-ment of the monk the Mahasi Sayadaw (1904-82),which had government sponsorship under Burma’sfirst prime minister, U Nu, and has enjoyed greatpopularity all over the country among rich and poor,in both urban and rural areas.

Jordt’s argument that the generals and their min-ions have had at least partial legitimacy does notmean that the majority of Burmese happily acceptedthe rule of military leaders or now welcome theirinfluence behind the scenes. But a widely sharedcosmology–and cosmology stands as the key analyti-cal concept of the book–has made their power seem anunfortunate but not illegitimate karmic consequence.Thus, it follows that, contrary to a common assump-tion, Buddhist conceptions of power are not only onthe side of those in favor of transparent Western-style democracy, preeminently Aung San Suu Kyi andother figures in the National League for Democracy.As much as Buddhism enables political resistance, itmust be seen to support the military’s power.

Jordt is well positioned to examine this ambiva-lent situation. She not only had unusual access toleading religious figures both inside and outside ofthe Mahasi meditation movement, but to politicalfigures as well, including U Nu. As an anthropolo-gist, Jordt’s deep ethnographic experience in Burmaforms the core material for the book. But, in affin-ity with the work of her mentor, S. J. Tambiah, Jordtalso includes a deep historical perspective and knowl-edge of Burmese Buddhism. This approach allows

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her to take aim more broadly at Burma scholars–anthropologists, but also historians, Buddhist studiesspecialists, and political scientists–who have tended,in her view, to neglect the deep-seated relationshipbetween Burmese Buddhist cosmology and contem-porary political developments.

The first chapter provides the historical informa-tion needed to understand how lay Buddhists becamethe “New Laity,” a group which took on a prominentand unprecedented role in contemporary Burmese so-ciety through the Mahasi meditation movement. Theremoval of the king by the British during the colo-nial period had destabilized the relationship withinwhat Jordt calls the “ternary order of sangha, state,and laity” (p. 23). After the Second World War, laypeople’s administrative control of the Mahasi medi-tation movement enabled them to assume what hadbeen the king’s responsibilities to purify and protectthe sangha. Insight meditation also proved popularbecause it drew religious power to the practitionerthrough self-purification, provided prestige, and ce-mented a sense of lay identity and worldview withpolitical implications.

Chapter 2 explores this new identity and world-view in detail, arguing that the practice of insightmeditation causes an “epistemic reconstruction” ofthe meditator through his or her deconstructive anal-ysis of moment-by-moment experience (understoodemically as a purification of view). Here Jordt hedgesthe issue of whether the Mahasi insight method pro-vides access to a genuinely unmediated experienceof perception. To my mind, the meditation process,which culminates in the apperception of the truths ofBuddhism in individual experience, suggests that theentire process contains preconceived notions about re-ality that dictate the outcome. (Joanna Cook’s recentwork could be usefully compared here for its morespecific focus on the retreat experience in a relatedcontext.[2]) But of great value and most germane tothe argument of the book is Jordt’s explanation ofhow the mass meditation movement makes each med-itator’s moral purification, once a matter reserved forthe king, relevant to society’s welfare, including itspolitical situation. Meditating can be seen as a polit-ical act because the Burmese understand it to shapethe interrelationships of sangha, state, and lay per-sons, and because it produces the criteria of legiti-macy, emerging from an “enlightened citizenry,” thatthe government must heed.

Having examined the mechanics of the meditation

technique and its effects upon the political and socialsensibilities of the meditator, in the remaining chap-ters of the book Jordt turns outward to describe theconsequences of mass meditation for Burmese soci-ety. Chapter 3 studies religious giving (dana). TheMahasi organization, like other groups, produces, asJordt puts it, “dana cliques” (p. 134) that connectpeople to organizations, famous monks, and eachother. Donor relationships carry through in socialand business relationships, too, and the Burmese un-derstand these relationships as having transcendenteffects, in that social links forge bonds and even po-litical configurations in future lives. The rich detailshere of how donor groups form are especially interest-ing, for, just as in the case for meditation, they showthe complex social networks that develop aroundwhat is often viewed as an individual act. What Jordtcalls a “politics of sincerity” determines the validityof donation. One’s intention in giving must be sin-cere (oriented toward Buddhist values such as com-passion, equanimity, morality, and enlightenment) toaccrue real benefits. Thus, government figures haveengaged in many highly publicized acts of donationto proclaim their pious sincerity. Such acts have sup-ported their right to rule on the basis of Buddhistcriteria continually reasserted by the laity in the pro-cess of mass insight meditation. Burmese questionthe government’s sincerity, of course, but one cannotbe sure of another’s intention. To some degree, dona-tive acts have to be taken at face value for the powerthey confer. So, when the generals have done some-thing like refurbishing the Shwedagon, Burmese havetaken it–albeit “with a heavy mood” (p. 122)–as self-evident proof of an earned legitimacy. Many believethe regime simply could not have done it without thespiritual–and, flowing from that, worldly–power de-rived from a store of good karma.

Granting some legitimacy to the generals hasnever meant passive acceptance of oppression, asmodern Burmese history clearly shows. Yet, ex-amples of resistance in familiar Western ways–streetmarches, civil disturbances, etc.–have been relativelyuncommon. In chapter 4 Jordt seeks to explain whythis is the case by describing an overlooked form ofresistance outside the civil sphere. Meditation relatesto this resistance because the meditative experienceprovides a vision of the world that encompasses acritique of politics and supplies a venue for “subtlymanifested” (p. 168) political action. Within this“alternate action sphere” (p. 149) formed by medi-tation, the cultivation of lay-monk networks and the

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pursuit of insight have provided hope and motivatedresistance through the assertion of a moral standardto which the government is subject. Furthermore,insight meditation itself produces good karma, build-ing up individual by individual, that Burmese havetrusted will reshape society in better ways in the fu-ture. (Jordt observes that this means of resistancehas become particularly prominent among women,who find in insight practice greater access to Buddhistlearning and achievement than usually available inother settings.) While these modes of resistance in analternate sphere might seem incapable of fomentingdramatic political change, they are critical to identify,for they describe a form of local agency that countersthe notion that most Burmese Buddhists have beeninert in the face of oppression. It seems likely thatthis form of resistance will evolve along with recentpolitical developments. How exactly remains to beseen, but Jordt’s analysis provides the background toexplore fruitfully changes that take place in this arenaof alternative political critique.

Real resistance notwithstanding, the militaryjunta (in various permutations) managed to hold onto power for close to fifty years and only gave upovert control this year on its own terms. In chapter 5Jordt surveys various rulers and regimes in the post-independence period to relate their activities to thearguments about legitimacy and mass meditation de-veloped in the prior chapters. Military rulers couldnot avoid involvement with Buddhism. The massmeditation movement, growing in leaps and boundsas a Buddhist counterweight to an initially secular-ist post-independence regime, had to be brought un-der control. To do so, the military leaders of thestate became more and more involved in sasana af-fairs from the mid-1970s onwards. The junta did suchthings as reorganizing the sangha, building pagodas,administering Buddhist culture examinations, con-ferring monastic titles, and, not the least, toppingthe Shwedagon with a new hti. All of these effortswere modeled on the office of the precolonial kingand depended upon a cosmological worldview sharedwith meditators. Jordt is careful to note, however,that not all government practices can be understoodthrough a Buddhist framework. There is also thebureaucratic development of ministries, tangled inpatron-client relations, which have their own institu-tional logics that at times have conflicted with Bud-dhist beliefs. There has been an expectation, for in-stance, that government employees will skim goodsand services from their jobs to make ends meet, much

to the dismay of devout Buddhists caught betweentheir moral precepts (sıla) and the need to get by.Furthermore, the new government’s cancellation ofthe Myitsone Dam Project, release of political pris-oners, and willingness to allow Aung San Suu Kyi torun for parliament suggest political calculations thatmake sense within a Buddhist framework of powerbut are not necessarily dependent upon it.

In the epilogue Jordt concludes with a general dis-cussion of the Buddhist cosmological worldview shesees as underlying societal developments during thetime of military rule. She argues that mass medita-tion is not just numerically significant as a movement,but that its large number of participants (over a mil-lion purportedly with certified achievements) pointsto a shared outlook in the broader Burmese soci-ety that has shaped political realities. The Mahasimovement has been unquestionably influential, andthis fact is part of what makes Jordt’s analysis ex-tremely worthwhile. Yet it is not clear to me that itseffects are quite as pervasive as argued here. (JulianeSchober has recently observed, for instance, that themain Mahasi center in Yangon appears lately to haveundergone serious decline.[3]) Even among those whohave achieved accredited levels of realization usingthe Mahasi method, perhaps we cannot be so sure ofthe effect. We should keep in mind, as well, that mostBurmese do not meditate (at least in the system-atized way meant here). Furthermore, not all who dopractice meditation follow the Mahasi method withits distinct epistemic approach. Jordt does not ad-dress the many other practice traditions in Burma(such as those of the Mogok Sayadaw, the Pa AukSayadaw, and U Ba Khin). We should bear in mindthat the explanation for meditation’s later phenome-nal growth includes factors, such as the strong Abhid-hamma textual tradition in Burma and the effects ofcolonialism, that crosscut Mahasi, other meditationtraditions, and even the majority that never seriouslypractices insight meditation. Awareness of this com-plexity in the Burmese situation undercuts somewhatthe distinctiveness of the Mahasi movement’s influ-ence.

The assumption of a consensus of worldviewamong meditators also suggests that meditation, andthe cosmology it assumes, comprise a totalizing force.Jordt is well aware that poststructural scholars maycriticize this approach as obscuring how individu-als and competing groups negotiate dominant ideasabout belief and practice. But she maintains that anunapologetic stress on the “structural force” of Bud-

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dhist cosmology clarifies the meditation movement’sfunction as an encompassing “culture-making mecha-nism” (p. 208). Here Jordt is addressing the critiquein recent anthropological thought of any “holism” (p.207), such as cosmology, that obscures the realityof contestation and change among individuals andgroups. At the very least, Jordt’s approach, viewed asa heuristic strategy, allows her to capture with claritythe cohesive logic of the system of religion and poli-tics in Burma, even if, in fact, a society never reallystays in a coherent equilibrium.[4] It is a testament tothe value of Jordt’s thoughtful and convincing bookthat scholars of Buddhism, Burma, and SoutheastAsia can depend on its perceptive analysis if theywish to pursue where disequilibrium and differencepush at conceptual balance. More generally, scholarsand students interested in the relations of religion andpolitics in Asia will benefit from reading the book,given its detail and theoretical rigor. So, too, willthose with an interest in political change in Burma,for Jordt’s study suggests that, though the generalsmay have had cause to cheer “Aung Pyi! We Won!”when they renovated the Shwedagon, the ambivalenteffects of karma make their legitimacy inherently un-

stable. The karmic right to rule must constantly bereasserted, creating the need to respond to pressuresboth inside and outside of Burmese society. Recentevents exemplify such responses and offer the hope ofchange for the better in what Jordt describes as thepotential for “a new synthesis of Buddhist truths andpolitical experience” (p. 219).

Notes

[1]. Seth Mydans, “What Makes Monks Mad,”The New York Times, September 30, 2007. Jordttells this story on p. 122 and discusses the refurbish-ment of the Shwedagon on pp. 188-189.

[2]. Joanna Cook, Meditation in Modern Bud-dhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai MonasticLife (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

[3]. Juliane Schober, Modern Buddhist Conjunc-tures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, ColonialLegacies, and Civil Society (Honolulu: University ofHawai’i Press, 2011), 93.

[4]. Edmund Leach, Political Systems of HighlandBurma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure (London:Athlone Press, 1970), 4.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at:http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.

Citation: Erik Braun. Review of Jordt, Ingrid, Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism andthe Cultural Construction of Power. H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews. January, 2012.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=33808

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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