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| Burmese Buddha |
It is at the place of the standing Buddha itself that we are told why. Waiting for us, as if he knew we were coming, was one of the 5 Patron monks of the monastery of Monywa (there are no Abbots here, monasteries are managed by patron monks), the Venerable Eindhobhasa, who welcomed us in English. He told us he was the grandnephew of U Narada and he welcomed us into the inside "body" of the statue and answered all our questions about the impressive complex of holy objects. All round us are hundreds of life-size Buddhas with exquisite expressions, each one beautifully painted with great devotion.
"My Master", he told us, referring to U Narada, "explained we had to create the merit to build such a tall Buddha, so he bought 25 acres of land on which he planted 1000 Bodhi trees; and under each tree he built a life-size Buddha statue sitting in meditation, the project proved very popular and soon the 25 acres expanded to 250 acres, and the 1000 trees and Buddhas expanded to 8000 trees and Buddhas. Today there are over 9000 Bodhi trees with 9000 life-size sitting Buddhas in meditation".
It was an amazing story. And then he told us that the statue was 33 levels and 427 ft high. And there is a wonderful relic of Shakyamuni Buddha placed in the crown of the Buddha's head. Every floor of the statue is decorated with gigantic Buddha statues. Some floors had been "sponsored" by Buddhist organizations from Korea, Japan and so forth.
But mainly, the financing came from donations from local and overseas devotees. In all, the standing statue cost US$3 million. We thought the figure was incredibly low! I had thought it would have cost at least US$100 million... all of us whistled in admiration as Ven. Eindhobhasa explained all this to us.
The project to build the standing Buddha was started in 1995 and completed in 2007. A year before its completion, U Narada passed on... Later, we watched the sunset and then felt the twilight engulf us. It was an incredible moment for me, for us. That we had had the great good karma to be there and to be shown round by such a senior monk who could chat with us in a language we understood. How cool is that! Definitely a miracle of sorts. We left the Standing Buddha to motor on to our hotel, and that night we enjoyed our first amazingly delicious meal. I guess we all felt really and truly blessed.
But that is not all. The following morning, for some reason, we decide to go back to the Monywa monastery and guess what? Ven Eindhobhasa was waiting for us. This time he invited us into the private chambers of U Narada and it was there that he gave me so many relics of his Master, and his Master's Master. I was overwhelmed at this level of generosity. He told me that the relic keep multiplying... and no matter how much he gives them away, the relics never run out. I had made secret wish that he would offer me relics of his Master because it has to be an enlightened being who can successfully build this complex of Buddha statues.
I know because I was once a Director of the Maitreya Project, the heart dream of my own precious guru Lama Zopa Rinpoche who has been working so hard to build the 500 feet Maitreya Buddha statue in Bodhgaya in India - a statue that is to last a thousand years. That project too started in 1995, but to date not a single stone has been constructed, so I know just how difficult it is to build gigantic-sized holy objects.
This is why in my heart I rejoice so much that here in Burma, a land so poor and so terribly hurt by the trade sanctions imposed upon it, an enlightened being must surely have lived among them and achieved what we still have not and at a fraction of the cost that we thought such a statue would cost.
Surely this must tell us so much about the genuine purity of the devotion of the people and monks of Monywa? This ends Part 2 of Burmese Buddha.