Ingyinbin Journal: The Scratchings of a Broom

John, a meditator from New Zealand, spends extended periods in Ingyinbin each year, the home of the revered Webu Sayadaw and with his friend Ashin Mandala. This winter, he has decided to keep a journal, which he has kindly offered to share with us. His journal alternates between observation and poetry, between meditation practice and commentary about Burmese Buddhist society, from his learnings and his questions. The full collection of his musings can be found here.

8 January 

Each day on the way to breakfast we walk over dust that has been swept, at least from a ‘here’ to a ‘there’, the scratchings where the broom has passed forming an interesting pattern, more watery than the lake. Meanwhile various white birds are still settled in the trees; in ones or twos or threes they depart. The patterns left in the dust by other birds as they stroll about are in contrast tangled, like ripples.

Nearby, sweetly intoning monks; on mp3
U Jotika expounds the citasikas; & entering
at the window light, blend of blends.

Around the corner a monk reclines in his chair of wooden boards, reciting what is on the sheet before him. Someone has dropped a fresh gladioli stalk onto the ground, its serial flowers still fresh in the dust. A couple of schoolboys respond to my greeting and we high-five …otherwise it is mainly dust on the ground all the distance round the crumbling perimeter wall of the monastery to our sitting hut. I do notice, near the gate entrance, a couple of ox-carts loaded high with rice hay, the driver precariously balanced atop; and a sweet-looking light brown-grey bird of reasonable size, a firm beak and I think russet on the upper breast. Another bird like this, maybe larger, is perched high in the tamarind tree immediately opposite the entrance, where often we see the little squirrels take a leap from the bare electric cable on the wooden poles onto the tree, a good metre or two’s gap.

Half the length of its tail, the squirrel
scampers along the aerial cable:
earth its mirror.

Burmese Flowers

U Sarana, the Mingaladon-based monk, has contributed the following stories. To join his weekly newsletter, contact us as here.

"Perhaps in every country children like to play with flowers. In Myanmar it is especially so, and many flowers thus get their 'children's name.' One of such flowers is paw-paw pan (ေပၚေပၚပန္း), of which official name is not known to me. This flower has a stalk that can be cleaned, removing the flower and the root, and used as a low-tone whistle. When blowing in the stalk, the sound you may hear is paw paw, said jokingly Ma Zin Mar. Ma Myint Way knows this plant in her village in the Mandalay region as Thingyan flower - and my dictionary in turn explains that there are seven different flowers with this name, called so because they are particularly selected for flower-vases in Thingyan days, i.e. during the holidays of Myanmar's new year.

An interesting plant described to me by Ko Thet Win Maung is magnolia (Michelia champaca), called in Burmese Saka-War-Pin (စံကား၀ါပန္းပင္). It's flowers are cut off and kept in a well-washed 'glucose glass-bottles.' These glass-bottles are then kept in front of a Buddha statue or on tables as decoration-- and can last up to one whole year. So far I don't remember having seen this, but if you see that, you may like to ask how long the bottle has been kept there. Ma Zin Mar says, that upon opening the bottle the flowers immediately wither."