Insight Myanmar
238 episodes - English - Latest episode: 19 days ago -Insight Myanmar is a beacon for those seeking to understand the intricate dynamics of Myanmar. With a commitment to uncovering truth and fostering understanding, the podcast brings together activists, artists, leaders, monastics, and authors to share their first-hand experiences and insights. Each episode delves deep into the struggles, hopes, and resilience of the Burmese people, offering listeners a comprehensive, on-the-ground perspective of the nation's quest for democracy and freedom.
And yet, Insight Myanmar is not just a platform for political discourse; it's a sanctuary for spiritual exploration. Our discussions intertwine the struggles for democracy with the deep-rooted meditation traditions of Myanmar, offering a holistic understanding of the nation. We delve into the rich spiritual heritage of the country, tracing the origins of global meditation and mindfulness movements to their roots in Burmese culture.
Each episode is a journey through the vibrant landscape of Myanmar's quest for freedom, resilience, and spiritual riches. Join us on this enlightening journey as we amplify the voices that matter most in Myanmar's transformative era.
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Episodes
Paint It Black
December 16, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 226 MBEpisode #138: “Almost everything was propaganda,” Paing comments, reflecting on his childhood growing up in Yangon. His release came in the form of artistic expression through music, largely influenced by Western bands and singers. He describes his songs as being gloomy and melancholic, which also characterizes his feelings about the recent, turbulent events in his country. Recently, however, Paing has been unable to write new music, nor even play his old tracks, because he is still recove...
Mission of Burma
December 09, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 216 MBEpisode #137: A lifelong Czech diplomat and currently Ambassador to Austria, Jiří Šitler talks about his career and the interesting ties between his country and Myanmar. He first official task was to negotiate terms for German compensation of Czech citizens who had been victims of forced labor and Nazi war crimes. After this, he was given the Ambassadorship to Thailand. This led to further ambassadorships in Laos, and Cambodia, and eventually the post of Director for Asia in the Czech Forei...
Breaking Glass Ceilings, Documenting Atrocities
December 03, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 198 MBEpisode #136: “I usually do what I want,” Nyein admits openly. Somewhat unusual for a woman in traditional Burmese culture, it is an attitude Nyein cultivated during the democratic transition period of the 2010s. Since the coup, she has become quite possibly the country’s only female photojournalist, one who has captured some of the most violent examples of military oppression. However, she has never been able to quite escape from the confining limitations of gender discrimination still plag...
Following the Dhamma (Bonus Short)
November 29, 2022 12:00 - 47 minutes - 109 MBEpisode #135: “We just felt like we knew Myanmar, and it didn't seem like a foreign place to us.” So says Tamara Edwards, currently the Center Teacher at Dhamma Pabha, a vipassana meditation center in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. A chance encounter led Tamara to her first course in 1990. The teachings stuck, and she became dedicated to the practice. Together she and her Dhamma partner, Jamie, sat and served courses. After taking two years away to earn a livelihood, they felt they needed to...
Freedom Behind Bars
November 25, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 249 MBEpisode #134: Liv Gaborit, a Danish social scientist with a background in psychology, conducted a groundbreaking study about intensive vipassana meditation retreats offered in the tradition of S. N. Goenka in notorious, overcrowded, Insein prison. Gaborit was told a story about a high-level military figure who regretted his bloody actions in suppressing the 1988 democratic uprising. Seeking spiritual salvation, he traveled to India, where he took a course in the Goenka tradition and was det...
The Fight of Their Lives
November 15, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 177 MBEpisode #133: Zach Abuza, a professor at the National War College who shared his analysis of the Burmese military in our previous discussion, now turns his attention to the resistance movement. While initially the concern about the Peoples’ Defense Force [PDFs] was that they were well -intentioned yet poorly trained individuals going up against a ruthless and brutal military, much has changed since. Every one of the country’s 330 townships now boasts at least one PDF unit, and they have ste...
On the Ropes
November 11, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 189 MBEpisode #132: Zach Abuza, a columnist at Radio Free Asia and a professor at the National War College in Washington, DC, provides his analysis of the tactical and strategic situation facing the Tatmadaw nearly two years into their attempted coup. He debunks several theories regarding the Burmese military. One is the size of the Burmese military, which he believes is much smaller than is often assumed, and is now showing signs of strain. There is also an increasing number of defections, and A...
A Jaded Hellscape (Bonus Short)
November 08, 2022 12:00 - 44 minutes - 102 MBEpisode #131: Mike Davis is CEO of Global Witness, an international NGO that seeks “justice for those disproportionately affected by the climate crisis: people in the global south, indigenous communities and communities of colour, women and younger generations.” It published two groundbreaking reports on Myanmar’s mining industry. One is Jade and Conflict, which shines a light on the dangers, corruption and environmental degradation of the lucrative jade mining industry in Kachin State, whi...
Igor Blaževič on the Spring Revolution
November 03, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 236 MBEpisode #130: Igor Blaževič experienced the chaos, violence and fear of the Bosnian War at a young age. Once the war ended, Igor wanted to support others who were suffering from the lack of freedom he had only just escaped from. With this in mind, Igor traveled to such hotspots as Kosovo, Chechnya, Cuba, Belarus, and eventually to Myanmar. This work led to a close friendship with Czech President Václav Havel, whose own country had recently emerged from a traumatic past. Havel’s participatio...
The Pit and the Pendulum
October 28, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 215 MBEpisode #129: Andrea Passeri and Hunter Marsten co-authored an article which looks at Myanmar’s quest for a non-aligned foreign policy, and that is the subject of this podcast discussion. In 2011-12, following many years of military rule, the Thein Sein administration moved quickly to gain both domestic and international legitimacy. It instituted economic and political reforms, allowing the NLD, who had boycotted the elections, back into the political mainstream. From the military junta’s ...
Chinland’s Forgotten War
October 21, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 253 MB“The greatest tragedy of Myanmar as a country is that it gets the headline for a week or two, and then it generally gets buried, because so many other things are happening,” Matt Davis explains. With this in mind, Matt decided to head to Chin State, one of the regions where the conflict has been among the worst, and report on the resistance movement. His work ultimately resulted in a feature on Australia Broadcasting Corporation’s popular current affairs program, Foreign Correspondent. Matt...
Helping to Cushion the Blow
October 14, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 213 MBEpisode #127: “I basically started meditating about eight years ago, and it's it changed my life completely,” Claire Thorp tells us. For years, Claire had been intrigued observing how her partner kept up a daily sitting and was curious to give it a try herself. Her initial course in the Burmese lineage of S.N. Goenka was very challenging for her. However, she felt sort of a “magnetic pull” to the tradition and returned to start sitting and serving. Some time later, Claire traveled to India...
Fiction and Fun in Burma
October 06, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 282 MBEpisode #126: When Rose Metro sat down to write Have Fun In Burma, a novel set during the Rohingya crisis, she was already well aware that the country has long been viewed through an exotified, Orientalist lens. Being quite conscious of this past narrative, she wanted to draw attention to cultural conflict, using multiple perspectives. The protagonist, Adela Frost, is a politically progressive young woman. She interacts with diverse characters who represent common archetypes from the transit...
Keeping the Burmese Language Alive
September 30, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 238 MBEpisode #125: Given the deteriorating and destabilizing situation in Myanmar, one might assume that experts in the fields of Burma Studies, along with Burmese language teachers, would be more important now than ever. Yet nonetheless, the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has elected to terminate the post of Professor of Burmese. Burmese language instruction at SOAS dates back to 1917, when civil servants associated with Britain’s colonial administration st...
Power to the People
September 23, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 192 MBEpisode #124: Today’s guest, Guillaume de Langre, worked for several years in Naypyidaw as an adviser to the Myanmar Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MOEE), and explains the history of electrification in Myanmar. From the post-independence period through the 2000s, he describes how much of the country was dark. One reason is that Tatmadaw was never really interested in developing access to electricity to much of the country. It may seem strange that the military regime did not seek a mor...
A Failure of Diplomacy
September 16, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 260 MBEpisode #123: Lucine has been the liaison officer between France and Myanmar for decades. With this rich experience, she offers an insightful perspective on the workings and machinations of the hidden world of diplomats across multiple crises in Myanmar. Burma used to be viewed as a kind of remote backwater that few knew much about. But that all changed with the ’88 democratic uprising. Working with the European countries and the US, Lucine advocated for an immediate travel ban and economic...
A Conversation with Gil Fronsdal
September 10, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 183 MBEpisode #122: Gil Fronsdal’s single visit to Myanmar came over three decades ago, but the impact of the trip on his spiritual life stays with him still. Initially practicing Zen, he went to Japan to deepen his practice, but he soon became disillusioned with the emphasis on ritual. He traveled on to Thailand, where he took a Mahasi course. Immediately impressed, he felt inspired go to the source of the teaching and seek further guidance under Sayadaw U Pandita, himself. When Gil did finally...
A Vipassanā Journey (Bonus Shorts)
September 07, 2022 21:47 - 52 minutes - 119 MBEpisode #121: While perhaps a strange choice for some, Steve Jarand and Kati Schweitzer elected to spend part of their honeymoon meditating in Myanmar. Both being practitioners in the vipassana tradition of S.N. Goenka—a Burmese citizen of Indian heritage who trained in a Burmese lineage—that 2016 trip was something of a spiritual homecoming for them. The visit broadened their horizons regarding their spiritual path. For example, Steve learned to appreciate Burmese Buddhist culture on its o...
Htein Lin: Pursuing Art and Liberation
August 31, 2022 18:10 - 2 hours - 292 MBEpisode #120: On Thursday, August 25th, 2022, the accomplished artist and longtime activist, Htein Lin, was arrested along with his wife, Vicki Bowman. We had only just recently interviewed him, so hearing this news was doubly shocking. Htein Lin became was involved in the 1988 uprising in opposition to the military junta, and experienced guerilla warfare as a member of the revolutionary group, All Burma Students’ Democratic Front. While living in a reconnaissance camp along the Indian bord...
Wading Through a Burmese Haze
August 26, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 314 MBEpisode #119: Erin Murphy has been involved in Asia issues since 2001, and Myanmar, in particular, since 2008. She relates all this in her recently released book, Burmese Haze. She contrasts the somewhat distorted, emotionally charged view of Myanmar held by American policy-makers during the transition period with the harsh, even brutal military reality in Myanmar that was lurking just under the surface. Murphy recalls the sheer callousness of the military government’s refusal to accept ...
Progressing Towards Victory
August 19, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 233 MBEpisode #118: Kyar Phyu returns to the Insight Myanmar Podcast to update listeners on how eventful the past number of months have been, in particular regarding her association with the CDM. Her activities came to the notice of military intelligence, and Kyar Phyu was forced to flee, taking refuge in a safe house for eight months. During that entire time, she only ventured outside twice, both times out of necessity: first when she contracted COVID, and then when her safe house became comprom...
Attack on a Meditation Center
August 12, 2022 16:54 - 2 hours - 290 MBEpisode #117: “The army believed democratic fighters were hiding in my center, so they moved very aggressively. They entered my meditation center! They shouted, ‘Hey, I will kill you. I will kill you!’ Their soldiers knocked in the door of the female kūtis. Oh God, everyone is very scared. Very afraid. They are shooting; they are firing in the air. But when they came to the female Dhamma Hall, they saw the female yogis are practicing in the Dhamma Hall. So, they are very surprised and shocke...
Have Pity on the Working Man (Bonus short)
August 09, 2022 18:22 - 32 minutes - 74.7 MBEpisode #116: On July 7th, the official account of the European Union in Myanmar posted a two-minute video urging factories in conflict-torn Myanmar to re-open, charging that the factory shutdowns had driven former employees to poverty and even prostitution. In response, many charged that the EU was trying to manipulate Burmese voices to advocate for a policy that would benefit themselves but goes against the aspirations of the democracy movement. Today’s guest, Maung Maung, currently presid...
A Reign of Terror
August 05, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 166 MBEpisode #115: Matthew Wells is a member of Amnesty International’s Crisis Response team specializing in human rights violations, and has spent years investigating the ongoing atrocities by the Tatmadaw. One of the patterns that has come up repeatedly in their group’s study has been the Burmese military’s targeting of civilian communities rather than armed opponents. One particular Tatmadaw tactic that stands out to Wells is its reliance on airstrikes. Heavy bombardment is effectively trauma...
Supporting Myanmar through Engaged Buddhism
July 29, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 266 MBEpisode #114: Growing up in the Bay Area, raised by parents who followed the Vietnamese meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh, Derek Pyle was no stranger to Buddhist theory and practice. While some Western practitioners separate their formal meditation practice from their experience of everyday life, Derek has always found value in integrating them, and has looked for inspiration from formal sitting practice to sutta study to undertaking projects as an Engaged Buddhist. One of his first project...
Spring is Coming
July 22, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 150 MBEpisode #113: “I often asked myself how people can really have the presence of mind to sit down and write amidst such extraordinarily difficult circumstances, to be able to reflect on the kinds of traumas that that they're experiencing.” So says Brian Haman, who, along with ko ko thett, is the co-editor of “Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar (1988-2021),” the first published literary work to come out of Myanmar since the military cou...
Journey into Chin State
July 14, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 287 MBEpisode #112: Simon traces the arc of his Chin homeland’s history and politics from the mists of history to the present-day conflict. Chin State is the poorest part of Myanmar, which suffers from an lack of developed infrastructure. Due to the lack of available medical care, Simon decided the best way he could serve his community was by becoming a doctor. He explains how perhaps Chin State’s root problem now is poor access to education. There are just a small number of woefully supplied sc...
Visual Rebellion
July 07, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 268 MBEpisode #111: Emerging from under decades of harsh censorship, local journalism and investigative reporting made great strides in Myanmar during the democratic transition in the 2010s. But all that was wiped out in a single blow when the military grabbed power. They began revoking licenses, arresting journalists, and torturing and even killing some in prison, posing a real risk to anyone trying to document the current conflict, and forcing many to go underground. This is the backdrop to the...
Journey Into Renunciation
June 30, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 280 MBEpisode #110: Ariya Baumann’s spiritual journey began far away from the tropical surroundings of the Golden Land. She grew in a small town in Switzerland, among the snowy Alps. Raised in a Christian home, she began to ask herself existential questions about God. As she began to investigate possible answers, she came across some writings on Buddhism, and was immediately intrigued by the promise of meditation. Ariya tried on her own for a while, but wanted to take a more formal retreat, so sh...
Working Class Hero
June 23, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 187 MBStephen Campbell has spent the last twelve years studying labor movements in Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries. Going back and forth across the history of the country’s labor movement, he describes something of a convoluted legacy of the role of labor in Myanmar, leading through the transition period and into the coup. 1988 was a watershed year for labor in Myanmar, according to Campbell. After being declared illegal in the 1962 coup, informal labor unions began to spring up, init...
Lives in the Balance
June 16, 2022 15:51 - 1 hour - 216 MB“You can you hear from how I speak that these days, I am very distracted and distressed by the development of the entire thing,” Han Htoo Khant Paing admits during this urgent and emotional interview. Han Htoo is the author of a recent The Diplomat article describing the four state executions that the Tatmadaw has ordered. In the context of the military’s terrible brutality and atrocities—abducting, raping, burning, and killing with impunity since the start of the coup in February, 2021—som...
The Power of Dialogue
June 09, 2022 23:54 - 1 hour - 267 MBSoeya Min first got his start in the travel industry, then switched to the entertainment field. When the pandemic struck, with a lot of free time on his hands, he started learning about psychology. All these endeavors led him to podcasts, and he started up his own program, called Thoughts and Opinions, in which he talks with guests from a wide range of backgrounds. More than just looking to boost his own platform, Soeya Min is looking to helping elevate the entire local podcasting industry ...
The Karenni Resistance
June 02, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 169 MBLike many of his Bamar colleagues, Khun Be Du and his Karenni community first attempted to resist the military coup through non-violent means. When that could no longer be sustained, he banded together with friends to form a local defense force. Today, he is playing a leading role in the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), while also serving as Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation for the National Unity Government (NUG). Tatmadaw incursions into Karen...
The Hope of R2P
May 26, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 231 MBThe days turned dark in March 2020 when the Burmese military began attacking and killing nonviolent protesters. Soon after the crackdown, activists still courageous enough to take to the streets began holding signs that read: “We Need R2P.” R2P, or the Responsibility to Protect, is an international norm that the UN unanimously adopted in 2005, which purports to protect populations around the world from atrocity crimes, such as ethnic cleansing. However, R2P is not a legal doctrine, and so ...
The Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi Returns
May 19, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 308 MBThe Myanmar military’s violent response to the democracy movement has caused angst among many devout Burmese Buddhists about how to defend themselves and their fundamental freedoms, while remaining true to their religion. Many are faced with that line where the cold edge of sila (ethics) melts along the warm edge of lived experience. Is sila black-and-white, or might there be more shades of grey? Bhikkhu Bodhi helps unpack this moral quandary in this follow-up discussion to our interview las...
A Delicate Balance
May 12, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 269 MBKenton Clymer joins the podcast to speak about his book, "A Delicate Relationship: The United States and Burma/Myanmar since 1945." In the waning days of World War II, Americans were primarily concerned with stopping the spread of Communism, especially after Mao’s revolution, which thrust neighboring Burma into an important geopolitical position. Initially, the US thought that U Nu, Burma’s first Prime Minister, was too Socialist-leaning, while Ne Win, the eventual dictator, was seen as an a...
A Voice of Conscience
May 05, 2022 17:57 - 2 hours - 287 MBMa Thida’s book, Prisoner of Conscience, details her remarkable and inspiring life journey. She was attending medical school when, in 1988, the military violently suppressed peaceful protesters. Soon, she found herself volunteering at local NLD offices that had formed in the wake of the unrest. In 1993 Ma Thida was arrested on a trumped up charge and given 20 years. Adjustment to prison life was not easy. She first found relief in the form of smuggled books, which she could only read secre...
Rick Hanson on Becoming An Ally
April 28, 2022 12:00 - 48 minutes - 111 MBWhile our recent episodes have focused on the reality in Myanmar, this show explores the condition of allies outside the country who support the democracy movement. Although free from physical harm and living in basic safety, many find that they shoulder a heavy emotional burden by immersing themselves so deeply in the struggles and trauma experienced every day by the people of Myanmar, even if from afar. Rick Hanson is a mindfulness practitioner “interested in bringing a kind of Mahayana s...
Mratt Kyaw Thu
April 21, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 313 MBThe past ten years of Myanmar’s history have certainly not been boring, and journalist Mratt Kyaw Thu has been there to chronicle a lot of it. Hailing from Rakhine state, Mratt made his way to Yangon in 2005, graduating from Dagon University and going into journalism soon after. He worked for Mizzima, where he ended up on the crime beat, and also began covering stories about the military’s snatching up bits of prime real estate throughout the country. Mratt then began filing a series of re...
Contrasting Ukraine and Myanmar
April 14, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 276 MBOn February 1st, 2021, General Min Aung Hlaing orchestrated a military coup in Myanmar. On February 24th, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized missiles and airstrikes as the first blow in his invasion of Ukraine. On today’s show, two very experienced and highly credentialed international relations experts compare and contrast these two crises: Hunter Marston, who speaks to the situation in Myanmar, and Emily Channell-Justice, who addresses the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As ne...
Liberation At All Costs
April 07, 2022 11:00 - 2 hours - 293 MBEpisode #98: Linn Thant never expected to see another military coup in Myanmar. In 1988, he was arrested, locked away, tortured for years and eventually sentenced to death. So Linn Thant did not expect to live much longer. Linn Thant spent a total of twenty years in prison, eight of those on Death Row. He was beaten so badly that both his leg and collarbone were broken, and every tooth was knocked out. His meditation practice saved him, though, being the one thing that they could never tak...
Beth Upton
March 31, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 338 MBFrom deep meditative absorption with Pa Auk Sayadaw, to sitting in caves in southern Spain in the company of drug addicts and criminals, Beth Upton has led a most amazing spiritual life! In 2008, Beth went to Pa Auk Monastery in Myanmar to take a deeper plunge into the spiritual life, and she remained there for five years. She cultivated deep states of jhāna under his tutelage, and enhanced powers of perception. Beth describes the peace and happiness of jhānic states in compelling terms...
Resistance and Transformation
March 24, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 316 MBSome listeners may recall Chit Tun’s first interview with Insight Myanmar, just weeks after the coup was launched. At that time, he was leading nonviolent protests throughout Yangon. He was hiding out at a monastery, his voice hoarse from the speeches he’d been giving, and the internet being cut in the middle of the talk. Shortly after that interview, Chit Tun escaped a manhunt by going on the run, ultimately finding refuge in Karen state. He spent the better part of the next year there in c...
Education: The Passport to the Future
March 19, 2022 03:27 - 1 hour - 227 MBNelson Mandela famously said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Conversely, one of the best ways to prevent change within a society is to limit access, censure what is taught and stifle creative thought. And the military leadership in Myanmar have been doing just this for generations. Saw Tar fills in as guest host in this episode about the role of education in Burmese society. The educational system of a country is charged with instilling knowl...
Pride and Prejudice
March 10, 2022 16:10 - 1 hour - 211 MBPyae Phyo Kyaw, a gay doctor, is simultaneously helping his countrymen while taking a sledgehammer to the barriers that have long defined Burmese society. Pyae Phyo Kyaw was aware of his sexual orientation from a young age, and the lack of acceptance grew heavy. He attempted suicide several times, until he finally found a way to let go of his inner shame. He was determined to come out, which he did after he had obtained his medical degree. After the military coup was launched in February 2...
Alan Senauke, Engaged Buddhist
March 03, 2022 17:59 - 2 hours - 290 MBIn the aftermath of student strikes in 1968, Alan left Columbia University and moved to Berkeley, California. There, he found himself amid a whirlwind of social unrest: the counter-culture movement, anti-war protests, experimentation with mind-altering chemicals, and increasingly violent crackdowns by the police. Eventually Alan came across Philip Kapleau’s book, The Three Pillars of Zen, and was immediately intrigued. Zen was not completely unfamiliar to Alan. Coming from New York, he was...
The Language of Freedom
February 24, 2022 15:55 - 1 hour - 203 MBMost people would not regard a violent military coup as the best time to start an organization, but that's exactly what Katie Craig and her partners did! Katie has worked with minority language communities around Myanmar for years, which gives her unique insight into the historical, cultural, and political challenges that such communities face. Given the Burmanization policies of the government, this has been no easy task. One of the biggest battlegrounds has been the mandated use of Burme...
This Woman’s Work
February 17, 2022 19:06 - 1 hour - 142 MB“I think Tatmadaw is a place where soldiers and their families have lost their human rights,” Su Thit asserts. Her bold criticism of Myanmar's military is somewhat unusual because her husband was one of the several hundred thousand soldiers employed by the Tatmadaw. The couple had enjoyed beginning their adult lives in a transitioning democracy. In a free society, the military would have its rightful place in society, and so at first, they did not need to choose sides between the Tatmadaw...
Looking Within A Burmese Nunnery
February 10, 2022 18:09 - 58 minutes - 133 MBLike so many other spiritual seekers from the West, Kim Shelton and her husband were attracted to Myanmar by the opportunities that the country presents for developing a deeper Buddhist practice. Kim’s experience there inspired her to create a feature-length documentary, One Thousand Mothers, which examines life in a Buddhist nunnery in the Sagaing Hills. Kim learned that many girls became nuns due to poverty, conflict, or difficult family circumstances, and so the decision to ordain is not...
Depicting a Golden Kingdom
February 05, 2022 17:33 - 1 hour - 215 MBWhen films examine a subject in detail, it’s sometimes described as a “meditation on…” that particular theme. Golden Kingdom, a 2015 film by Brian Perkins, fits this expression in more ways than one. Brian himself is a dedicated meditator, which affected the artistic choices he made as director. For example, Brian and his crew slept in the monastery for the duration of the shoot, and he spent every morning meditating before he started filming. This meditative approach also gave him the spac...