A senior Buddhist monk, Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa, the abbot of Win Neinmitayon Monastery in Myanmar’s Bago Region, was reported to have been shot dead on 19 June by members of Myanmar’s military as he was being driven from an airport in the central Mandalay region.
In a video shared on social media a day after the shooting, another monastic, Sayadaw Bhaddanta Gunikabhivamsa, who was also in the car at the time of the attack, said junta soldiers had fired seven or eight rounds at the car, killing the abbot, and injuring himself and the driver of the vehicle.
Myanmar’s military declared a state of emergency on 1 February 2021, after detaining President Win Myint, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, and other members of the governing National League for Democracy (NLD) party. The coup d’état took place just hours before the country’s new parliament was due to convene following a general election in November 2020, during which the NLD made substantial electoral gains.
Reading this news, I remember the Buddha’s saying from Attadanda Sutta (Snp 4.15):
“Fear has arisen from one who has taken up the rod: see the people engaged in strife. I will tell you of my sense of urgency, how I was stirred by a sense of urgency.
“Having seen the population trembling like fish in a pool with little water, having seen them hostile to one another, fear came upon me.
“The world was insubstantial all around; all the directions were in turmoil. Desiring an abode for myself, I did not see [any place] unoccupied.
May the peace come to Myanmar and all other places in the world
