A Community of Buddhist nuns in Sagaing, Upper Myanmar (Burma)

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Thinking points

• We've likened the monastic communities in Sagaing to households, because they share resources and recruit children, though not, of course, biologically. What do you think about this comparison? Can religious communities belonging to other religions be likened to households? What are the differences between true households and religious communities?
• We've emphasised the importance of interdependance between people - not just materially but also on a level which is cultural and spiritual - as a source of security, stability, well-being and happiness. Think about the importance of interdependance between religious communities belonging to other religions and the lay community around them. What kinds of parallels can be drawn between the kind of interdependance we see in Sagaing and that between within the lay community - for example between kin or neighbours and between those who work or trade together?
• Sagaing is a remote place but it is important in the spiritual life of Myanmar. Places which are remote from centres of population are, in fact, often seen as spiritually powerful. Why do you think this is?

Setting the scene

In the Sagaing hills 12 miles from the ancient capital of Mandalay in Upper Myanmar there are hundreds of pagodas, stupas, monasteries and nunneries (see panorama). This is a very special place - remote but also, from a spiritual point of view, a focal point of worship for Buddhism in the country. The very fact that it's remote has always attracted meditators, recluses and hermits, generating a kind of religious myth about the place that has attracted pilgrims from all over Burma. The high level of spirituality is expressed in the presence of thousands of nuns and monks in the area, living in groups in nunneries and monasteries - making the area the `abode of sage recluses'. There are also lay people living in Sagaing - some scattered among the monasteries and nunneries, and most in the market town of Sagaing about half an hour's walk from the monastic community.

Monastic livelihoods and `households'

The monks and nuns make ends meet in a very distinctive way - they are entirely dependant on lay people for their daily existence, living from hand to mouth on donations. Unlike Christian nuns and monks, Buddhist monastic communities are not supposed to involve themselves in any form of livelihood activity, but must be kept by donors, who by giving donations build up spiritual merit for their next life - and wordly success in this one.

Nunneries and monasteries don't just consist of adults. Although all members are celibate, they live in groups like families, including small children as young as five. Some of these little children stay a week as temporary monks or nuns; others stay their whole lives. The days of the monks and nuns are taken up with prayer, study, household work, chanting and meditation, making merit for themselves and their donors. Monks wear dark red toga-like robes; nuns dress in orange and pink robes. They possess very little of their own. Each group of monks or of nuns is tightly bound together, leading a highly disciplined but serene and happy life.

Monasteries are not divided within themselves into smaller groups, but nunneries are usually split up into a number of separate households, called `pots' because they share all their food. When donations are made to the monasteries, they are always pooled. But a donation to a nun is made to the pot to which she belongs rather than to the nunnery as a whole, and only within that pot is it shared fully (though there is good deal of informal sharing with neighbouring pots, as happens in a normal village).

We visited two nunneries, one split up in the usual way into a number of `pots' - the Thameikdaw Gyaung nunnery, founded early in the 20th century - and the other operating an innovative, `one pot' system, more like the way monks live - the Sakhadhita Sathin-daik nunnery, founded in 1998.

Like most other nunneries, the Thameikdaw Gyaung nunnery is like a little village, made up of groups of nuns living in individual houses, often built by the family of one of the nuns. The whole community is led by an abbess who is the `landlady' of the whole nunnery. One of the nuns we spoke to is Daw Saranawati, who is 86 and heads one of the pots in the nunnery. Each of these is like a household, and Daw Saranawati has a handful of young nuns living with her. She used to have a best friend, another nun with whom she led the pot, but her friend died some years ago. Daw Saranawati used to work as a telephone operator and speaks good English, since she was educated when English was widely used in Burma, as Myanmar was then called.

In the Sakhadhita Sathin-daik nunnery, by contrast, everything which any of the 52 nuns in the nunnery receives is shared among all. So the whole nunnery, instead of being like a village, is like a huge single household (see panorama). The Sakhadhita Sathin-daik nunnery is renowned for its scholarship, although it is so new. We met the abbess, Daw Zanaka, and the four other senior nuns who teach the younger nuns, including Ma Kusarawati, and Ma Pawanateri - who are best friends - as well as talking to younger nuns, including little nuns like 6-year-old Ma Khinsana.

We also went to meet and interview donors. One of the nuns from the Thameikdaw Gyaung nunnery took us to visit Daw Tin and Utun Gyi, her kin and donors, who live in the village of Shangalei-Chun near Sagaing. Other donors are wealthy townspeople, like Daw Yee Yee, who owns a small cottage factory in the town of Sagaing making cheroots, a kind of local cigar. Yet others come from far away, from the city of Rangoon or even from other countries. The Sakhadhita Sathin-daik nunnery, in particular, with its innovative system and high level of scholarship, has attracted funding even from abroad. One foreign donor is Dr. Hiroko Kawanami, a Japanese specialist in Buddhism who bought the land for the nunnery.

The networks of donors on which the nuns and monks of Sagaing depend show how important a strong set of social relations is to people's livelihoods - what is sometimes called social capital. The interdependence between nuns and monks on the one hand and lay people on the other seems to be one which benefits both sides, and expresses the trust and reciprocity which exists between them.

The monastic communities may also be said to have something we might call `spiritual capital'. The monks and nuns are happy people. The fact that they are interlinked and dependant on their donors is something which gives them a sense of strength and of being needed, and this is almost certainly important in giving them a sense of peace and stability. But their spirituality is also important in establishing their own serenity. It also ensures that donors will keep giving to them.

Donors benefit from the relationship with the monastic community in terms of their own state of mind. They get a sense of security and stability from donating, because they believe that they are building merit for the next life and material wellbeing in this - and also because donating to the monastic community builds up their social in the lay community in which they live.