A few days ago we received an orientation to Burmese Vipassana meditation from Pyae U Kyi Win, who is the meditation director at the center where we are just about to spend three days. It is associated with the Chanmyay Yeiktha monastery where the venerable U Janaka is abbot. Typically, meditation retreats here are ten days long, but our study group has received special permission from U Janaka to stay just for three days. To him we are thankful for this generosity.

In the week leading up to this, we have been meditating for a half hour — for some of us, this is completely new territory. The meditations in the morning served as preparation, but also as a holding device for our very busy days here. They have been a welcome element to this trip.

I will not be posting whlle at the center. I will not be doing alot of things as perhaps the enclosed list of eight precepts indicates. We will be keeping silence. We will not be gazing at each other, or reading, or writing, or snacking, or singing, or, as the paper says, wearing unguents or making unseemly shows.

Peace to you, peace to this world, for surely it needs it. May our time of meditation accrue merit for all beings.