ေျမြသံလား ေလသံလား

မုိးရာသီမွာ မုိးရြာတာ အျပစ္မဟုတ္၊ ေဆာင္းရာသီမွာ ႏွင္းက်တာ အျပစ္မဟုတ္၊ ေႏြရာသီမွာ ေနပူတာ အျပစ္မဟုတ္။ ဒါကုိ လက္ခံတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ အဂၤါေမာင္တုိ႔ ေနတဲ့အရပ္မွာ ရာသီမေရြး မုိးရြာေနတယ္။ မုိးရြာရုံသက္သက္ဆုိ အေၾကာင္းမဟုတ္၊ အခုေတာ့ မုိးရြာရင္ ေလက ပါလာတတ္တယ္။ ေလက သာမန္ရုိးရိုးေလမဟုတ္။ အသဲကြဲေအာင္၊ အသဲခုိက္ေအာင္၊ ဘ၀နာေအာင္ ျပင္းျပင္းထန္ထန္တုိက္တဲ့ေလ၊ ဘ၀တစ္ခုလုံး တုိက္စားပစ္မဲ့ေလ၊ ေလာကႀကီးတစ္ခုလုံးကုိ ဂၽြန္းထုိးေမွာက္ခုံျဖစ္သြားေအာင္ သိမ့္သိမ့္တုန္ေစမဲ့ေလေတြရယ္ပါ။ ဒီေလေတြၾကားမွာ အဂၤါေမာင္ အေတာ္ေလး အေနရခက္ေနတယ္။

အေရွ့ကအေနာက္၊ အေနာက္ကအေရွ့၊  ေတာင္ကေျမာက္၊ ေျမာက္ကေတာင္၊ အေပၚကေအာက္၊ ေအာက္ကအေပၚ ဘက္ေပါင္းစုံကေနၿပီး အျပင္းအထန္တုိက္ခတ္ေနၾကတယ္။ ေလထန္ကုန္းမွာ ေျခခ်ခဲ့ဖူးေပမဲ့ အခုလို ရာသီမဲ့တုိက္ခတ္ေနတဲ့ ေလဒဏ္ေလာက္ေတာ့ တစ္ခါမွ မခံစားခဲ့ရဖူးပါဘူး။ အေတာ္ေလးကုိ ဆုိး၀ါးလွတဲ့ေလပါ။ 

ေလထန္ထန္ၾကားထဲမွာ သစ္ပင္ေပါင္းစုံတုိ႔လဲ ေရွ့ေနာက္ေတာင္ေျမာက္ ေခါင္းမူးေလာက္ေအာင္ ယိမ္းထုိးေနၾကေလရဲ့။ အျမစ္မခုိင္တဲ့ သစ္ပင္ငယ္မ်ားလဲ ေလအားကုိ မယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ႏုိင္တဲ့အတြက္ ေလေနာက္ လုိက္ပါသြားၾကရရွာတယ္။ အုပ္စုလုိက္ အစာရွာထြက္တဲ့ ငွက္တုိ႔ကလဲ တစ္ကြဲတစ္ျပားစီျဖစ္၊ ရပ္ကြက္ထဲ လူစုၿပီး အၿပိဳင္အဆုိင္လြတ္တင္ေနၾကတဲ့ စကၠဴစြန္အားလုံးလဲ ေလယူရာ ပါသြားၾကေလၿပီ။  ပတ္၀န္းက်င္တစ္ခုလုံးလဲ ေလဒဏ္ေၾကာင့္ မႈိင္းမႈိင္းမႈန္မႈန္ ဖုန္မီးခုိးေတြ ေနရာအျပည့္။ ဘယ္ေနရာၾကည့္ၾကည့္ ဘယ္ဆီေမွ်ာ္ေမွ်ာ္ ေလေမႊသြားတဲ့အတြက္ က်က္သေရမဲ့ေနၾကတယ္။

အဆုိးဆုံးကေတာ့ အပ်ံသင္ကာစ ငွက္ငယ္ေလးမ်ားရဲ့ ဘ၀အေျခအေနပါဘဲ။ အခုမွ ေလထုထဲ ဆင္းသက္ခါစဘဲရွိေသးတယ္။ အားယူၿပီး ေတာင္ပံျဖန္႔ခ်ီလုိ႔ ထရိန္နင္လုပ္မယ္ၾကံကာရွိေသး၊ ေလျပင္းအားေၾကာင့္ မိတစ္ကြဲဖတစ္ကြဲ ျဖစ္သြားၾကရရွာတယ္။ ေတာ္ေတာ္ႀကီးကုိ ဆုိး၀ါးလွတဲ့ ေလယုတ္မာသက္သက္ပါဘဲ။

အခုလုိ မုိးလုံးျပည့္ေလေတြေၾကာင့္ လူသားအမ်ားစုလဲ ဒုကၡေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကရၿပီးၿပီ။ ပတ္၀န္းက်င္လဲ ညစ္ညမ္းခဲ့ရၿပီးၿပီ။ အေပါင္းအေဖာ္မ်ားလဲ ထိခိုက္ခဲ့ရၿပီးၿပီ။ ကမၻာေလာကႀကီးလဲ ဒဏ္ရာဒဏ္ခ်က္ ဗလပြနဲ႔ ခ်ိႏွဲ႔ေနရရွာၿပီ။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ေလေတြကေတာ့ တုိက္ခတ္ေနဆဲပါဘဲ။ ဒီေလာက္ ယုတ္မာပက္စက္လွတဲ့ ေလယုတ္မာကုိေတာင္ အသိဥာဏ္မဲ့စြာ ယုံၾကည္ကုိးစားၿပီး ေလအဟုန္စီးေနတဲ့လူတစ္စုရွိေနတာကုိေတာ့ ဘယ္လုိဘယ္လုိ ေျပာျပရမွန္းေတာင္မသိေတာ့ပါဘူး။ အံ့ပါရဲ့ဗ်ာလုိ႔ဘဲ ဆုိလုိက္ခ်င္ေတာ့တယ္။

စဥ္းစားမိလုိက္တယ္။ ငယ္ငယ္တုန္းက သင္ဖူးခဲ့တဲ့ဖတ္စာထဲက "ေလသံလား ေျမြသံလား၊ ေျမြသတိထားပါ၊ ေျမြထိက ေဆးသိရမည္" ဆုိတဲ့ စာသားေလးကို ေျပာင္းျပန္လွန္ပစ္လုိက္ရင္ေကာင္းမွာဘဲလုိ႔။ ေျပာင္းျပန္လွန္လုိက္ရင္ေတာ့ ဒီလုိေလး ျဖစ္သြားမယ္ထင္ပါရဲ့။ "ေျမြသံလား ေလသံလား ေလသတိထားပါ။ ေလထိက ေဆးမရွိေပ"။ 

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ကၽြႏု္ပ္ကႏွင့္သူက

ကၽြႏု္ပ္က
သူ႔ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး အထင္ႀကီးေနခ်ိန္မွာ

သူက

ကၽြႏု္ပ္ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး အထင္ေသးေနတတ္တယ္။

ကၽြႏု္ပ္က
သူ႔ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး ေလးစားေနခ်ိန္မွာ

သူက

ကၽြႏု္ပ္ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး မတူသလုိဆက္ဆံေနတတ္တယ္။

ကၽြႏု္ပ္က
သူ႔ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး ခ်စ္ေနခ်ိန္မွာ

သူက

ကၽြႏု္ပ္ကုိက်ိတ္ၿပီး မုန္းေနတတ္တယ္။

ကၽြႏု္ပ္က
သူ႔ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး နားလည္ေပးေနခ်ိန္မွာ

သူက

ကၽြႏု္ပ္ကုိ က်ိတ္ၿပီး နားလည္ရ ခက္ေစတယ္။

သူက ဆုိတဲ့ ေနရာမွာ ကၽြႏု္ပ္က ဆုိတဲ့ စာလုံး

ကၽြႏု္ပ္က ဆုိတဲ့ေနရာမွာ သူက ဆုိတဲ့စာလုံး
အေျပာင္းအလဲေလး ျဖစ္ေနမလား

စဥ္းစားၾကည့္ဖူးတယ္

ထူးထူးျခားျခားေတာ့ မေတြ႔မိဘူးထင္ပါရဲ့။

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An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (7)

Conclusion

            The meaning of mettæ might come into different interpretations depending on several contexts and situation. When the mettæ is within only family members and relatives, it is named love (pema), when it is common to all without any differentiations, it is known loving-kindness. Sometimes, it is involved in social events such as releasing birds and animals, helping the elders and others in need of help, and contributing the assistance to anyone else. Sometimes it is confused between mettæ and pema due to which mettæ is accused of bias. 

            The practice of vegetarianism, the practice of meditation and gaining protection by cultivating mettæ, etc, are embodied in the general functions of mettæ. Even though mettæ has many functions, its reality and identity is not changeable, that is:      selfless love, altruistic love, benevolence, friendliness, welfare, peace and real happiness.

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Selected bibliography

*****

-Æcariya Mahæ Boowa Ñæ¼asampanno (2003) Venerable Æcariya Mun Bhþridatta Thera A

Spiritual Biography, Thailand: Silpa Siam Packagin &  Printing Co.Ltd.

-Buddhaghosa Mahæthera (1995) A¥¥hasælinøa¥¥hakathæ (8^th Edition), Yangon: Religious affair Press.

-Dalai Lama (2005) How to expand love, New York: Atria Books Press

-Dhammæcariya U Htay Hlaing (1998) Mettævæda, Yangon: Buddha Voice Press

-Donald S. Lopez, JR (2004) Buddhist Scriptures, England: Penguin Books

-Harvey. P (2009) Introduction to Buddhist Ethics, UK: Cambridge University Press

-Harvey. P (2009) Introduction to Buddhism, UK: Cambridge University Press

-Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin (1979) Thingyobhætæ¥økæ (6^th Edition), Yangon: Religious affair Press.

-Janakæbhivaµsa, Ashin [translated by U Ko lay] (1999) Abhidhamma In Daily Life, Yangon: Meikkaung Press.

-Kate Wheeler (2006) The State of Mind Called Beautiful, Boston: Wisdom Publications

- Mahæbuddhaghosa, Bhaddanta (1986) Ka³khævira¼ø a¥¥hakathæ, Religious

Affairs Press House, Yangon.

-Mahasi sayadaw (2006) Brahmavihæra, Yangon: Buddhasæsana society press

-Mahævagga pæ¹i (1997) Yangon: Religious Affair Press

-Megan Tresidder (2004) The language of love, London: Duncan Baird Publishers

-Mehm Tin Mon, Dr (1955) the Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma, Yangon: Shwe Zin Kyaw Press.

-Narada (1993) The Dhammapada [4^th Edition], Taipei: the Corporate Body of the Buddha Education Foundation.

-Ñæ¼amo¹i, Bhikkhu (1997) The Path of Purification, Taipei: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation.

-Nærada Mahæ Thera (1975) A Manual of Abhidhamma, Colombo: The Colombo Apothecaries’s Co.Ltd.

-Nina van Gorkom (1975) Abhidhamma in Daily Life, Bangkok: Dhamm Study Group.

-Pæcittiya pæ¹i, 8^th Ed (1997) (eighth edition), Religious Affairs Press House, Yangon.

-Sharon Salzberg (2008) Loving-kindness, London: Shambhala Press

-Shwe Zan Aung (1910) Compendium of philosophy, London: Oxford University Press Warehouse.

-Thich Nhat Hanh (2004) True Love, London: Shambhala  Press

-Wijeratne and Rupert Gethin, R.P (2002) Summary of the Topics of Abhidhamma and exposition of the Topics of Abhidhamma, Oxford: The Pali Text Society.

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An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (6)

Does mettæ turn into bias?

In the perspective of mettæ, there is no discrimination between all living beings. There is also neither soul, nor ego, nor self, nor me, nor mine, nor you, nor he, nor she, nor they in connection with a real pure mettæ. According to Mettasutta, the love towards only son and the love towards others must be equally the same (Vinaya mahævagga pæ¹i, p-19 ). At this point, an issue may arise whether genuine mettæ ever really does change into bias. Such a bias can happen between husband and wife, parents and children, or other relatives. They are well intended toward one anther, so there probably tends to be a favouritism. Nevertheless, mettæ is exclusively very pure, and no bias at all. When bias occurs, it is not a pure mettæ.

The mettæ-centred-meditation

Mettæ is by and large taken into existence in connection with others.  The mettæ for oneself, however, should come first in order to reduce our own brutal tendencies in the meditation technique as it is impossible to radiate thoughts of love unless one has properly developed the quality of it. Therefore, one should first radiate on mettæ for oneself. By doing so, one helps oneself and can help others more effectively. If one loves oneself, one should help oneself to entertain always pure and beautiful thoughts so that any words or deeds, as a result of which they may become manifest, are also pure and beautiful. In the contrary, if a person cannot find happiness within himself, he will not be able to find it anywhere. People who cannot control themselves cannot find happiness by performing services for others, because they themselves cannot create a calm atmosphere. Meditation is mental training of right thoughts, words and deeds. ( Pa¥isambhidæmagga pæ¹i, p-313)

When a person has eventually cultivated the principle of mettæ in himself he is in a position to extend it, and he should develop it until it covers the whole of society, the whole country and the whole world, without distinction whatsoever with regard to class, colour or creed, then meditate on mettæ for oneself, until one’s heart and mind are full of pure love, and then enlarge that mettæ until it embraces all the limitless number of sentient beings throughout the whole universe.  Commencing with the words “May I be free from danger! May I be free from mental suffering! May I be free from physical suffering! May I have ease of well being, etc [loving-kindness, p-40]”,one should develop mettæ towards oneself or others. One can develop it particularly or non-particularly as one likes upto all the beings at ten directions.(Ibid) When mind is well concentrated during mettæ developing, one can attain onto 4^th trance (jhæna).

An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (5)

 

Does mettæ protect oneself against any dangers?

One of the Buddhist texts said that one who cultivates mettæ can expect eleven benefits: sleeping conveniently, waking comfortably, dreaming no nightmare, being loved by human beings, being loved by deities, being guarded by deities, not being endangered by flame, weapon, poison, etc, attaining concentration quickly, being clear complexion, dying unconfused and being headed for the Brahma realms even if unable to attain Arahatship (A³guttara nikæya, p-542).

According to it, it seems that mettæ is able to bestow full security to those concerned. However, the issue might appear why Suva¼¼asæma, a future Buddha of Gotama, who was radiating mettæ, was shot with an arrow by the king, Pø¹iyakkha in jætaka stories. He was nursing his blind parents and radiating mettæ towards all beings all the time. One day he was shot when he lift up the water pot from the ground to his shoulder in order to carry it to his parents. There is considerable evidence in Minlindpaññæ, which said that Suva¼¼asæma got shot at the moment when his attention is merely towards the water pot. It means he missed to radiate the mettæ due to carful attention upon the pot at that time. The text fully defends that mettæ can always protect oneself against any dangers.

Loving-kindness and vegetarian

The definition of mettæ might vary between meat eater and vegetarian. A meat eater probably thinks that killing animals and eating their meat are not basically concerned each other, while perhaps a vegetarian  persists that there happens many slaughters due to a large number of meat eaters. Their views cannot be made a precise decision. In Theravæda countries such as Burma, Thailand, Sri lanka, etc, however, vegetarianism is generally admired by the people though the Theravæda Buddhism is not vegetarianism (An introduction to Buddhist ethics, p-161). In the Buddha’s life time, Devaddatta requested the Buddha to prescribe only vegetable eating for the monks, but the Buddha denied saying “those who desire eating only vegetables can practise it, and those who wish to eat meat can also eat it” (Pæræjika pæ¹i, p-263).The Buddha also listed ten kinds of meat not to be eaten: they include human flesh, dog, horse, elephant, leopard, tiger, lion, bear, hyena and snake. (Ka³khævitara¼ø a¥¥hakathæ, p-100). Furthermore, if a monk saw or heard or suspected that any animal whether allowable or not had been killed especially to offer monks, he should not also accept and eat it. Moreover, the Buddha seriously restricted not to kill human being [if a monk does, he loses his monkhood], animals and not to drink the water mixed with insets [if a monk does, he is sinful of expiation]. (Pæræjika pæ¹i, p-90: Pæcittiya pæ¹i, pp-63-65).

In Burma, there was a famous monk who encouraged the people to be vegetarian. He stayed at temple in the small village. Owing to his popularity a huge crowd of people [thousands of people a day] visited there every day.  He served them with rice and pure vegetables. Previously Ledi sayaw and Mahæsi sayaw (An introduction to Buddhist ethics, p-161) also had encouraged the local people not to eat beef as the cows are the great benefactors of famers. The Buddhist people also highly admire the monks who eat vegetable only. It is clear that all of the above mentioned are to show mettæ towards any sentient beings. 

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An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (4)

Does mettæ harm others?

Mettæ is the spirit out of which one chooses to take action and gives aid that brings happiness to others. Even a small experience of mettæ brings a measure of mental peace right away. The truly altruistic person wishes to assist those who are suffering from different tremendous situations. Herein the identity of mettæ is to share the miserable circumstances with oneself by assisting mentally and physically what they are in need. Therefore Nægajuna said “there is merit in making donations to poor monastic, but love is even more powerful” (How to expand love, pp-82-84). In connection with mettæ there are many charities and non-governmental societies which usually provide the need of people who are facing with natural disasters or any poverty situation, such as earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcano eruption, war, flood, conflagration, drought, diseases, feminine, etc. The works of aforesaid societies are principally based upon mettæ. It is quite apparent that mettæ is to wish for the welfare and benefit of others without harming any other living beings.

However, it can be argued if mettæ is completely beneficial to or does not harm others. For example, if one has pity on a frog which is caught by a snake, the decision is somehow difficult whether one should favour the snake or help the frog. Either of actions would harm one of them; the snake might be too hungry to death while the frog might lose its life. In this situation, only solution is to contemplate equanimity thinking that it is the law of nature.

            Moreover, in Buddhist literatures, Sæmævatø, the queen of King Ca¼ðapajjota was contemplating the meditation on mettæ towards Mæga¼ðø, another (angry) queen of the same king while the former was forced to be shot by the latter by the help of king who ordered the professional archers. Nevertheless, by the glorious power of mettæ, the arrows could not reach at the Sæmævatø. The arrows turned back towards the king instead as if he would be all but shot dead.  Mæga¼ðø herself also felt uncomfortable and inconvenient as though she would be seriously sick in her mind because she was not worthy of receiving mettæ (Dhammapada a¥¥hakathæ, p-122). As a matter of fact, mettæ does not really give troublesome to any other sentient beings although some dreadful situation occur to the wicked. Mettæ is for all; but whether or not effective depends upon the receivers.

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An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (3)

Releasing animals and helping the old aged persons relevant to the symbol of mettæ

Burmese New Year is, usually, opened with cultivating good deeds. Showing a symbol of whole-hearted loving-kindness, some animals are liberally released free. The Releasing life involves gathering animals held in captivity (often by purchasing them from butchers and fishmongers) and setting them free (Buddhist scriptures, p-395). The tradition of releasing animals and birds is usually performed by different groups of local people. Sparrows, fishes, doves and sometimes buffalos and cows are also set free. It is often believed that by doing so the merit accrues to those who set the animals free with kind-hearted minds. On the contrary, it seems sinful for them because it is as if they would encourage the captors to seize a large number of animals for the New Year event. In this regard, the captors are thought to be empty-hearted, as they, before the New Year, captured many birds and fishes to earn a huge amount of money. While the majority of people were reckoning to perform the meritorious deeds, they were probably thinking to capture a huge number of animals. Some people sometimes make a special order the captors for several birds and fishes in advance for the reason that they are willing to release them according to the calculation of their ages in the New Year. For example, if they are 80 or 90 years old, the want 80 or 90 birds or fishes to be released. It sounds rather odd. In general speaking, it is not fair that the animals become victims of New Year resembling a type of New Year marketing.

Furthermore, cows and buffalos are regarded as great benefactors in Burma due to that they assist the farmers for cultivating the farms and harvesting the crops and grains. The farmers are depending on them and they might also desire to depend on their owners. However, the farmers set the unable cows and buffalos by sending to the sanctuary as though they would discard them. Many things happen behind the New Year event, but such cultures and traditions are stilling flowing in Burma. It seems to me that the so-called people forcefully seize the unfair mental peace and happiness by making use of the animals.

 Another beautiful cultural event in New Year is to owe gratitude to the old aged persons including one’s own parents and grand-parents by performing as assistants. The younger people pay respect [and bow down] to the elders by offering the necessities to them such as, money, towels, blankets, shirts, longyi [Burmese traditional suits to cover lower part of the body], food, etc. Moreover, the younger people generally assist the old aged persons by cutting off their nails, bathing them, brushing their hair, cleaning their bodies, clothes and their rooms. Such a beautiful cultural tradition is a firm bridge between old people and you adults in Burma. It is clear that such a conduct towards the elders is an iconic feature of mettæ, loving-kindness.

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An Analytical Study of Metta in Theravada Tradition (2)

Loving-kindness and Paritta water.                                                                         

What Buddhist believes in connection with the protective[paritta] water is that the water can prevent them from any miserable situations. Even it can give the remedy for the diseases. In Theravæda tradition, especially in Burma, the protective water is prepared in front of monks while they are chanting paritta suttas. Different forms of preparation are made according to the particular preference, such as it is prepared with pots, bottles and cups. One of the famous monks was very well known regarding such protective water in Burma. What he usually did is to recite paritta, to contemplate the qualities of Buddha, and to share merit with any visible and invisible beings. His spirit is also full of mettæ towards others. By the power of his mettæ, the water in pots or bottles or cups turns into small bubbles when he was chanting the parittas including Kara¼øyametta sutta. He is also convinced himself that whenever he recites Kara¼øyametta sutta, the water will slightly be boiling. Therefore, he was known as a venerable water-boiled-monk [ye suu sayardaw] (Mettævæda, p-145).                            
It has often been observed that the element is itself still, inactive and not-moving, but when it meets with a power, it comes to change into different forms, such as the water in a kettle boils when it is given heat; a vehicle is itself unmovable, but when the engine starts, it moves. Likewise, the water before a monk, who is really peaceful and calm and who chants any discourses with focusing his purely loved-mind toward the water, might tend to be changing into bubbles because it is probably stroked by the wave of loving-kindness like the law of Newton “Every action has its reaction”. Almost all the Buddhist people in Burma usually preserve the protective water in their houses individually. Many people revive from the life threatening diseases by drinking the water with a complete belief that that water can cure any diseases. In this account, mettæ plays an important role for the humankind. 

Releasing animals and helping the old aged persons relevant to the symbol of mettæ

Burmese New Year is, usually, opened with cultivating good deeds. Showing a symbol of whole-hearted loving-kindness, some animals are liberally released free. The Releasing life involves gathering animals held in captivity (often by purchasing them from butchers and fishmongers) and setting them free (Buddhist scriptures, p-395). The tradition of releasing animals and birds is usually performed by different groups of local people. Sparrows, fishes, doves and sometimes buffalos and cows are also set free. It is often believed that by doing so the merit accrues to those who set the animals free with kind-hearted minds. On the contrary, it seems sinful for them because it is as if they would encourage the captors to seize a large number of animals for the New Year event. In this regard, the captors are thought to be empty-hearted, as they, before the New Year, captured many birds and fishes to earn a huge amount of money. While the majority of people were reckoning to perform the meritorious deeds, they were probably thinking to capture a huge number of animals. Some people sometimes make a special order the captors for several birds and fishes in advance for the reason that they are willing to release them according to the calculation of their ages in the New Year. For example, if they are 80 or 90 years old, the want 80 or 90 birds or fishes to be released. It sounds rather odd. In general speaking, it is not fair that the animals become victims of New Year resembling a type of New Year marketing.

Furthermore, cows and buffalos are regarded as great benefactors in Burma due to that they assist the farmers for cultivating the farms and harvesting the crops and grains. The farmers are depending on them and they might also desire to depend on their owners. However, the farmers set the unable cows and buffalos by sending to the sanctuary as though they would discard them. Many things happen behind the New Year event, but such cultures and traditions are stilling flowing in Burma. It seems to me that the so-called people forcefully seize the unfair mental peace and happiness by making use of the animals.

 Another beautiful cultural event in New Year is to owe gratitude to the old aged persons including one’s own parents and grand-parents by performing as assistants. The younger people pay respect [and bow down] to the elders by offering the necessities to them such as, money, towels, blankets, shirts, longyi [Burmese traditional suits to cover lower part of the body], food, etc. Moreover, the younger people generally assist the old aged persons by cutting off their nails, bathing them, brushing their hair, cleaning their bodies, clothes and their rooms. Such a beautiful cultural tradition is a firm bridge between old people and you adults in Burma. It is clear that such a conduct towards the elders is an iconic feature of mettæ, loving-kindness.

.