Insight Myanmar

Episode #559: “Comrade,” Renata says, when asked how she would like to be remembered. A member of the People's Defense Force and a former political prisoner, she uses the word to name what sustains her in Myanmar's revolution: loyalty to those who have suffered, fought, been jailed, and died. Before the 2021 coup, Renata was a law student who describes her life as centered on study and office work. Following the coup, she hesitated initially to take part in direct action, and instead chose to participate online, calling herself a “keyboard fighter” then. But as the crackdowns intensified, she joined street protests, and then learned to make Molotov cocktails and small bombs for her brother and his friends. In June 2021, she was arrested with her mother and four-year-old sister, who became the country's youngest political prisoner. Renata was sentenced to three years with hard labor but freed after four months upon signing a pledge not to participate in revolutionary activity. She describes prison as lasting trauma. After her release, she joined the PDF in northern Shan State. Jungle life revolved around food and water scarcity, physical endurance, and evading airstrikes and landmines. For young people anxious to join the resistance, she says they must prepare physically and mentally for hunger, discrimination, sleeplessness, and trauma; women, she adds, will face additional burdens. Her own ability to sustain herself through these challenges is rooted in her relationships with her comrades and her dedication to defeating the junta. Yet Renata still allows herself to imagine a peaceful future after this long struggle. “Please keep on watching our revolution!” she pleads to the international audience.

Episode #558: “I've always had a certain resistance to the over-institutionalization of anything,” says renowned meditation teacher Delson Armstrong, who argues that one of the deepest obstacles on the spiritual path is attachment to the very systems intended to help people become free. Meditation methods, lineages, institutions, and teachers can all be valuable, yet they can become objects of clinging when practitioners mistake the tools for the goal. Throughout his reflections on meditation, tradition, and authority, Armstrong returns to two principles: liberation requires a willingness to continually examine and release attachment, and genuine understanding must be grounded in direct experience rather than inherited certainty. Armstrong's perspective emerged through a long exploration of contemplative traditions. Raised in a Catholic environment, he later studied yoga, Vedanta, Sankhya, and a range of Buddhist systems, including Dzogchen, Mahamudra, and Theravada practices that emphasized deep concentration. Over time, however, he became dissatisfied with approaches that seemed more concerned with achieving meditative states than understanding the causes of suffering. A turning point came when he encountered Brahma Vihara practice and later Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM), associated with Bhante Vimalaramsi, which emphasizes relaxation, observation, and the gradual unraveling of mental conditioning. Armstrong argues that concentration can suppress disturbances without transforming the conditions that create suffering; relaxating into practice, by contrast, allows practitioners to directly see how craving, resistance, and identification operate. Armstrong maintains that practice should be judged by how people respond to ordinary life rather than by what happens during retreats, even in very challenging situations. “Meditation is life; life is meditation,” he says. He warns against turning traditions, attainment maps, teachers, or institutions into unquestionable authorities. Useful frameworks become dogma when they stop being questioned. Teachers can guide, but they cannot replace personal understanding: “The map is one thing, but your journey is your own.” Ultimately, Armstrong presents spiritual development as an ongoing process of inquiry rather than certainty. His guiding principle remains simple: “Do not just take my word for it, do not take the word of the lineage for it, do not take the word of tradition for it. But see for yourself!”

Episode #557: Born in Yangon, Aung Tun grew up listening to foreign news broadcasts, which provided an uncensored view of a world beyond Myanmar's military control. Inspired by the 1988 uprising in which his brother was detained, he felt compelled to ensure the truth was documented.So Aung Tun joined the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an independent media organization. His work was clandestine and risky—using hidden cameras to document the regime's brutality and the resilience of the Burmese people. In 2007, Aung Tun played a vital role in filming large parts of the Saffron Revolution, an uprising led by monks. His footage became part of the documentary "Burma VJ," which garnered international acclaim for bringing Myanmar's struggle to global attention.Despite a temporary setback after being arrested during the revolution, Aung Tun returned to the streets to continue documenting the protests. He believes in the power of citizen journalism to transcend borders and inspire action.In 2021, Myanmar once again faced a military coup, and while technology had evolved, the danger of speaking out remained the same. Aung Tun stresses the importance of learning from the past, being transparent, and fostering growth through self-critique. Now living in exile, he continues to train young Burmese journalists, ensuring that Myanmar's fight for democracy is not forgotten. His dedication stands as a testament to the unyielding spirit of Myanmar's people."In Saffron, all I could do is to just to keep recording," he says. “So as long as you survive, you keep recording! Somebody will use your footage. Even though I am in exile, and I cannot film, I still keep telling the story, like I'm telling right now. So don't think too much! Sometimes you think too much, you'll be overwhelmed by what you have to do. Just look at the present moment."

Episode #556: “I just find it so interesting that the Buddha actually talked about discussion as being a really important part of our Dhamma journey,” says Bruce Stewart, a longtime practitioner, former assistant teacher, and one of the early builders of the Goenka Vipassana meditation tradition in North America. In this second appearance on this platform, he addresses the concerns that caused him to question key aspects of the organization, which culminated in his being barred from even visiting centers in the tradition. Drawing on decades of committed involvement, including being appointed a Senior Teacher (Achariya), Stewart reflects on the challenges that have emerged as the Goenka tradition became a large, global institution. He became particularly concerned with what he calls the tradition's purity and prophecy narratives—beliefs about the unique authenticity and historical mission of the Goenka tradition that have become difficult to question now that they are embedded in organizational culture. Over time, he also observed that some teachers and students alike privately expressed a variety of concerns while hesitating to raise them publicly, leading him to wonder whether, ironically, a culture that encourages self-observation was itself uncomfortable with institutional self-examination. Those concerns deepened through a project in which Stewart and others gathered feedback from seventy experienced practitioners, and conducted extensive video interviews with a small group of them. After nearly a year of preparation, the findings were presented to Senior Teachers, but the response was largely negative. For Stewart, this raised a broader question about whether institutions can remain open to information that challenges established assumptions. He also began questioning whether the tradition's success in spreading meditation had outpaced the development of teacher training, individualized guidance, and mechanisms for learning from criticism. At the same time, Stewart's study of Early Buddhist Texts began to widen his understanding of Buddhism beyond the Goenka lineage, and raised some theoretical questions about the accuracy of some of Goenka's interpretations concerning the technique itself. Although he remains grateful for the practice and the community he helped build, he ultimately stepped down from leadership and later found himself barred from centers in the tradition. Even so, he remains hopeful that future generations can preserve what is valuable while becoming more open to honest dialogue, historical inquiry, and critical reflection.

Episode #555: Note: this podcast episode includes frank anatomical language and extended discussion of women's bodies, including terms for female genitalia, in the context of human rights, state abuse, and activist movements. Reader and listener discretion is advised.“[They say that] Thailand is the only country that has never been colonized. But it's not true!” Kornkanok “Pup” Khumta, an activist from Isaan, argues that the myth of sovereignty hides a colonial order, where Bangkok defines language, history, development, and which bodies are allowed to exist. Isaan, she says, is Lao in language and culture, and the borders that separate people along the Mekong are still newer than the state admits. “People in Isaan, we have been brainwashed to be Thai people,” she says, adding that even the word “Thai” itself is a recent invention. Pup describes Siam's consolidation as violent, then sustained through schooling that punishes local speech and replaces regional memory with a Siam-centered story. The same center–periphery structure shapes “development” as extraction: resources flow to Bangkok while poverty in the northeast is treated as normal. Generations migrate to the capital for education and wages, leaving Isaan hollowed out, a place many return to only for Songkran or New Year. At Thammasat University, Pup expected democratic critique but instead found classmates aiming for bureaucratic power. She pushed back, arguing provincial governors should be elected, not appointed from Bangkok. After the 2014 coup, she tested the regime's limits with quiet protest and was arrested, learning that visibility alone can trigger punishment. Later, after refusing to sign a pledge to stop political activity, she was sent into prison, and processed through searches that turned discipline into bodily violation. That experience sharpened her feminism. She framed organizing around bodily autonomy, using taboo-breaking protest—speaking openly about female body parts and insisting democracy includes control over one's body. Pup then moved to extend her politics beyond borders, rejecting ASEAN's “non-interference” policy as a cover for authoritarian cooperation, including support for Myanmar's military. For her, constitutional change in Thailand is the hinge between refuge and repression—and survival requires joy: “I believe in fun,” she says, because despair is also a weapon. “We are at the point that we don't have to belong to any state,” she says. “I mean, we can just treat each other as a humans and we can all come together against all forms of repression.”

Episode #554: Bruce Stewart, an early Western student and teacher in the S.N. Goenka Vipassana tradition, reflects on a lifelong search for spiritual meaning driven by curiosity, wonder, and a desire to understand life more deeply. The sudden death of his younger sister prompted early questions about life's meaning, while stories from traveling hippies kindled a desire to explore the wider world. Leaving New Zealand, Stewart worked his passage to Europe on a cargo ship and spent several adventurous years traveling through Europe and Africa and immersing himself in the hippie counterculture. Eventually Stewart found his way to a Sivananda ashram in Canada, where his spiritual interests were given structure. There he met his future wife, Maureen. Together they returned to New Zealand and founded one of the country's first yoga centers, creating a vibrant community centered on yoga, vegetarianism, retreats, and alternative culture. Later, Stewart took a vipassana course with John Coleman, a student of U Ba Khin; the experience was life-changing. Soon after, he and Maureen dissolved their yoga center and traveled to India to became involved with the fledgling Vipassana center at Dhamma Giri in Igatpuri, where they worked closely with S.N. Goenka. As the movement expanded, Stewart and Maureen were heavily involved in helping the tradition take root in the U.S. Yet over time, he became increasingly uneasy with organizational culture, leadership styles, and narratives of purity and authority. Historical study and deeper inquiry eventually led him to question long-held assumptions, and eventually his decision to broaden his practice and step down from his Senior Teacher responsibilities. Still, he remains grateful for the practice and its benefits, viewing his spiritual life as a series of valuable stages that collectively formed a rich, demanding, and deeply meaningful journey.

Episode #553: Naw Moo Moo Paw grew up in a Karen village near Bago where conflict and landmines were part of everyday life. “I have seen a lot of people injured or die because of the war and intense conflict,” she says. “This is very normal for me.” Today, she is a PhD candidate in Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where her research focuses on what happens to people, their bodies, livelihoods, and place in their communities affected by political violence. She has interviewed civilians, injured soldiers, and active resistance fighters, gaining access to armed groups most outside researchers cannot reach. Resistance groups in ethnic Karen communities have used landmines primarily as a defensive tactic, but the warnings offered to civilians are frequently imprecise. For many, the warning changes little. “Civilians, they have to work on a daily basis, so that they can survive, for their economy, to take care of their family.” People are warned, but they have to go on with their lives. She finds that accountability is increasingly difficult to establish. Mines captured from military bases are reused by resistance groups, propaganda obscures who planted what, and records of mine locations can die with the soldier who laid them. “I think both sides are violating the law,” she says. Civilians, she finds, rarely assign blame. They understand the nature of war, fear the land's growing unpredictability, and keep moving because they have no choice. Those injured in warned areas often face community ostracism, and too many take their own lives. As a Karen scholar, Naw Moo Moo Paw wants local knowledge, history, and experience placed at the center of any peace. “I want [Karen people's] voices to be included in the future, too.”

Episode #552: Mon Mon Myat, a journalist, filmmaker, and peace scholar, frames Myanmar's political struggle as a long contest over power, moral discipline, and the possibility of change without domination. Her account begins with U Hpo Hlaing, the nineteenth-century thinker she calls “a kind of very early political theorist in Myanmar,” and moves toward Aung San Suu Kyi, whose politics she sees as part of the same search for accountable authority. For Mon Mon Myat, U Hpo Hlaing matters because he complicates the idea that democracy arrived in Myanmar only through Western influence. He studied Western parliamentary systems, but tried to translate them into Burmese moral and Buddhist terms, creating what she calls “Burma-native democracy.” His work was not a full modern system, but it offered a principle: rulers must be bound by ethical restraint, not merely by power. Aung San Suu Kyi, in Mon Mon Myat's view, widened that principle. She did not speak only to rulers, but to citizens. Through speeches, radio broadcasts, and years of nonviolent resistance, she helped Mon Mon Myat understand politics as personal responsibility. “Politics had nothing to do with me,” she says of her younger self, before Aung San Suu Kyi's example changed her sense of what citizenship required. That is why nonviolence remains central to Mon Mon Myat's reading. She knows it is slow and costly, but argues that armed struggle leaves wounds across society, while nonviolence risks the masses less than others. The post-coup conflict has only deepened her fear of trauma that may last for generations. Her defense of Aung San Suu Kyi during the Rohingya crisis rests on a difficult distinction. Mon Mon Myat does not present her as flawless. She insists that Aung San Suu Kyi was a politician trying to hold together a fragile country, preserve civilian rule, and avoid further conflict under military pressure. Critics saw silence. Mon Mon Myat sees constraint, calculation, and a refusal to inflame communal violence. The hope she still holds is narrow but persistent: that Myanmar's future depends not only on removing military rule, but on whether power can be morally restrained before it consumes everything around it.

Episode #551: Fred Stockwell arrived in Mae Sot by accident more than twenty years ago while traveling through Thailand to photograph temples, a wrong bus dropping him off in what was, at the time, a bustling border town filled with NGOs and young volunteers. Someone told him to visit the garbage dump, and a man drove him there by a route that felt deliberately hard to retrace. “It was like it was a secret where it was,” he recalls. At the dump, Burmese migrant families survived by salvaging and selling recyclables, building shelters from whatever they could pull from waste. “They were living on top of the garbage!” he says. “Everything they built was what they found in the garbage.” Before Mae Sot, his life had already been shaped by self-taught risk and logistics—having introduced paragliding in the U.S. through early testing and instruction, and later becoming the first person to fly in and photograph the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, doing so from the air, when ground access had largely collapsed. And now back in the United States after that first Mae Sot visit, the contrast stayed with him: a comfortable life at home, and a border world where small failures—transport, housing, medical access—could turn fatal. His mind now made up,he returned to Mae Sot, and the first step he points to is concrete: “You've got to start somewhere. I started with one kid,” he says, describing a girl “as close to death as you're ever going to get” and taking her to the hospital, then building outward through routines that held children in school, kept housing standing, and kept people connected to services they otherwise could not reach. The critique that follows stays procedural. People arrived wanting to help and then stalled, not from cruelty but because they lacked a method for what came next, and the same problem appeared in organizations that could arrive with structure and still fail to change the conditions at the dump, or elsewhere in the town. “I saw a lot of people here, no disrespect to them, that came in to help but didn't have a clue what to do.” He ties effectiveness to the pairing of resources and competence, and reduces the mismatch to a single blunt line. “There's a very large gap between the people that want to help and the people that need help. That gap is huge.”

Episode #550: “There was something inside of me that was calling me,” says Jerry Roy, a long-time Vipassana meditator and early student in the Goenka tradition. “Not a thought, but something pulling me.” He argues that liberation comes not from rigid adherence to technique or authority, but from direct understanding of the mind—especially craving and aversion. Raised in a Jewish household, Roy felt pressure to conform to a shared identity he experienced as restrictive. He rejected its religious element early, identifying instead as a “cultural Jew,” and developed a lasting determination not to live “in a box.” That impulse aligned with the 1960s counterculture, where he immersed himself in experimentation and activism. Psychedelics presented a spiritual potentiality, yet, as he later reflects, “It opened a door, but it didn't show me how to walk through the door.” Disillusionment with activism, along with the suicide of a housemate, pushed him toward a deeper inquiry into suffering. That search led him to India. He rejected both the hedonistic hippie scenes and guru-centered traditions he came across, but then discovered Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka. “I realized that I had found what I was looking for,” he says. He became deeply involved in the tradition, valuing its discipline and accessibility. Over time, however, he began to see increasing rigidity within the organization, especially after his divorce led to a feeling of being excluded from the community. His practice also continued to evolve beyond the strict technique of the Goenka tradition, towards more continuous awareness. “The practice is not a technique,” he explains. “The practice is being present in the moment.” Today, Roy emphasizes direct experience over doctrine. “All you need to do is understand the root cause of suffering, which is craving and aversion.”

Episode #549: Mohammad Siraj, a Rohingya researcher, political analyst, educator, and aspiring legal scholar living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, studies citizenship, constitutional reform, education, and human rights. Drawing on his work with the Rohingya Academic Research Institute and his experience teaching in refugee settings, he argues that the Rohingya crisis is not simply a humanitarian emergency but a political and institutional crisis rooted in discriminatory law, particularly Myanmar's citizenship framework and constitutional structure. Siraj's own life reflects the realities he studies. He once hoped to become a doctor, but military violence forced his family to flee Myanmar. In Bangladesh's refugee camps, he continued studying through limited educational opportunities and later pursued research training. Statelessness created major barriers: even when he received university offers, he could not accept them because he lacked a passport or travel documents. He turned toward law because he believes legal systems have excluded Rohingya from citizenship, political participation, and protection. He repeatedly highlights statelessness as one of the greatest obstacles Rohingya face. Without citizenship, movement, higher education, and professional opportunities remain difficult to access. His own studies through the online University of the People illustrate both determination and the limits of such alternatives. Siraj's research and teaching are rooted in these same conditions. At the Rohingya Academic Research Institute, a community-led organization in the camps, he helps Rohingya scholars document their history and rights. He also criticizes humanitarian education programs that prioritize administrative requirements over meaningful learning. In response, Rohingya teachers have created community schools using the Myanmar curriculum, though their certificates are rarely recognized by universities. For Siraj, the deeper cause of the crisis lies in Myanmar's 1982 citizenship law, which stripped Rohingya of citizenship and legal protection. He argues that lasting reform must restore equal citizenship and dismantle constitutional structures that entrench military power, while dialogue across communities remains essential for building a democratic Myanmar where all ethnic groups share citizenship, representation, and dignity.

Episode #548: Sunda Khin shares a remarkable family journey through contemporary Burmese history. She starts with her father, U Chan Htoon, who suggested that a young Indian businessman named S.N. Goenka learn meditation from Sayagyi U Ba Khin to cure his migraines. Growing up as the daughter of the country's first Supreme Court Justice, she recalls spending time in General Ne Win's home during the "Caretaker Government" years. Ne Win's coup in 1962 marked a shift, leading to economic turmoil and loss of civil liberties, including the arrest of her father. As a means for explaining the many challenges that have befallen her country since 1958, she explains the Burmese Buddhist concept of "tha gyarr thar tha nar," which is a Burmese prophecy that signifies the end of the Buddha's protective period after 2,500 years.Sunda Khin shares several international situations that her father was involved with. The most complex of these was when South Vietnamese members of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) demanded the organization stand up against Ngo Dinh Diem's discrimination of the country's Buddhist minority. The US was concerned that this move could weaken their ally against rising Communist influence in the region, and indeed, that the influential WFB might be falling under Communist control. U Chan Htoon was making some headway is mediating this crisis, but unfortunately, before it could be resolved, Ne Win had him arrested, perhaps out of a political fear of his popularity and influence.Sunda Khin also describes her father's rather unexpected acquisition of a lakefront property, which was later inherited by Aung San Suu Kyi, and where she endured decades of house arrest.And she discusses her childhood friendship with Louisa Bensen, who transformed from a beauty queen to a Karen insurgent leader, and their involvement together in the democracy movement many years later.“A lot of things have happened, but I have a lot of hope for things to change,” she says regarding the current resistance movement. “I might not see it right now, or before I die, but I'mhoping that it will change and that the people will be able to have their own government and their freedom. That is my hope.”

Episode #547: Scott Leckie, an international human rights lawyer, and Jose Arraiza, a specialist in housing, land, and property rights and citizenship in conflict-affected settings, argue that land in Myanmar is not simply a resource but a central mechanism through which power is exercised, inequality is produced, and political authority is maintained. They emphasize that housing, land, and property (HLP) rights extend beyond formal ownership to include anyone whose ability to remain on land is vulnerable to arbitrary interference. The roots of Myanmar's current land system can be traced to colonial policies that classified inhabited land as “wasteland,” which enabled appropriation. This framework was later adopted by the country's military regimes; as a result, this legacy persists in a system where land can be taken with minimal process and little recourse, allowing authorities to reallocate land and consolidate control. The effects of this system are most visible in the interaction between conflict and land governance. While large-scale displacement is primarily driven by armed conflict, the land system determines what happens afterward. Displaced people frequently lose practical control over their land, as it is reclassified or repurposed, often for commercial activities such as mining or agriculture. In this way, temporary displacement is transformed into longer-term dispossession. The same system also shapes economic outcomes, directing the benefits of land use toward elites and those with political connections rather than affected communities. These practices diverge from international legal standards, which require safeguards such as compensation and access to remedies. The situation is further complicated by citizenship and documentation issues, which weaken individuals' ability to assert claims, particularly for marginalized groups such as the Rohingya. Although reforms between 2011 and 2021 showed that alternative approaches were possible, the 2021 coup reversed these changes. Today, governance is fragmented between military authorities and ethnic resistance groups, with some efforts to develop alternative land systems. Civil society organizations continue to support affected populations but face reduced capacity due to declining international support. Despite these challenges, Leckie and Arraiza argue that any future transition must center land rights, restitution, and legal protection, and that meaningful change remains possible.

Episode #546: Recorded in Kuala Lumpur during Malaysia's final stretch as ASEAN chair, this is the second episode in a three part series which looks less at policy language and more at political consequence. Recorded inside Parliament, lawmakers grapple with what regional diplomacy can realistically achieve while communities across Malaysia absorb the human fallout of Myanmar's implosion — refugees navigating precarious legal status, strained public systems, and a debate that grows sharper the longer the crisis drags on. The first guest, Willie Mongin, is the Member of Parliament for Puncak Borneo in Sarawak and a former deputy minister who now serves as Deputy Chair of Malaysia's parliamentary select committee on international trade and international relations. His engagement with Myanmar deepened after joining the committee three years ago, when he began closely monitoring ASEAN geopolitics. For Mongin, the logic is simple: regional peace underpins shared prosperity. “When we have a peaceful region, we can actually work together and work towards prosperity together,” he says. Instability in Myanmar, he argues, threatens ASEAN cohesion and fuels refugee pressures in Malaysia. While acknowledging Malaysia's limits, he calls on the United Nations and major powers to press for a democratic resolution led ultimately by Myanmar's own leadership. The second guest, Ahmed Tarmizi, is the Member of Parliament for Sik in Kedah and Deputy Chairman of Malaysia's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugee Policy. Before entering politics, he worked in humanitarian relief connected to Myanmar, traveling to Rakhine State and refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. He describes Myanmar's crisis as regional in impact, calling it “like a cancer for the Asian community.” In Malaysia, he highlights the presence of more than 180,000 refugees, mostly from Myanmar, and the country's lack of a formal legal framework recognizing them. “We don't have any legal [act] to recognize the refugees,” he says, urging clearer policy and stronger ASEAN and UN action to stop the violence driving displacement.

Episode #545: The promise of justice for war crimes in Myanmar is far from perfect, says Dr. Stuart Casey-Maslen, a leading legal expert on disarmament and international humanitarian law. The military regime's alleged war crimes continue unchecked, with airstrikes against civilian targets, the destruction of homes, schools, and places of worship, and indiscriminate use of landmines exacting a cruel toll. On a different scale, some resistance armed groups have also been accused of war crimes.“Justice can, and sometimes does, catch up with you even many years afterwards,” says Casey-Maslen, who is editor of the Mine Action Review and has written extensively on international law related to landmines. “If a member of the Tatmadaw, or a senior official in the Myanmar government, travels in years to come to one of many countries that have legislation for war crimes or crimes against humanity… that can also be a prosecution of the use of an anti-personnel mine.”Anti-personnel landmines fall into a distinct class of “victim-activated” weapons, which are designed to be detonated by the victim. The deliberate delay between the deployment and detonation also distinguishes landmines from weapons such as firearms or artillery, in which a specific target is chosen and impact is relatively immediate. This delay makes accountability much more difficult, including identifying who laid the mine.Prosecutions for crimes committed in Myanmar face considerable challenges, but the facts of the case remain. “The use by the Tatmadaw and by certain rebel groups, but particularly the use by the Myanmar military, has been indiscriminate,” Casey-Maslen says. “They have committed war crimes through their use of anti-personnel mines. In certain instances, they have forced people to walk through minefields. That is a war crime. That kind of conduct is beyond any rule of IHL, and hopefully one day those who are responsible will be brought to account.”

Episode #544: May Shine, a recent graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs, approaches policy work from the position of someone shaped by displacement and minority identity within Myanmar's Chin community. Her work focuses on a persistent gap between lived realities and international policy, particularly in how crises like Myanmar's remain underrepresented despite ongoing conflict and displacement. Her research along the Thailand–Myanmar border reveals how issues such as child labor emerge directly from structural pressures like legal insecurity and economic instability. “I have also come across with child labor,” she adds, describing how children miss school not by choice but necessity. These observations inform her critique of humanitarian aid systems that often fail toreach affected communities due to political and logistical barriers. She argues that more representation within policymaking spaces is essential, noting that Myanmar remains underrepresented globally. At the same time, she situates this within broader geopolitical realities, where competing crises limit sustained international attention. Within Myanmar's movement, she emphasizes collective leadership over reliance on singular figures, even as fragmentation across ethnic and community lines complicates unity. “The strength of Myanmar's movement should not depend on a single figure or leader,” she says, advocating for collaboration across differences. Her work remains grounded in a constrained but deliberate role: to carry lived experience into policy spaces that often operate without it, despite the difficulty of translating between the two.

Episode #543: “We believe in dialogs among people of different backgrounds,” says Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, a Thai professor at Chiang Mai University and director of the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD). While Myanmar's crisis is often framed in political and humanitarian terms, he argues that Myanmar is also living through an “interregnum”: that is, the old political order has lost legitimacy, but no coherent alternative has yet taken shape, and foundational questions about national identity, federalism, and shared values remain unresolved. This instability, he explains, creates both the danger of ethno-political fragmentation and the opportunity for developing a more inclusive framework for Myanmar's post-junta future RCSD is one of those platforms now attempting to articulate and synthesize this future. Long before the 2021 coup, the center brought together journalists, activists, and researchers to examine land issues, education, and social transformation. It collaborated with universities and organized Myanmar-focused conferences. After the coup, it established a scholar-at-risk fellowship program in Thailand for journalists, artists, and civil society researchers, creating a relatively safe academic space at a time of growing repression. Chayan frames this support as urgent. Many young people who fled Myanmar, including participants in the Civil Disobedience Movement, are stranded in Thailand without stable documentation or access to higher education. Their continued exclusion would harm not only Myanmar but the region as a whole, as Thailand depends economically on migrant labor and stability across its borders. At the heart of his argument is the need for what Chayan calls “organic intellectuals”—individuals who remain rooted in their communities while developing analytical tools to interpret them—and developing “counter-hegemonic knowledge.” Resistance alone is insufficient, he stresses; Myanmar must imagine what comes after military rule. He warns against reducing political identity solely to ethnicity, and calls for a framework that respects differences but is grounded in shared values.

Episode #542: Max Ante, a former deeply committed practitioner of the Goenka Vipassana tradition, describes a spiritual journey shaped by a relentless desire to understand reality directly, regardless of where that search might lead. From early in his practice, he committed fully to a structured path that promised liberation through disciplined meditation, organizing his life, relationships, and sense of purpose around that goal. Early on in his practice, he traveled to Myanmar on a pilgrimage led by Goenka, where he received permission to become a monk. The experience was immersive and meaningful, offering a glimpse into a life fully dedicated to spiritual practice. Yet it also revealed the intensity and demands of that path, and he recognized that he could not sustain that level of renunciation. Over time, his confidence in the system began to erode. And as he encountered alternative interpretations of Buddhist teachings, his doubts expanded beyond specific ideas into a broader uncertainty about how to understand his life. He came to feel that he had internalized a system that had overridden his own independent judgment, resulting in this departure from that tradition. However, without the structure that had defined his identity and progress, he had no clear direction. He turned to other sources, including the writings of Jed McKenna, which challenged the assumption that there is a stable self that progresses along the path. Ante's inquiry eventually extended beyond meditation, to a culminating psychedelic experience in Mexico that fractured his sense of identity, and reinforced his growing view that no fixed system could fully resolve the question he was pursuing. He continues to meditate and live ethically, but without grounding these practices in a prescribed framework. He now approaches his life as an open-ended process, no longer guided by a single system or final answer.

Episode #541: “There is no such thing as ‘traditional Buddhism.'” For Marte Nilsen, this idea defines her career-long exploration of how faith and power intertwine in Myanmar. A senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), she studies how religion evolves with politics, art, and everyday life. “I'm a scientist, and I'm a researcher,” she says. “So I'm always looking at religion as part of society, not as an individual endeavor.” Nilsen explains that religion in Myanmar has long been a political tool. During the late socialist era, the military built pagodas to project spiritual legitimacy. “The military really needed to take control of politics, obviously, but they did it through religion in many ways.” Yet communities quietly resisted, reclaiming symbols through ritual and art. “Religion is never a static thing,” she says. “It always evolves.” Her research also explores the Ma Ba Tha movement, which gained strength by serving local needs where the state and political parties did not. “It's incredibly important for people who want to have a political impact or social impact to actually be there with the people,” Nilsen says. The movement's success, she argues, revealed both the vulnerability and adaptability of faith amid Myanmar's ongoing struggle for justice. She also notes that Myanmar's struggle is not only political but psychological and spiritual — a revolution of the mind. The country's future depends not just on ending military rule, but on unlearning the fear and obedience instilled by decades of dictatorship. Real freedom, she says, will come when people reclaim the empathy and moral courage that oppression tried to erase — a reminder, in her words, of how all things shift and pass. “Life isn't permanent,” she says, referencing Buddhist teachings, “and everything will change. Nothing will stay.”

Episode #540: This episode marks a different kind of experiment for Insight Myanmar. Instead of following a single guest, we step back and listen across hundreds of conversations gathered over years of documenting Myanmar's revolution. What emerges is not one story, but a living network of voices—activists, artists, monks, organizers, journalists, and fighters—all wrestling with what it means to endure the collapse of a society and imagine something beyond it. The conversation unfolds across four interconnected themes. The first is “Coming Together”: the quiet, invisible labor that makes resistance possible long before protests fill the streets. Organizers describe years spent building trust, underground networks, and systems of mutual support in the absence of a functioning state. The second is “Creative Expression.” Artists, musicians, photographers, and cooks reveal how humor, storytelling, food, and music become tools for survival and resistance, helping people process trauma while keeping movements emotionally alive. The third dimension, “Moral Alignment,” centers on Buddhist monks grappling with questions of ethics, violence, and responsibility. Their stories expose the tension between spiritual practice and political engagement in a country where suffering can no longer be ignored. Finally, the episode turns to “Conflict” itself. Ordinary people—a tour guide, a hip hop artist, former nonviolent activists—describe being pushed into armed resistance and the irreversible emotional costs that follow. Taken together, these voices reveal a revolution that is not only political, but deeply human: creative, fractured, moral, traumatic, and unfinished.

Episode #539: In his analysis of Myanmar's democratic transition, Elliot Prasse-Freeman highlights the failures of a system that was inherently flawed from its inception. Although the 2010s brought real change to some, the military also retained significant control, making any possibility at political reform superficial. This left marginalized groups without meaningful change, and created a transition that, as Prasse-Freeman says, was “moribund” from the start. Economic reforms during that time emphasized privatization and the commodification of land, disregarding the needs of small-scale farmers. These policies led to land grabs, exacerbating the vulnerabilities of those already struggling. In parallel, he notes that this period failed to address ethnic justice, leaving the grievances of non-Bamar communities, including the Rohingya, unaddressed, and further deepening divisions. Grassroots activism emerged as a critical response, driven by frustration with both the military and the NLD's failure to enact real reform; local groups symbolized sustained resistance, organizing actions to reclaim land and assert their rights. Despite the many flaws, the resilience of the people of Myanmar remains evident. As Prasse-Freeman poignantly states: “One of the things that they talk about is that you have to make people be their own heroes! But in order to do so, you have to act like a hero yourself, because people aren't prepared to be their own heroes in front of a military that's constantly exploited them.”

Episode #538: The fifth episode in our five-part series features conversations recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference at Northern Illinois University, where scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners gathered under the theme Dealing with Legacies in Burma. Held in the midst of political upheaval and humanitarian crisis, the conference offered a rare space for open exchange, collective reflection, and connection. Insight Myanmar was welcomed into this setting to record dialogues with a diverse range of attendees, produced in collaboration with NIU's Center for Southeast Asian Studies. With these episodes, we hope to bring listeners into the atmosphere of the gathering and into conversation with the people who continue to shape the field today. Khaing Wai Wai Zaw taught English in Myanmar for eight years, and went to Northern Illinois University for a higher degree in her field. But she also became a research assistant there cataloging artifacts, in particular 228 rare, scared sasi jo ribbons. While having no qualifications in this area, she relied on her Buddhist literacy and background to interpret inscriptions, andensure they have a safe home at the NIU library, at least until her country regains its stability. She also reflects on the political crisis in Myanmar and wrestles with the role monks should play, balancing her own reluctance to criticize with her belief in social responsibility. “I'm a totally different person when I get on stage.” With this feeling, Karen dancer and community leader Hsa Win reflects on how dance preserves his identity. He grew up in a refugee camp in Thailand after his family fled Burma, and later moved to the U.S. Wanting to educate others about his Karen heritage, he began performing traditional dances at community events. Hedescribes competitions, bamboo dances, and the spiritual dances of the thirty-seven nat spirits. Onstage, he feels confident and transformed, adopting the personalities of the spirits he portrays, and American audiences are enthusiastic. He now lives in Ohio, where he teaches dance to Karen youth to help them “embrace their identity” and keep their culture alive. Researcher and artist Ni Ni Win describes how Burmese marionettes have become a powerful link to her identity now that she lives in America. She explains that puppetry developed to portray particularly sacred Jataka Tales that humans were not permitted to depict. Under royal patronage, puppet shows became very popular; the marionettes conveyed religious teachings, history, and even political concerns, since civilians sometimes asked puppeteers to voice criticisms through the puppets. This art form declined when the monarchy was dismantled by the British, and then as other forms of entertainment became increasingly popular. Amy also draws inspiration from pagoda engravings, known as gnot patterns, which are used on traditional Burmese textiles as well. Living abroad has increased her appreciation for these traditions, which help her stay connected to her homeland.

Episode #537: “Refugees are incredibly remarkable. They're working day-in and day-out to provide for their communities, but they're working under a set of assumptions and a set of regulations that prohibited them from working.” Maximillian Mørch, Head of Program Development and Quality Assurance at The Border Consortium, describes how a system built as an emergency response in 1984 has hardened into a four-decade reality along the Thai–Myanmar border. TBC has long provided food, shelter materials, cooking fuel, nutritional support, and technical assistance across nine border camps. Today, more than 100,000 refugees live inside those camps, with tens of thousands more in rural border areas outside the camp system and at least 50,000 in Thailand's cities. The displacement is not temporary, and it has only further deepened again since the 2021 coup. For decades, camp refugees were largely confined. Leaving without authorization risked being treated as an undocumented migrant, and work outside the camps was prohibited. That restriction made food aid the central pillar of survival. Mørch emphasizes that dependence was structural, not moral: refugees sustained their communities through constant labor, but under rules that prevented real economic participation. Over time, the camps evolved from transplanted villages into organized settlements with homes, schools, clinics, markets, religious life, and refugee-led governance. The Karen Refugee Committee and Karenni Refugee Committee oversee services, coordinate with Thai authorities and NGOs, and manage disputes. Yet the system's viability rested on uninterrupted funding—and in 2025 it began to fail. Food and fuel alone exceptionally costly, and funding gaps at one point left camps without food support for weeks, as global humanitarian crises competed for shrinking resources. With return to Myanmar unsafe and resettlement opportunities collapsing—especially after the suspension and termination of a major U.S. process—Thailand's August 2025 resolution granting eligible refugees the right to work marked a historic rupture. The policy reframes survival around income, with research suggesting a week's wages can exceed a month of past food assistance. Labor shortages in Thailand, particularly after reported departures of Cambodian workers, helped push the reform. Eligibility remains limited, rollout is complex, families generally stay in camps, and around 10% of residents will still need direct aid. “Everyone wants to be self-dependent,” he says. “No one wants to be held hostage to the changing fluctuations” of humanitarian funding. Mørch's portrait is of a system forced to reinvent itself—opening a breach in confinement, but not yet a full pathway out.

Episode #536: “I never feel that war is this close to me,” Bencharat Chua, a Thai human rights professor and activist, reflects as she explains how decades of engagement with Myanmar have reshaped her understanding of conflict, democracy, and regional responsibility. Her central argument is that without democracy and a lived culture of human rights in Myanmar, Thailand will continue to experience instability, displacement, and violence spilling across the border. Human rights language, she insists, only matters if it becomes political practice and public will. Her involvement with Myanmar began in 1999, when she worked with the NGO Friends Without Borders and spent two years visiting refugee camps along the Thai–Myanmar border. There, she learned directly from displaced Burmese communities about repression and conflict, while also witnessing widespread hostility toward them within Thai society. She later joined the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University, where she worked with Burmese students and long-time activists, including members of the 1988 generation living in exile. During Myanmar's political transition in the late 2010s, she became deeply involved with universities inside the country. Around 2018–2019, she helped train law lecturers after international human rights law became mandatory in Myanmar's law faculties. Although many lecturers initially struggled, she later saw lasting gains in confidence and political awareness that endured even after the 2021 coup dismantled the formal education system. Bencharat also traces political change through shifting attitudes toward the Rohingya. She recalls earlier denial among democracy supporters, followed by a significant shift, noting that “now everyone acknowledges what happened.” For her, this signaled that Burmese human rights advocates were beginning to extend rights principles beyond nationalist exclusion. She situates these changes within a broader regional context. While Thai state policy toward Myanmar remains cautious, tied to business interests and the “ASEAN way,” she identifies the Thai youth movement as a countercurrent, arguing that prolonged military rule has politicized a generation despite severe repression. After the 2021 Myanmar coup, her work shifted towards supporting parallel education for students resisting the junta, where she continues to confront the gap between human rights ideals and lived violence. These experiences have made war feel immediate and reinforced her belief that change depends on people willing to insist on dignity and rights, even at great cost. “We are ready to fight for democracy, we are ready to fight for human rights!”

Episode #535: “Meditation kind of lost its traditional sense of going really deep to finding Nibbana,” says David Johnson, a longtime practitioner and senior teacher at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center, describing what he sees as a drift away from the Buddha's original intention. Johnson has always had an interest in spirituality. He joined his first retreat in his teens, and at nineteen, he left college to follow his teacher, the monastic Sujata, to the Still Point Meditation Center in California. He cooked, cleaned, and lived among young seekers there for years in what he remembers as a “golden era,” when teachers like Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Munindra passed through. After Still Point closed, Johnson entered the emerging world of Silicon Valley. Fast forward a number of years, and he learned that a Bhante Vimalaramsi was trying to find him. He found out that this monastic had been a lay acquaintance long ago at Still Point, and who had since become a monk after extensive training in Asia. Visiting him in Missouri, Johnson encountered a method centered on relaxation, kindness, and direct reliance on the suttas. He eventually left his tech career to join Dhamma Sukha, convinced that this approach preserved what the Buddha actually taught about the mind's capacity for liberation. Meditation at Dhamma Sukha is based in the Brahmaviharas, and taught as a gentle, natural process grounded in relaxation rather than force. The emphasis is on tranquilizing bodily and mental tension, allowing awareness to open easily, and letting the mind move through increasingly calm states without strain, effort, or suppression. Johnson says that neuroscience is validating the higher states that meditators in that tradition can reach. He ends by affirming his confidence in the Buddha's path and the transformation it brings. “There is a way out of suffering!” he affirms, expressing the same hope for others that began his own journey.

Episode #534: Tracy Bawi Hlei Iang, a Chin activist and co-founder of Myanmar Action Group Denmark, reflects on a life shaped by early family separation, forced migration, and political rupture, and argues that sustained, small-scale collective action—especially across ethnic and religious lines—is both possible and essential for Myanmar's future. Tracy grew up in rural Chin State, and when she was about seven, her father fled Myanmar because of his political activities, landing in Denmark, and her mother left soon afterward, unable to remain safely in the country. After being raised by grandparents, she left Chin State at the age of fourteen to reunite with her father. Language was a major obstacle. She taught herself by reading children's books late into the night with a dictionary, eventually becoming fluent in the Danish language. Cultural integration took longer. Entering school as a teenager in a small town left her feeling invisible, until two years at a Christian boarding school allowed her to form friendships, learn Danish norms, and feel a sense of belonging grounded in social trust. Before the 2021 coup, Tracy was not politically active, but the military takeover shocked her into action. She helped organize a public demonstration in downtown Copenhagen that brought together multiple ethnic communities from Myanmar, an experience that galvanized her commitment. This led to the founding of Myanmar Action Group Denmark, a volunteer-run, registered association focused on advocacy and humanitarian support. From the outset, Tracy has insisted that the organization work for all of Myanmar rather than a single ethnic or religious group. Despite persistent divisions, she has observed growing openness, especially among younger people. Activism has transformed her personally, giving her skills, purpose, and solidarity with those still inside the country. It is important, she believes, for diverse diaspora communities to unite in solidarity. In the end, Tracy considers her efforts as quite small in the scheme of things, yet is satisfied with the impact she is able to make. So she closes with a simple message: “Please don't underestimate [the power of small actions].” She stresses that supporting Myanmar does not require grand gestures; it requires persistence, courage, and willingness to act where one is.

Episode #533: “Before COVID-19 and before the Myanmar coup, I thought that ‘memory of war' meant only World War Two inside Myanmar. But after 2021, I realized for local people the condition is like a war now.”Hitoshi Kameyama, a Japanese photographer, first came to Burma in 2005 on a photography tour. Expecting a repressive environment, he was instead struck by the warmth and friendliness of local people. This impression drew him back repeatedly, and he eventually made more than 25 trips before the pandemic, building close ties by photographing villagers and returning later with prints for them.Myanmar's political opening after 2011 allowed greater freedom for photographers and journalists. While Japanese companies began investing, Kameyama focused on documenting memories of the Japanese occupation in World War Two. He was inspired by encounters with elderly villagers who recalled both suffering and small gestures of kindness from Japanese soldiers. In one case, a woman whose brother had been killed by soldiers still preserved a grenade and other wartime objects for decades, hoping they might be returned to Japan. Such stories led to his book Burma Myanmar Memories of War 2019–2024.The pandemic and the 2021 coup forced him to expand the project beyond historical memory. Unable to enter Myanmar, he traveled to India and Thailand, where refugees had fled. He visited Mae Sot clinics, schools, and camps, meeting displaced families and injured resistance fighters. His work began to connect past and present, showing how conflict continues to shape lives.Many of his images highlight this continuity: a child playing with a Japanese helmet, a tiny tank carried into Chin State by soldiers, ceremonies where survivors still gather to honor the dead, and a 2012 community meeting once seen as ordinary but later understood as a fleeting sign of democracy.Kameyama is critical of Japanese businesses that continue to operate in Myanmar, arguing that profits inevitably aid the junta. Reflecting on two decades of engagement, he stresses that personal bonds matter more than politics. As he put it, “It's important to me, this personal relationship with the Myanmar people.”

Episode #532: “Constitutions need power,” says Henning Glaser, a Bangkok-based lawyer working on constitutional politics in Asia. In his second appearance on the podcast, he argues that Myanmar's constitutional problem is less about drafting the perfect text than about whether any text can bind the actors who hold force, and whether there is enough unity to sustain a shared political community. He describes the early post-independence settlement as broken at its origin, saying the promised autonomy that predated the first constitution “was never really done so from the beginning,” leaving what he calls “the original sin of constitutionalism and statehood” that still shapes mistrust. Later military-era constitutions, in his view, often functioned as cover for power rather than restraint, with the 2008 charter operating as “insurance” that preserved military vetoes and control. Glaser insists a viable constitutional state “needs a certain degree of unity,” and that unity cannot be manufactured by constitutional language alone. Federalism and peace-making become inseparable challenges, because the constitutional design question sits on top of armed realities, competing visions of federation versus confederation, and minority-within-minority tensions that do not map neatly onto territory. He also emphasizes “constitutional infrastructure” as a precondition for any genuine rule of law: courts that function, legal education that produces doctrine rather than slogans, a press able to criticize judgments, and citizens able to engage without fear. Courts can guard a constitution only if judges can rule independently and if the broader system accepts rulings without reverting to coercion. Glaser's most pragmatic conclusion is that Myanmar may need a tentative constitution first—a minimal framework that can be implemented while institutions, doctrine, and civic capacity develop—because constitutional ambition that exceeds enforceable power risks repeating the cycle of promises made on paper and withdrawn in practice.

Episode #531: “The laws that govern the monks' organization were written before 1988, during a one-party dictatorship! In the Sangha organization, you cannot have different voices… everything comes from the top-down. If you say anything unorthodox, your writing will be censored.” U Pandita explains the challenges within Myanmar's Saṅgha, where rigid hierarchies and censorship laws stifle independent thought and research. He critiques the authoritarian governance of the monastic order, noting that senior Buddhist monks resist change because they benefit from the status quo. Monks lack autonomy, and dissenting voices face severe consequences, including disrobement or legal action. He contrasts his current freedom in Sri Lanka with the restrictions in place in Myanmar, where his academic work would be censored, and he would be in danger. He highlights how the Saṅgha'sinability to modernize perpetuates problems like corruption, and silence around controversial topics. He also criticizes the Sangha's role in promoting nationalist and anti-Islamic sentiments, driven by the military's claim of “protecting Buddhism,” which he dismisses as a self-serving excuse. U Pandita delves into Buddhist ethics. His academic work challenges the idea of universally fixed precepts, and believes that ethical standards depend on societal and cultural context, using the precept of sexual misconduct as an example. This perspective, he admits, is unconventional and may surprise and even unsettle many traditional and religious Buddhists. Reflecting on Myanmar's identity as both a source of spiritual wisdom and a nation embroiled in conflict, U Pandita attributes its current struggles to historical cycles of power and aggression. He expresses concern over the military's exploitation of Buddhism, which distorts its teachings and erodes public trust in the monastic community. While acknowledging the resilience of Myanmar's Buddhist traditions, he warns of the risks posed by political turmoil and the resulting decline of the public's faith in monks. U Pandita advocates for research as a means to revitalize Buddhism's intellectual tradition and bridge gaps between Myanmar's heritage and global audiences. He believes a progressive, inclusive approach can ensure Buddhism remains relevant and meaningful in contemporary society.

Episode #530: “I don't want to live under fear, obeying [the military]. I could survive, but would be in fear, like every movement I would feel I don't have freedom, and I think I don't want that for myself,” says JC, a Karen illustrator and activist now based in the Netherlands. Raised in Yangon, JC was unaware of Myanmar's civil war due to school propaganda. Only after moving to Thailand to be near her father did she learn the extent of ethnic conflict and oppression. Seeing refugee camps and hearing stories of the Karen struggle left her angry and determined to understand more. JC earned a communications degree in Bangkok and initially envisioned a career in journalism. A political science course taught by a former prisoner, combined with life among marginalized migrant workers, deepened her sense of purpose. She returned to Myanmar during its brief democratic opening, working with a civil society group serving Karen communities. That optimism collapsed with the 2021 coup. Turning to illustration after protest and journalism became too dangerous, JC found a new outlet for storytelling. “By doing illustration, I feel like I'm contributing,” she says. Inspired by editorial art, she developed a minimalist, emotionally expressive style. Her illustrations accompany stories of trauma and displacement, including one of a pregnant woman who lost twins while fleeing war—a piece she says still haunts her. Creating pieces like this take an emotional toll, however, and she often needs to take breaks between pieces to reground herself. JC's art bridges personal and political experience, offering a visual language that speaks across cultures. she says, “Emotions are universal,” and her work often introduces Myanmar's crisis to unfamiliar audiences. Still in legal limbo, she draws to stay connected. “Since I cannot be there physically, it's a way of me to stay contributing,” she says. “I wish [people] don't forget about Myanmar.”

Episode #529: Daniel Dodd is one of the two center teachers at Dhamma Patapa, a Vipassana meditation center in Georgia in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. Alongside his work as a meditation practitioner and teacher, he has built a career in community organizing, nonprofit leadership, and federal service focused on low-income communities. But it has not been an easy journey. Dodd was born in Brazil to a Colombian mother and an American father. The family later moved to the United States, and much of his childhood unfolded in rural Maine after his parents separated. His mother raised three children on a homestead without plumbing, where daily life required endurance and adaptability. His adolescence and early adulthood were marked by confusion and drift: He struggled in school, barely graduating, and began drinking and smoking marijuana, uncertain about his future, an angry and agitated young man. A period teaching English in Bogotá during Colombia's violent drug-war years broadened his outlook but did not resolve deeper internal struggles. After a painful breakup left him feeling unmoored, he took a ten-day Vipassana retreat. The experience proved transformative, and meditation gradually became the organizing center of his life. Rather than turning away from society, the practice deepened his awareness of suffering's personal and social dimensions. That perspective guided his later work organizing low-income communities and eventually serving at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For Dodd, meditation does not remove concern about injustice; it changes how that concern is carried. As he reflects near the end of the conversation, “We're all kind of trying to figure these things out and become better people as we're sitting and living our lives.”

Episode #528: Ola Elvestuen has devoted his political career—and much of his life beyond politics—to tackling the most urgent environmental and societal challenges facing the global community. A member of Norway's Liberal Party since 2013, he has served as Minister of Climate and the Environment and held several high-ranking positions in both local and national government. As a young man in the late 1980s, Elvestuen witnessed a world in upheaval: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ousting of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and Myanmar's 8888 Uprising. The latter left a particular mark on him and many in Norway, embedding the Burmese struggle deep within Norwegian politics and foreign policy. During the democratic opening of the 2010s, Norway emerged as an important player, pairing diplomatic support with investments in critical industries such as hydropower, oil and gas exploration, and telecommunications. Yet Elvestuen points to a defining controversy in 2022, when Telenor—Norway's majority state-owned telecom giant—sold its Burmese operations to entities with close ties to the junta, effectively handing over sensitive user data. The decision drew sharp criticism from activists and rights groups who warned of the dangers for dissidents, journalists, and civil society. When the military launched a coup in 2021, Elvestuen watched with dismay, arguing the international community should have reacted immediately and forcefully. “The demonstrations that were held were incredible,” he says, “but they did not get the support that they should have gotten in the early days!” For Elvestuen, the path forward is clear: only a federal democracy can secure Myanmar's future, and Norway must play a meaningful role in supporting it. He argues that sustainable environmental initiatives should progress alongside the political struggle, pointing to Myanmar's extraordinary biodiversity and the severe climate threats it faces. In closing, Elvestuen reminds listeners that the urgency of Myanmar's situation extends far beyond its borders. “That is what we [Norway and the West] had to do with Ukraine,” he says, “and that is also the position that we should have with the revolution in Myanmar.”

Episode #527: Nay Chi, a senior researcher with the Myanography project, describes Myanmar's post-coup election as an exercise in coercion rather than public choice. Drawing on reports from community researchers across the country, she says most people were not interested in voting and did not believe the process would change anything. What moved them was pressure: warnings tied to conscription, threats at checkpoints, loudspeaker announcements, and the wider fear created by a military already known for violence. As Nay Chi puts it, “people are forced to vote,” a phrase that strips the election of any democratic pretense.That pressure took different forms depending on the place. Displaced families were told that relatives of military age could be taken if they did not vote. Government staff were steered toward military-aligned parties. Travelers were questioned about voter registration. Even where no direct order was given, people understood what refusal might invite. The point was not to persuade them politically, but to make participation feel safer than refusal.The structure of the election reinforced that logic. Candidates had to report campaign movements and materials in detail to military authorities, and even where local ethnic parties won seats, Nay Chi says the most important positions still flowed toward military-backed figures. For many communities, the result was something already assumed in advance. “We cannot even imagine our future,” she says, describing a public that no longer sees voting as a path toward representation.What followed was not relief. Community researchers reported that conscription pressures intensified after the vote. Families kept paying money to try to shield sons from recruitment, often unsuccessfully. Young men hid in forests. Parents rushed children away after exams, fearing military abduction into forced conscription. In that atmosphere, the election quickly faded behind the larger struggle to stay safe, fed, and out of military reach.Nay Chi's argument is blunt. The election did not reconnect people to politics or representation. It extended a system in which procedure is used to mask force, and in which international recognition would only deepen the sense that the suffering imposed on Myanmar's people can be turned into paperwork and accepted as normal.

Episode #526: “I actually was anti-Muslim when I was in high school!” recalls Thet Swe Win, describing how he was influenced by nationalist propaganda in his youth. But his involvement in the 2007 Saffron Revolution began to change him. Marching with barefoot monks, he witnessed Muslims come from a mosque to give them water, medicine, and slippers. “We do not have to hate each other, but we have to unite and fight back the military,” he realized. His mother, fearful for his safety because of his participation in the protests, sent him to Singapore. Immersed in a multiethnic workplace there, he gradually shed lingering prejudices, concluding that there are only good and bad people, not good or bad religions. Returning to Myanmar, he resumed activism after anti-Muslim violence erupted in Rakhine State in 2012 and spread to other towns, stoked by state television propaganda. In response, he and his peers launched the “Blue Sticker Campaign” to counter the extremist 969 movement and its hate speech. Still, he confesses that the anti-Rohingya propaganda he had absorbed throughout his life left him with lingering bias toward that community—until Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu drew him into her campaigns and encouraged him to learn their history, which ultimately reshaped his perspective. Later on, Thet Swe Win founded Synergy, an organization dedicated to fostering social harmony. One of its well-known initiatives was the White Rose Campaign of 2019, where Buddhists offered roses to Muslims facing harassment. The gesture spread nationwide as a symbol of solidarity. His activism has drawn threats from MaBaTha, harassment by police, and raids on his office. Yet he remains firm in his resolve, and has refused to leave the region. Thet Swe Win insists Myanmar's future requires moral leadership, curiosity, and accountability. “The revolution without the political leadership or the moral leadership will be a chaos,” he warns. For him, real change “begins within, from within.”

Episode #525: Heidy Quah, founder of Refuge for the Refugees in Kuala Lumpur, describes her work supporting migrants and refugees in Malaysia, particularly those fleeing Myanmar. She began volunteering at a refugee learning center at eighteen and was transformed by what she witnessed, particularly seeing children on the verge of losing their only access to education because of funding shortages. From that moment, she committed herself to ensuring refugees could access basic rights such as education, healthcare, and dignified livelihood. Quah's organization now supports dozens of refugee learning centers, shelter homes for trafficked and abused women, and a livelihood initiative which enables refugee women to earn income through craft production. She emphasizes restoring dignity and agency, not charity or pity. Quah recounts harrowing stories of new arrivals—young people fleeing forced conscription, sexual violence, and the killing of family members—who survive perilous overland journeys to reach Malaysia. Many arrive already indebted to smugglers, having borrowed heavily to finance their escape. Despite deep physical and psychological trauma, they often must begin working almost immediately, driven by the urgency of repaying those debts and protecting the families they left behind. A central concern for Quah is the contradiction she observes in Malaysian society: strong public advocacy for Muslim refugees in distant conflicts, such as Gaza, yet hostility toward refugees trying to live locally, like the Rohingya. She notes that Rohingya refugees in particular face racialized prejudice tied to skin color and stereotypes about cleanliness or criminality. For her, the deeper issue is selective empathy—why compassion extends across oceans but falters at the shoreline. Throughout her work, Quah centers storytelling, representation, and hope. She believes lasting change comes when affected communities speak for themselves and when advocacy preserves dignity rather than reinforcing victimhood.

Episode #524: Max Ante's story begins not with a gradual curiosity, but with a sudden rupture. At twenty, after a series of chance encounters, he found himself on a ten-day Vipassana retreat in the Goenka tradition—an experience that would reorder his life almost overnight. The stillness he encountered at the end of that course carried an authority that eclipsed everything that came before. Ambitions, identity, relationships—all of it fell away in the face of something that felt more real, more urgent, more true. What followed was not casual interest, but total commitment. Max structured his life entirely around the practice, meditating daily, sitting increasingly long retreats, and traveling internationally to deepen his experience. Liberation from suffering became his central aim, grounded in what he believed was direct insight into the nature of reality. The framework was complete, self-reinforcing, and supported by a community that validated both his experiences and his interpretations of them. Over time, this commitment extended into every aspect of his life. Relationships, work, and personal decisions were filtered through the logic of the practice. Challenges—whether emotional, psychological, or relational—were met with more meditation, under the assumption that the technique itself was sufficient. But instead of resolving these tensions, many quietly accumulated beneath the surface. Years later, cracks began to appear. Personal loss, unresolved strain, and contradictions within the tradition itself forced Max to reexamine what he had taken as unquestionable. He began to see how the system had shaped not only his experiences, but his interpretation of them—closing off alternative ways of understanding his own life. Looking back, Max holds a complex view. The practice gave him discipline, clarity, and access to profound inner states. But it also narrowed his world, guiding decisions in ways that, in retrospect, limited his autonomy. In his current view, the issue is not the practice itself, but the degree of authority he had given it. He emphasizes that systems become self-reinforcing when they define both the experience and the “correct” interpretation of that experience, leaving little room for critical thinking.

Episode #523: The fourth episode in our five-part series brings you conversations recorded at the 16th International Burma Studies Conference at Northern Illinois University, where scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners convened around the theme Dealing with Legacies in Burma. Held amid ongoing political turmoil and humanitarian crisis, the gathering became a rare space for open dialogue, reflection, and communal care. Insight Myanmar was invited into this environment to record discussions with a wide range of attendees, produced in partnership with NIU's Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Through these episodes, we hope to carry listeners into the atmosphere of the conference and into dialogue with the people who continue to shape the field today. Our first guest is H, who describes returning to Myanmar from the United States in 2019, hoping to contribute during what looked like a period of national progress. But the 2021 coup shattered his hopes. Like many others, H joined the protests, and witnessed severe brutality, including shootings, beatings, and soldiers forcing a man to crawl while stomping his head. Eventually, he was arrested and spent three days in an interrogation camp marked by torture and psychological stress, followed by three months in Insein Prison. There, political prisoners supported each other and exchanged ideas, which deeply shaped him. Released amid international pressure, H lived in fear of rearrest before deciding to leave Myanmar. Now abroad, he continues supporting the movement while coping with survivor's guilt and a strong conviction that the military must be removed for the country to have a future. Next, political scientist Tani Sebro discusses her long-term research on the Tai (Shan) people living along the Thai–Myanmar border. Initially studying migrant returns through standard research methods, she shifted her focus after witnessing a vibrant cultural renaissance in temples in Chiang Mai, where migrants, refugees, and exiles practiced dance, music, and ritual arts. When she joined the dancing herself, relationships with community members changed, allowing her to engage with them through shared joy rather than extractive questioning. Sebro explains that dance provides emotional healing, communal cohesion, and a politically safe way to sustain Tai nationhood when open political organization is dangerous. Because Myanmar restricted Tai language instruction, performing arts became crucial for cultural survival. Sebro closes with her teacher's belief that dance offers a peaceful way for the nation to endure without violence.

Episode #522: “We became interested in understanding how distrust toward official institutions influences the way humanitarian aid actually moves on the ground, and how donors decide where to place their trust in such a complicated environment,” begins Than Htike Zaw, who, along with Pablo Gassilloud, studies humanitarian aid in Myanmar. Drawing on surveys of roughly 78 donors—primarily Burmese nationals—and interviews with civil society organizations, their work examines how political conditions shape aid delivery in constrained environments. Institutional distrust, already longstanding, intensified after the coup and the 2025 earthquake. Military interference, surveillance, checkpoints, and financial restrictions complicate humanitarian response, delaying supplies and limiting the transfer of funds. As Than Htike Zaw explains, “Trust in state institutions has been very low and the humanitarian environment has become extremely complicated.” The authors emphasize that their analysis focuses on how donors perceive these risks rather than proving direct manipulation of aid flows. In this context, donors face a tradeoff. Large organizations offer formal accountability but are often slower and more vulnerable to obstruction due to reporting and coordination requirements. Gassilloud notes that this does not mean they are untrustworthy, but that they are perceived as less effective for rapid response. Smaller, community-based organizations act more quickly and reach affected populations, though with less formal oversight. As a result, donors prioritize speed, proximity, and confidence in delivery. Than Htike Zaw explains that trust is shaped by social connection and shared understanding of the crisis. Smaller organizations rely on informal verification—updates, direct communication, and gradual release of resources—while maintaining a minimal baseline of transparency. Trust develops incrementally through repeated interaction and cross-checking among actors. These decentralized networks, however, are difficult to scale and coordinate across large areas. This network of smaller, more flexible organizations is rooted in Myanmar's social world, and a result of decades of having to navigate the country's authoritarian rule and oppression of marginalized communities. As Gassilloud emphasizes in closing, “There's nothing more precious than the ability of humans to be able to pull each other up,” capturing both the necessity and the resilience that define humanitarian action in this context.

Episode #521: “The weapon itself just cannot tell the difference between a soldier stepping on it, or a kid on the way to school, or your grandma on her way to the place of worship.” For Erin Hunt, Executive Director of Mines Action Canada (MAC), the harms inflicted on civilians by anti-personnel landmine have motivated her organization's humanitarian work for three decades. MAC was founded in the 1990s “to end the suffering caused by indiscriminate and inhumane weapons such as landmines, cluster munitions, autonomous weapons, explosive weapons in populated areas and nuclear weapons.” In 1997, the Ottawa Treaty, or Mine Ban Treaty, was ratified, with the campaign behind it winning the Nobel Peace Prize the same year. It has since become a model of humanitarian disarmament. That model today faces serious challenges, including its relevance to Myanmar, which has recorded the world's worst casualties from landmines and unexploded ordnance for two years in a row, according to the Landmine Monitor. In a recent interview as part of Insight Myanmar's Navigating a Minefield series, Hunt described how international policy spaces often overlook “the people who have lived with these weapons who are the experts.” Their expertise, she explains, comes from lived experience—mitigating risk as part of everyday life—rather than from formal qualifications or academic training. This perspective has informed MAC's work, particularly in elevating young people and women as leaders in mine action and disarmament. While men and boys are statistically more likely to be landmine casualties, women and girls are disproportionately affected in less visible ways. Gender-based violence and trafficking risks are heightened in conflict and communities under attack. In families that suffer a death or injury, “increased caregiving responsibilities are going to fall on the women and girls”, Hunt says, forcing women and girls to take on additional work or withdraw from school, reinforcing cycles and intersectionality of inequality. As emerging technologies are being adopted to the battlefield in Myanmar, most notably drones in recent years, Hunt points to broader challenges shaping modern conflict including the use of AI and autonomous systems and nuclear command structures. “The big issue is the lack of accountability and the potential for mistakes with no one held accountable,” she says.

Episode #520: “Ancestors are not dead. They're not the living dead. Rather, they should be best thought of as ‘the always living.'” Dr Micah Morton, a cultural anthropologist and professor at Northern Illinois University, describes Akha life across the Upper Mekong borderlands as a struggle to keep that relationship intact while everything around it shifts—states hardening borders, religions competing for allegiance, and markets remaking livelihoods. Morton traces an origin narrative tied to Jadae Mirkhanq, a remembered homeland city-state whose meanings have changed as Akha have become citizens of five countries. The past, he argues, is not a single inheritance but a set of stories shaped by migration, hierarchy, and dissent, including legends of Mongol pressure and internal conflict around a powerful king whose era is credited with laying down the “Akha way.” At the center of Morton's account is Akha customary law, rendered as ghanr, an encompassing system that governs life and death through obligations to ancestors and the maintenance of “vital life giving energy.” Genealogies, ritual offerings, and village gates are not symbolic leftovers but mechanisms that produce health, prosperity, and moral order. Yet modern schooling and language shift change how this knowledge is carried, pushing remembrance from oral mastery toward written records. Morton follows these pressures into a cross-border effort to standardize an Akha writing system, one that was attempted to be designed “by and for Akha,” and into the fractures created when writing becomes a tool for competing missions—Christian evangelism on one side, and neo-traditionalist reform on the other. He frames Christian conversion not as a private belief swap but, in traditionalist terms, an “entirely new set of customary laws,” with the village gate becoming the emblem of rupture, exile, and later reconfiguration. Coffee then arrives as both bridge and threat. In Lawcavq Pu (Doi Chang), wealth from global coffee markets has funded new forms of status and debt, while also underwriting intensified funerals and gatherings aimed at reforming ancestral practice so it can survive beyond the village gates. In the end, Morton does not frame the Akha as trapped between tradition and modernity. He instead regards them as managing competing jurisdictions—ancestral law, church discipline, state regulation, market dependency—none of which can fully absorb the others, and none of which can simply be ignored. “It's an ongoing cultural system of customary law that Akha have, over time, adapted to their particular circumstances.”

Episode #519: Friedgard Lottermoser, a German student of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, describes the unique character of meditation at the International Meditation Center (IMC) in Rangoon between 1959 and 1971. Unlike the large,standardized courses later developed by S. N. Goenka, U Ba Khin taught only one ten-day course a month to small groups. Each student received individualized instruction based on temperament and background. “He went by feeling,” Friedgard recalls, noting that he could sense a student's meditative progress even from afar. She contrasts U Ba Khin's flexibility and adaptability with Goenka's standardized system of recorded discourses and fixed schedules centered on a single technique. When political restrictions prevented U Ba Khin from traveling abroad after Ne Win's 1962 coup, he could not realize his own dream of teaching dhamma outside Burma. So he trained several non-Burmese teachers to undertake this mission, as well as Goenka, who as an Indian businessman was able to obtain a passport. In particular, Goenka's organizational talent and charisma transformed meditation into a vast global network. Yet Friedgard stresses that U Ba Khin never intended his teaching to be wholly standardized; he expected these teaching disciples to adapt the practice to their own cultures. In explaining the technique, Friedgard cites a pamphlet, The Essentials of Buddha Dharma in Meditative Practice, written by U Ba Khin where he outlines ten stages of vipassanā insight. These range from theoretical understanding (samasana) to deep dissolution (bhaṅga) and ultimately to detachment and realization. Unlike Goenka, he placed less emphasis on equanimity and more on “continuity of awareness—anicca with feeling.” Friedgard also goes into great detail about her friendship with Ruth Denison, an U Ba Khin disciple who adapted vipassanā for Western students through movement and mindful walking. Though Denison and her teaching approach was controversial in the conservative, Burmese Buddhist community at IMC, Friedgard believes U Ba Khin would have understood such adaptations. His genius, she says, lay not only in teaching meditation but in trusting that each culture must find its own expression of the Dhamma.

Episode #518: The story of the KMT irregulars in Burma is a historical anomaly tied to the Chinese Civil War, the Cold War, and Burma's early independence. Following their defeat, remnants of the Nationalist Army under General Li Mi crossed into Burma's Shan States. Claiming to continue the anti-communist struggle, they later turned to the opium trade as a means of survival. This trade, expanded under the KMT's control, expanded exponentially, transforming the region into the Golden Triangle—an epicenter of the global drug trade. The KMT's activities also destabilized Burma and strained Prime Minister U Nu's administration, leading to tensions with British and American stakeholders. Meanwhile, the CIA engaged in a covert mission tofund and arm the KMT, further complicating the geopolitical landscape. Meanwhile, the KMT's exploitative practices alienated local ethnic groups, such as the Karen and Mon, deepening mistrust and fragmenting resistance. By 1953, international pressure forced U Nu to address the KMT's presence at the United Nations. This led to evacuations supported by the CIA, though the process was incomplete and fraught with challenges. Many KMT forces remained, leaving an enduring legacy. The Golden Triangle's drug trade flourished, ultimately reaching American inner cities; while regional instability persisted and the Tatmadaw grew in power, setting the stage for military rule in Burma. “By the mid to late 1950s, only about seven or eight thousand had gone [back to Taiwan], which was satisfactory for the government,” Baron says, noting the lasting footprint of the KMT's presence in Burma, and highlighting the incomplete resolutions and ongoing legacies of this historical chapter. “But there was simply in the region, loads that just stayed, loads that never left, and you see their relatives or their descendants still there now.”

Episode #517: “They are using each other for their own benefit.” With this line, Wai Yan Phyo Naing frames a sober account of SinoMyanmar relations. A researcher and lecturer in international relations and modern history who studied in Moscow and later worked with migrants in Thailand, Wai Yan Phyo Naing brings both scholarship and field experience to the conversation. For Wai Yan Phyo Naing, the relationship is transactional. “China is only interested in its national interests,” he says. “China is ready to communicate with whoever becomes powerful in Myanmar.” Myanmar engages because it must, yet, as Wai Yan Phyo Naing insists, “Myanmar is a sovereign, independent state—not a province of China.” Geography drives the rest: China seeks an outlet to the Indian Ocean, and Myanmar's coast provides it. The pipelines from Kyaukphyu to Yunnan are operating; the rail vision remains contested—proof, Wai Yan Phyo Naing says, that consent and fair terms decide outcomes. Security realities push cooperation, as Wai Yan Phyo Naing notes that China brokered talks with MNDAA, TNLA, and AA, even “opened the observer office in Lashio,” and, as the generals realized the limits of unilateral force, they came to “appreciate the Chinese intervention.” The darker side of crossborder interdependence is the scam economy, which Wai Yan Phyo Naing calls “like a cancer.” Strategically, Wai Yan Phyo Naing recounts how Beijing once “wanted to create the tunnel… to the Ayeyarwady River and then to the sea.” That was rejected, but “the port project, gas and oil pipeline” are now real, and China is “ready to continue their highspeed railroad from Yunnan.” The moral is unchanged: both states pursue advantage, and Myanmar must bargain hard. Wai Yan Phyo Naing cautions against extremes. “Whoever holds power in Myanmar cannot forget China's presence,” he says. “Please don't forget we are just beside China… we shouldn't see China as a ‘bad guy' all the time.”

Episode #516: “I want to be able to center women in their full right and to shine a spotlight on how I think they are very much the heroes of the revolution,” says Jenny Hedström, a researcher whose book, Reproducing Revolution, examines women's labor in the Kachin struggle. Joined by Stella Naw, a Kachin activist and scholar, they argue that the conflict cannot be reduced to a simple story of aggressor and victim. Instead, it must be understood through the everyday labor that sustains communities across generations of war. Jenny's engagement with Kachin women began in the early 2000s while working with the Kachin Women's Association Thailand. She found that English-language scholarship centered male fighters and formal politics, while the women she spoke with talked about displacement, rebuilding, and survival. When she began her PhD in 2015, she initially focused on female soldiers, assuming armed actors were the proper lens for studying war. But spending time in Kachin towns, army brigades, and displacement camps shifted her perspective: she realized that labor that was not militarily or publicly celebrated proved equally essential to revolutionary endurance. Together, they argue that Kachin womens' roles in farming, teaching, organizing, and caregiving within Kachin Independence Organization–controlled areas constitute real governance, and not merely domestic support. Stella reframes gender as relational, noting that rigid expectations of masculinity have harmed men as well. “When they can no longer perform the values that define them as Kachin men… they take their own life!” They extend this critique to the international arena, contending that legitimacy is too narrowly defined through sovereignty and armed control. The sustaining labor that makes resistance governance possible remains politically undervalued, and Jenny and Stella want conflict analysis and policy engagement to more explicitly account for this foundational layer of local governance. They stress that the governance sustained by women is politically indispensable, so it should be studied, supported—and valued—accordingly In the end, their commitment remains unequivocal: “We'd rather live and fight for freedom than to submit,” says Stella. “People are willing to die, so they will continue fighting. It's not going to end, but we can end it soon by supporting these resistance actors, who made up for pluralistic states, and support civil society groups who can hold EAOs and EROs accountable.”

Episode #515: Toru Kubota is a Japanese documentary filmmaker who believes storytelling can foster empathy beyond abstract argument. A political science student at Keio University who developed an interest in refugee issues, in 2014 he joined a student project interviewing Rohingya refugees in Japan. Using a camera for the first time, he helped produce a short documentary about their lives. In 2016, Kubota traveled to Sittwe in Rakhine State and entered camps housing Rohingya displaced after the 2012 violence. Though officially designated as internally displaced persons camps, he saw them as places of confinement, where communities were segregated and deprived of adequate services. Filming an accidental fire inside one camp became a turning point; editing the footage later convinced him of film's power to convey lived experience. Following both the military's 2017 campaign against the Rohingya and the 2021 coup, Kubota returned each time to Myanmar to document events unfolding there. While filming a protest in 2022,soldiers arrested him at gunpoint and used staged photographs as evidence of his participation. He was charged with incitement and immigration violations and sentenced to ten years in prison. Fortunately, diplomatic pressure was able to secure his release after 111 days in detention at the notorious Insein Prison, where he had endured solitary confinement and struggled with despair. Since then, Kubota has supported exiled Myanmar journalists in a variety of different ways. His film “Borderline Resistors” follows exile media collectives along the Thai–Myanmar border. Reflecting on his imprisonment and the fragility of civil liberties, he recalls something an activist once told him: “Freedom is like air. You never appreciate it when you can breathe freely. But you finally realize how important is when you get drowned in water.”

Episode #514: Richmond Heath, an Australian physiotherapist, longtime vipassana meditator and senior trainer in tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) discusses the involuntary movements that arise for some people in meditation. He argues they are not signs of dysfunction, but rather expressions of underlying bodily processes. It's how a person relates to them that matters most. In his late twenties, Heath developed chronic pain that resisted conventional treatment and forced him to abandon the physical activity that had once grounded him. Turning to vipassana meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, he encountered intense discomfort but discovered that pain was partly a reaction layered onto sensation. By observing it rather than resisting it, its character changed, opening a new way of relating to the body. As his practice deepened, spontaneous movements began to arise. These ranged from subtle shifts to complex, fluid postures that felt unexpectedly free rather than painful. Because he was not consciously producing them, he experienced them as something happening through the body rather than something he was doing. Yet neither medical nor meditative frameworks could account for it. His vipassana teachers discouraged the movements, and eventually he was asked to leave a retreat; medicine, in turn, tended to framed them as manifestations of pathology. Despite this, he trusted his experience and continued observing. He later described these as “neurogenic movements” and came to understand them as part of a broader rhythm of activation and release. While initially interpreting them as trauma discharge, he expanded this view, noting similar patterns in early development, cultural practices, and states of heightened energy. This led him to conclude that no single framework fully explains the phenomenon. Encounters with Aboriginal elder Jack Beatson and later TRE provided validation and context. TRE, which deliberately elicits similar movements, confirmed that such responses can be accessed intentionally, but also reinforced that they function best when not controlled. Heath emphasizes discernment: the same process can regulate or destabilize depending on how it feels. His guiding question—“are you okay, and is it working for you?”—extends beyond meditation to everyday experiences, reframing reactions like panic as part of the body's attempts to adjust. Even in extreme conditions, such as conflict zones, these processes may offer limited but meaningful relief. Ultimately, Heath maintains an openness to interpretation, grounded in a simple principle that the Aboriginal elder told him: “Enjoy the ride!”

Episode #513: Georgi Engelbrecht of the International Crisis Group links two stories that matter for Myanmar: the Mindanao peace process and Russia's ties to authoritarian partners in Southeast Asia.He begins in the Philippines with what he calls the conflict's “master cleavage” — Muslim communities inside a state seeking self-determination against what they see as colonial intrusion. That grievance was reinforced by migration, exclusion, and underdevelopment until it hardened into decades of separatist war. But the macro narrative never explained everything. Alongside it ran “horizontal violence”: clan feuds, communal disputes, and local power struggles that don't disappear just because a deal is signed.For Engelbrecht, the 2012 and 2014 agreements with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were a turning point, not an ending. The MILF largely abandoned fighting, the Bangsamoro autonomy project became real, and governing structures took shape after the autonomous region was established in 2019. Yet the region remains “in flux,” with delays, elite rivalries, contested legitimacy, and violence that has shifted rather than vanished.From Mindanao he pivots to Myanmar and what major powers mean by “stability.” Russia's push into Asia, he argues, accelerated with its rupture from the West, as Moscow sought partners and arenas beyond Western leverage. In Myanmar, that lens favors the junta: Russia tends to read rebellion as instability and the central state as the default counterweight. With pipelines for hardware, parts, training, and contact, “Myanmar, because of Russia's help, is not that isolated anymore,” and perceptions of durability become a force multiplier.His wager is blunt: “Russia is banking on victory of the regime.” China, by contrast, cannot afford distance and hedges across actors because Myanmar's disorder sits on its border. As Engelbrecht puts it, “Chechnya [for Russia] is probably what Myanmar is for China.” For Moscow, this becomes part of a broader pattern—how Russia shows it can keep partners standing, stay relevant beyond Western systems, and act as a patron for regimes the West is trying to isolate. For Myanmar, that means the relationship isn't a blueprint for victory—but it can function as scaffolding: not determining the war's shape, but bracing the regime's ability to persist.

Episode #512: “The overall consequences are so bad that I myself urged the Norwegian government to stop some of this.” Hanne Sophie Greve, a Norwegian judge and long-time human rights jurist, argues that Telenor's conduct in Myanmar created foreseeable and preventable pathways to severe human rights harm, but existing legal systems struggle to respond proportionately. She frames the case as both a corporate failure and a test of how Norway—a state that portrays itself as committed to democracy and human rights—handles the risks created when a majority state-owned company operates in a fragile political environment. Greve reconstructs Telenor's entry into Myanmar during a period of political opening, when optimism about liberalization was widespread. She notes that Telenor had a strong reputation for transparency and human-rights due diligence, which she describes as a tool designed to identify high-risk contexts. Precisely because of that due diligence, Greve identifies the company's first major failure: Myanmar's telecommunications sector was structurally high-risk even during the democratic transition, because the legal system lacked safeguards, and Telenor knew this. She argues that the company should have insisted on legal protections and planned for an emergency exit. When political conditions deteriorated and sanctions reinforced those risks, Telenor still failed to act on what it knew. The second failure was Telenor's handling of real-time interception equipment. Although lawful when imported, Telenor kept it in Myanmar after sanctions were imposed and was later operationalized by the military. She emphasizes that leaving such capacity behind in a country sliding toward authoritarian violence is not a neutral act. She also strongly criticizes Telenor's exit and sale of its Myanmar operation to a military-linked entity, arguing that sensitive data should have been deleted rather than left accessible. Greve describes the situation in present-day Myanmar as a constant conflict in which surveillance enables arrests, repression, and lethal violence. While she says Telenor's criminal liability under Norwegian law remains legally uncertain, she argues that if responsibility is established it would attach to the company itself, not individual employees. She concludes by treating the case as a warning about how control over communications infrastructure directly affects whether a society can function at all, and she expresses hope that Norway can support a peaceful transition for Myanmar's people. “I would love to see my own country in Norway participating in bringing about that peaceful transition for the benefit of the people of Myanmar.”

In this bonus episode, Better Burma's monastic donation manager, Mora, shares what he has been seeing on the ground in Myanmar after years of conflict and displacement, now compounded by the March 28, 2025 earthquake. He explains why so much of Better Burma's work runs through monasteries and nunneries, as these communities have become frontline sanctuaries for children, providing shelter, food, schooling, and basic healthcare for thousands who have nowhere else to go. Mora describes what it takes to deliver aid under current conditions, the scale of damage and urgent rebuild needs across sites in Sagaing, Mandalay, and surrounding areas, and what Better Burma has been doing since the quake, from constructing temporary and permanent housing to repairing collapsed walls and roofs and helping communities relocate out of unsafe structures. He highlights one orphanage nunnery caring for more than 90 children, including infants, now living in unsafe bamboo shelters after their building was destroyed, and he explains how economic hardship has crushed local giving, forcing some nunneries to travel long distances just to gather rice to send back to the children. He closes by underscoring how vast the remaining needs are, from classrooms and teaching halls to restored water access and basic monastic requisites lost in the debris, and invites listeners who want to support this work to donate at betterburma.org/donation.

Episode #511: Like many young Kiwis, Jarrod Newell wanted to see the world. Taking advantage of the special working holiday visas available in the United Kingdom, he traveled to London,where he participated in the city's wild, partying lifestyle. After saving some money, he would pick up and find some new place to visit, ultimately making his way across cities and even continents. While attending hippy festival in Greece, he met a girl who had just completed a ten-day vipassana retreat in the tradition of S.N. Goenka, and told him of an upcoming course in Crete, and Jarrod went there straight away. The course experience was brutal, but had a deep impact on him. After ten years, he finally returned home, and now a committed meditator, sat and served regularly at the local vipassana center. When Jarrod heard that Goenka would be leading a pilgrimage through Burma, he knew he had to go. As soon as he stepped off the plane in the Golden Land, he realized he was somewhere special. He was especially moved by his sitting in in a cave at Shwe Taung Oo in Monywa, where Ledi Sayadaw used to reside nearly a century ago. It was there that the idea of ordaining as a monk came to him, and Goenka eventually gave him his blessing to take robes. Now a monastic, he returned to Shwe Taung Oo Pagoda, where he decided to sit six, 10-day self-courses in the style of Goenka retreats, with just one day between each. As a monk, Jarrod was greeted with open arms and an open heart by nearly every Burmese person outside the military that he came in contact with, and on more than one occasion was invited to remain in whatever area he was in for life, with promises that all his needs would be looked after. However, in the end, he decided to disrobe, and returned to New Zealand via India, where he sat a 60-day course. When he was 32, Jarrod enrolled in medical school, and met his future wife with whom he had three daughters. He has a medical practice, and has opened a business. “I'm just very much a householder,” he notes. But the memories from his time in the Golden Land are never very far away for Jarrod, and the lessons from those years are precious.

Episode #510: “I'm not an activist,” says Bart Was Not Here, a Burmese artist whose politically oriented work reflects a life shaped by dictatorship and displacement. He argues that art creates a space where memory, humor, fear, and imagination can coexist, allowing both artist and viewer to navigate political realities in ways that ordinary language cannot. Bart sees current global politics as part of a wider shift toward more extreme forms of power. Myanmar's experience, he explains, no longer feels unique but echoes developments now taking place elsewhere. This awareness shapes both his personal outlook and his artistic practice. As an individual he worries about the state of the world, yet as an artist he values the act of creation as a protected interior space from which to observe, reflect, and transform experience into form. Satire plays a central role in his work, as Bart argues that humor can deflate authoritarian power by exposing its absurdity; a practice that Burmese have long been trained in doing. In a society familiar with repression, he notes how humor becomes a subtle form of resistance. For Bart, absurdity reveals how power, while often appearing grand, can be exposed as brittle and theatrical. These ideas shape his recent exhibition, Threshold. The project emerged after he moved to the United States and received an immigration identification number for non-citizens. The label struck him as a strange science-fiction scenario—a “Third World alien” entering the first world. From this experience he developed the idea of a threshold: a suspended, liminal space between departure and arrival where identities shift and renegotiate themselves. It is an interconnected world rather than a series of isolated paintings, and populated by both mythic characters and archetypes from his own internal landscape. Through his layered environments, Bart explores systems of control, waiting, and escape. Ultimately, however, he insists that art should remain playful and exploratory. As he puts it, “Nothing is really that deep… it's all spectacle and entertainment.”