Buddhist association connects visitors with Burmese culture

Nestled beside a strip of nearly constant traffic and facing a row of convenience stores, Silver Spring's Burma America Buddhist Association may not seem the most likely of spots to shake off the pandemonium of an American workweek.

But for more than 30 years, the small single-story building has served this purpose for generations of Burmese immigrants, offering a window into Burmese culture that is for many patrons either a distant memory, or something entirely foreign.

"We are like a big family here," said Tin Thaw, vice president of the association, who as part of a five-member council helps manage the Mingalarama Buddhist temple on the association's grounds, along with two resident monks. The temple is visited by many of the approximately 700 Burmese families in the region.

“We’ve lived around here for a very long time,” Thaw said. “We want to share what we have.”

The association, which opened in 1980, teaches Theravada Buddhism, a branch widely followed throughout Burma, also known as Myanmar. It also is common in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Every other Sunday, the temple holds hour-long silent meditation sessions and instruction based on the Buddha’s teachings, known as dhamma lessons.

“Nowadays they are exposed to so many things,” said Kenneth Way of the temple’s attendees. Way, the son of one of the association’s founders, is also its treasurer. “With a cool mind, they can decide which is right and which is wrong, and they will have the willpower to stay on the right path.”

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Thaw and Way, like many adults who visit the association, grew up in Burma. Thaw left for the United States at the encouragement of his family after being involved in 1969 student protests against the ruling military junta. Way left with his father, who at the time was in the Foreign Service.

Many Burmese who live in the Washington region and fled intermittent military crackdowns into the 2000s look back on life in Burma with fond and bitter memories.

Those who have emigrated from Burma in recent years have done so at a time when Burmese politics are becoming more democratic. Parliamentary elections earlier this month saw opposition leader — and Nobel Peace Prize laureate — Aung San Suu Kyi win a seat after nearly 15 years of house arrest.

Still, new or prospective parents who left at the turn of the century are facing a different challenge: educating their young children on the Burmese language and culture in the United States.

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“When they first come here, they have to think about their job” and are often too busy to teach their children Burmese, said Khin Swe Myint, secretary for the association. So she offers weekly Burmese language classes for almost 50 children free of charge, and also manages the association’s library, which includes books on Burmese history, geography and fiction.

“In a way, we’re trying to get to the parents who are so busy with everyday life through the children,” she says. “I’m giving my time to these Burmese children. I don’t want them to lose their culture and their language.”

As much as Burmese visitors value the Burma America Buddhist Association for how it reconnects them with the country they left behind, many say it is equally important for the shared experience it creates between spouses, siblings and children.

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Tin Moe Aye, a Burmese native who moved to the United States in 1998 to work in information technology, says she doesn’t attend the association for its meditation sessions as frequently as she does for the activities it offers her 10-year-old son, who will be participating in the association’s celebration of the Burmese New Year, known as Thingyan, on Sunday.

Along with her immediate family, Aye attends such festivals with her sister-in-law and cousins, who also live in the area. “We want to give our children Burmese culture,” she said. “That’s why we bring them — so they are aware of traditions.”

San Yu Yu Ohn cites similar reasons for attending the association’s programs, which are open to the public. Her daughter will be performing in a dance ceremony held during the Thingyan festival. “For my kids, I try to keep in touch with their Burmese dress and their Burmese food,” she said.

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After the most recent Sunday meditation session, parents and other visitors lined up in the temple parking lot for a Thingyan dance rehearsal. Seven girls, most 10 or younger, gathered on an outdoor stage where, dressed in traditional Burmese sarongs, they spun and danced in unison, backed by a crooning Burmese singer played out over loudspeakers.

The resident monks, dressed in their bright vermilion robes, came outside to join the parents, several of whom were capturing photos on their iPhones, eagerly documenting the next memory, the next great story for those far away.

lyfordc@washpost.com

The Burma America Buddhist Association is at 1708 Powder Mill Road, Silver Spring, MD 20903. More information about the association and Theravada Buddhism can be found at www.mingalarama.org.

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