Burma expels Canadian prof over Buddhist tattoos on his leg

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Yangon, Myanmar -- Jason Polley is kicked out of Burma after photo of Buddhist tattoos on his leg went viral on Facebook in Southeast Asian country.

<< The Mahayana Buddhist tattoos on Jason Polley's legs that have caused such a stir in Burma.

A backpacking Canadian professor says he was forced to leave Burma after his leg tattoos caused a stir.

Jason Polley, who teaches English at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the problem started a day after he arrived in the country last week, when a local person took a picture of his Buddha tattoos and posted it to Facebook.

The photo apparently went viral in the Southeast Asian country, which experiences Buddhist-Muslim conflict and has many who consider lower body parts unclean.

In an interview from Bangkok, Polley said about 15 tourism officials came to his hotel in Inle Lake, north of the capital Rangoon, on Saturday night and “accosted” him in the lobby.

“They said: ‘Why would you put these tattoos on your leg? You understand that you’re a Facebook star in Myanmar?’ ” he said by phone Tuesday.

Polley, of Russell, Ont., is a Mahayana Buddhist and his tattoos, which chart the religion’s development, are on his leg to represent a pillar of support.

He said most Burmese practise a different branch of the religion, and officials told him they were there for his protection as radicals might hurt him over the tattoos.

In addition to demanding the couple’s passports, Polley said six officials repeatedly photographed him and his leg, and one tried to grab him when he stood up.

“He was the only official who really made things extremely uncomfortable for both of us,” Polley said, adding the others were cordial.

“I would have gladly fought him right there. In retrospect, I would still want to fight him, even though it would be a bad idea.”

Polley said the officials’ tone became kinder after questioning him when they seemed to realize he wasn’t an Islamic “fundamentalist.”

They told them not to leave the hotel until Sunday morning, when they said they expected to hear back from the country’s tourism minister.

But an hour later Polley and his Hong Kong girlfriend, Margaret Lam, were given two hours to gather their belongings. The officials then put them on a 15-hour car ride to the airport.

While officials initially told him he was to be deported, Polley said other officials told him he was being asked to leave the country for his own safety.

There is no Canadian embassy in Burma, and Polley’s guidebook told him to contact the Australian Embassy, which was closed Saturday night. He and Lam were able to ask friends in Hong Kong to contact Canadian and Chinese officials on Sunday morning.

Chinese officials responded almost within the hour and got a Burmese speaker on the phone to talk to local authorities, but the Canadians did not get back to him.

Polley planned to finish the rest of his 23-day vacation in Thailand and Laos, though he did not rule out returning to Burma in the future.

Foreign Affairs spokesman John Babcock said in a statement that countries have the “prerogative” in deciding whom to keep in their borders and consular officials cannot intervene if Canadians do not meet “entry requirements.

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Canadian monk to lecture on Buddhist worldview, ideas

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Knoxville, TN (USA) -- On Friday, Ajahn Punnadhammo, a Canadian monk, will give a lecture in the McClung Museum Auditorium at 2:30 p.m.

Punnadhammo, the resident monk of a Canadian monastery, will deliver a lecture entitled, "The Buddhist Worldview and Its Relation to Practice," in conjunction with the current exhibit in place in the McClung Museum, "Zen Buddhism and the Arts of Japan."

Buddhist practice refers to meditation and the various states of consciousness that can be achieved through such meditation.

Punnadhammo is the resident bhikkhu of Arrow River Forest Hermitage of the Thai Forest Tradition, located in Northern Ontario, and is currently working on a book about Buddhist cosmology with an emphasis on the Buddhist worldview as present in the Pali Canon, the earliest Buddhist scripture.

His lecture will discuss Buddhist art as well as the Buddhist ideas on impermanence, and will emphasize the Buddhist view of the realms of spiritual existence, from the blissful realms of divine beings to the woeful realms of hell beings.

"I will briefly outline the early Buddhist concept of the universe as divided into hierarchically stacked realms, and then show how this view informs and underlies the Buddhist practices of ethics and meditation," Punnadhammo said.

He also believes that his lecture will help build a better understanding of Buddhism and its beliefs.

"In my view, Buddhist cosmology is a fascinating mythological structure that has been hitherto mostly ignored in the western world," Punnadhammo said. "A familiarity with the mythical universe of early Buddhist would help to round out people's understanding of Buddhism and illustrate many theoretical and practical aspects in a symbolic way."

Dr. Brian Carniello, professor in history at UT and organizer of the lecture, sees it as a way for students to better understand a different worldview.

"As an instructor of world civilization for four years at (UT), I am excited about this opportunity for students to learn about a worldview that has been important to many people around the world and that can be an interesting comparison to other worldviews," Carniello said.

"This talk," he said, "will relate to Buddhist practice in the sense that developing a boundless mind means recollecting the full range of possibilities for happiness and unhappiness, many of which are beyond the experiences with which human beings are most commonly in contact, i.e. the experiences of the human and animal realms."

The Losel Shedrup Ling of Knoxville (LSLK), the UT Department of History and the McClung Museum are sponsoring the lecture, which will last approximately one hour and will be followed by a brief question and answer session with Punnadhammo.

The event is free and open to the public. Attendees who plan on driving and parking at the event should request a two-hour parking permit from the attendant at the entrance to Circle Park for the event.

For those who may be interested, Punnadhammo and the LSLK will also be having a retreat that will be open to the public this weekend with an emphasis on meditation practices, the techniques of which can be useful to people of all faiths, beliefs and worldviews.

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