“Burma on My Mind” is a journey and pilgrimage through the heart of Myanmar’s Gorkhali community. How do Hindus and Buddhists co-exist and live in present day Myanmar? Where do they go to seek spiritual transcendence? What conflicts arise in their search for religious identity? And how can the words of the Buddha provide an answer, and a pathway to peace, to the faultlines that have sprung up in this tight-knit community? The documentary is available in its full length form on Youtube. Your feedback is highly appreciated! If you'd like to use the documentary for teaching purposes, please drop me an email at sansarmagazine@gmail.com. Click here to see "Burma on My Mind"  on Youtube. The documentary has been viewed by an audience of 37,000. __________________________________________________________________ I presented the article associated with this documentary "The Religious Life of the Gorkhalis of Myanmar" at the conference on religion and...

I spent a year between 2010-2011 shooting a documentary about the Gorkhali diaspora in Myanmar and Thailand. The documentary looks at a diasporic community deeply entrenched in Burma, both through their history as well as their love for the country. It also features the rising tensions between newly converted Gorkhali Theravada practitioners who are pressuring Hindus and Mahayani Buddhists to convert to the state-sanctioned religion. The movement appears more political than religious, and it is also new. Religion was one domain that was untouched by the state from the Sixties till very recently, allowing people to continue to worship in their own manner, undisturbed. Burma's rising intolerance regarding religious freedom is disturbing from many vantage points,  not the least of which is that the teachings of the Buddha always regards non-violence (ahimsa) as its central tenet. Pressurizing those from other sects or religions to adopt the state religion goes against everything...