" More pious deeds than fun "

" More pious deeds than fun "

= Maung Than Weik =

The whole country was in festive mood again, as we were enjoying the Thingyan Water Festival for four consecutive days before celebrating the Myanmar New Year on the 17th of this month.

Cool water and clean fun

In the wards, little boys and little girls were splashing cool and clean water at the people while adults were filling their tubs and giving protection to these kids. Revelers mostly teens went around town in search of water-throwing pavilions that were also entertaining the public with dances and songs.

Decorated fl oats roamed cities and towns presenting a variety of dances and songs the whole day till late evenings during the festival. There were also decorated float competitions and decorated water-throwing pavilion contests in big cities like Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay and also in many major towns. Film stars and pop idols also joined in the festival entertaining the general public with songs and dances on the stages of waterthrowing pavilions or on the decorated fl oats. People were happy to see their favorite film and pop celebrities in person. On some stages, famous comedians cracked clean jokes or sang amusing antiphonal chants adding extra joy and fun to the festival. In fact, the tradition of pouring water on one another is the act of cooling the body and purifying the mind so that we can start the New Year with fresh vigor and spirit.

Pious deeds

Some communities set up pavilions where donors with the contribution of volunteers served food or snacks to everyone free of charge for five days throughout the New Year festival. People young and old retreated to meditation centres where they practiced vipassana which according to teachings of Buddha is the only way to Nirvana, while others entered religious order temporarily. So many men become monks and women become nuns during the Thingyan holidays. Most of the elder people go to monasteries where they sought Dhamma from the venerable or learned monks, kept Sabbath and shared Dhamma knowledge among themselves. 

On the final day or the New Year Day of the festival people focused only on one thing – “doing meritorious deeds”. They released a large number of fish, birds and other animals, helped senior citizens at their homes or at the homes for the aged, provided sanitation or other social services in the communities and wards, visited pagodas and monasteries where they made donations in cash and kind apart from contributing voluntarily labor services, or kept Sabbath and learned Dhamma from monks. Religious edifices especially pagodas in Yangon were always overcrowded on the New Year Day with pilgrims from around the country with a single holy purpose – opening the New Year with meritorious deeds! In point of fact, the whole Thingyan including the New Year Day is a sacred occasion, during which the whole country is in religious atmosphere.

So every year we the Buddhist people of Myanmar celebrate Thingyan with more pious deeds than fun.

#Themyawadydaily