Taung Galay Sayadaw

The Venerable Taung Kalay (Taung Galay) Sayadaw U Paññasãmi (U Pinnyathami) (Burmese: တောင်ကလေးဆရာတော် ဦးပညာသာမိ, born Saw Phoe Thu on 14 July 1960) is a Karen Theravada Buddhist monk, and also known as a prolific writer and a historian.^[1]

Early life

Ven. Taung Ka Lay Sayadaw was born Saw Phoe Thu to Aung Khin and Nan Sein Hla Khin on Thursday, 14 July 1960 (the 7th waning day of Warso in 1322 Myanmar era) in Hlar Ka Myin village in Hpa-an Township, Karen State, Burma.

Shin Paññāsāmī

At the age of 8, he was novitiated on 14 March 1968 (the 7th waxing moon of Tapaung in 1329 Myanmar era), with Sayadaw Badanda Thuriya of Hlar Ka Myin Monastery as the preceptor and his parents as the organizer and supporter of the ordination ceremony.

At the age of twenty-one, on 21 March 1981 (the 1st waxing moon of Tapaung in 1342 Myanmar era), the novice Pinnyathami was fully ordained as a Buddhist monk; his preceptor was Bhaddanda Thuzarta, the Shwebo Kyaung Sayadaw in Hpa-An, and his parents supporting the ordination.

Monkhood and awards

The pursuit of monastic education by Sayadaw Ashin Pinnyathami has been remarkable. He has passed many religious exams, some with honors: The Abhidharma exam, the Pali Pahtamapyan Examinations, the Thuthama Saya exam, the Thaddhama Parla exam, the Pidhakaya Paraku exam, Vinaya exam, and exam for a comparative study of world religions. In addition to these accomplishments, during 1989-1990, he informally learned Sanskrit and Pali from Dr. Zagara, the Yaza Giri Sayadaw of Varanasi University and Nalanda University. Through continuous learning, Sayadaw’s relentless efforts to seek wisdom have earned him an Hon. Doctor of Oriental Learning (Ph.D.) on history from Indian Institute of Oriental Heritage, Kolkata, India in 2013.

Publications

The Venerable Sayadaw is an author. Under the pen name of Echo(အဲခိုး), he has been regularly writing articles on The Myanmar Herald journal (မြန်မာသံတော်ဆင့်) and under the pen name of Tawhmi Rahan, he has written many books, articles, and poems on different topics ranging from Buddhist teachings, literature and culture, children stories to environment, politics, and peace. The Sayadaw of Maenu Oak Kyaung monastery, The Noble Truth of Buddha, The Virtues of Buddha and Its Power, Cherish the Life of Others, Children’s Stories of Animals and The Battlefield in Myanmar are on the list of over 100 books that have been written and published by the Venerable Sayadaw, Ashin Pinyathami. He had also been part of the team that compiled the Pwo Kayin-English-Myanmar Dictionary.

1. Avihiṃsā naing gan yay (အဝိဟိံသာနိုင်ငံရေး) - Avihiṃsā Politics
2. (ချမ်းသာစွာအိပ်စက်နိုင်ကြပါစေ)
3. (ရတနာခရီး)
4. (ငြိမ်းချမ်းမှုနှင့်သင့်မြတ်မှု)
5. (ပါဋလိပုတ္တဂါမ)
6. (မယ်နုအုတ်ကျောင်းဆရာတော်)
7. (မြန်မာတို့တစ်နှစ်အတွင်းစစ်တလင်း) - Battlefield in Myanmar in one year (2009); (About Burma History from 1824 to 1948).
8. (သားသမီးနှင့်မိဘ)
9. (၁၂လရာသီအရှ့ပိုင်းကရင်ယဥ်ကျေးမှု)
10. (အေးမြသာခေါင်သာမညတောင်)
11. (မဇျ္စိမဒေသခရီး)
12. (ဘဝသံသရာ)
13. (ကျောင်းထိုင်ဆရာတော်လက်စွဲ)
14. (အမြင့်မြတ်ဆုံးအမျိုးသမီး(သို့)အနှိုင်းမဲ့အဖြည့်ခံ)
15. (ဓမ္မနို့ရည်ကဗျာစုစည်းမှု)
16. Bodh Gaya a kyaung thi kaung sa yar (ဗုဒ္ဓဂယာအကြောင်းသိကောင်းစရာ) - Bodh Gaya (2001)

Community work

The Venerable Sayadaw has also engaged in several other religious and social activities such as preaching the Buddha’s sermons, practicing and teaching mediations, renovating pagodas and taking the roles of National Sangha Committee members. He has renovated over 20 ancient pagodas and donated new Hti (umbrella crowns) around the country. He has also founded 10 monasteries and 6 Monastic Education Schools in Kayin State in order to create a wider access to education for the children in rural areas and build an educated society.^[1]

Since 1993, Sayadaw has engaged in Karen Peace Council (KPC) as a leading peace negotiator for the peace in Kayin State.^[2] He has also served as a patron for the Myanmar Peace Foundation. In 2001, he established a social group called Phlon Education Development Unit (PEDU) and began extensive social and local development works in Kayin State. In 1996, he opened a monastic school for children from kindergarten through tenth grade. He also founded First Aid Groups in partnership with Myanmar Red Cross and initiated the establishment of the orthopedic rehabilitation center in Hpa-an township. On 10 September 2017, a completion ceremony for midwives training was held at the Taung Kalay Monastic School. Sayadaw also awards scholarships to outstanding students. He set up Nat Say Taman Scholarship Funds and provides financial assistance to students in Kayin State while serving as a patron for Karen Student Center (KSC), a boarding school for students from remote villages that lacks access to education. In 2009, he went to Australia and established Karen Melbourne Buddhist Association to promote Buddhism and provide spiritual counseling based on Buddha teaching to Karen community there. He was officially awarded honorary titles of Thaddhama Jotika Dhaja in 1991 and Maha Thaddhama Jotika Dhaja in 2001 by the government of Myanmar. In 2002, Sayadaw also received the Buddhist Literature Award from Japan.^[1]

Due to his influential impact on the local community, he is frequently visited by politicians, government officials, Karen leaders, KNU officers and many other local leaders.^[3] It is also reported that Taung Galay Sayadaw sent condolences to the passing of Padoh Saw David Taw who was the secretary of the KNU Peace Committee and also a member of a KNU delegation that negotiated peace with the Burmese government in January 2012.

Activities abroad

The Venerable Sayadaw has traveled extensively. He has traveled to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka in 1994, Thailand and Singapore in 1997, Japan in 2000, Australia in 2009 and America in 2015, and conducted Dhamma talk with Myanmar community in those countries as well as to citizens of those countries. His remarkable works for humanity have greatly inspired thousands of people to lead a good life and make differences in their community and country. With the motto of “Toward the peaceful state of nirvana” the Venerable Sayadaw Ashin Pinnyathami continues to write books and articles while practicing and teaching meditation.^[4]

References