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PODCAST

Insight Myanmar

Insight Myanmar Podcast

Insight Myanmar is a beacon for those seeking to understand the intricate dynamics of Myanmar. With a commitment to uncovering truth and fostering understanding, the podcast brings together activists, artists, leaders, monastics, and authors to share their first-hand experiences and insights. Each episode delves deep into the struggles, hopes, and resilience of the Burmese people, offering listeners a comprehensive, on-the-ground perspective of the nation"s quest for democracy and freedom. And

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All Episodes

01:06:34

From Rio to Rangoon

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/11/11

Episode #429: Emmanuel Flores' journey into meditation began at the age of nine in Rio de Janeiro, seated before a candle.His formative years were marked by a quest for positivity,but without a solid practice. This changed at 20, when a friend's recommendation led him to a vipassana meditation course inthe tradition ofS.N. Goenka.This course was transformative,and sparked an interestinthe histories ofLediSayadaw, Saya Thet Gyi, andSayagyiU Ba Khin. Emmanuel's fascination with Burma's spiritual

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02:41:51

Trajectories in Flux

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/11/10

Episode #428: This panel gathers five voices from Myanmar’s unraveling present—specialists in food, economy, energy, education, and digital life—who together trace the anatomy of a country still fighting to exist. Their stories intertwine across fields once filled with promise, now marked by loss, adaptation, and the quiet persistence of rebuilding.Thin Lei Win, a journalist and food systems expert, bridges the elemental links between nourishment and truth. She describes a nation abundant in

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01:36:48

Meditating on History

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/11/07

Episode #427: Daniel M. Stuart describes his newest work,Insight in Perspective,as the product of decades of scholarship and meditative practice, aimed at practitioners and academics alike. The book, a follow-up to his earlierEmissary of Insight, examines the historical and cultural formation of the S. N. Goenka Vipassana lineage. He says it began as a short academiccritique, butgrew into a comprehensive studyseekingto bridge lived religious experience and historical analysis.Stuart situates his

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01:51:57

Reclaiming Ground

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/11/06

Episode #426: The Karenni Interim Executive Council was formed in 2023 to provide services to people in dire need, with an estimated 80% of the civilian population displaced by the conflict.As people return to their homes, landmines placed by the military pose a multi-layered threat,causing injuries and deaths, creating a climate of fear for people on their own land, and making normal life dangerouson a daily basis.“Fear now makesthe landbecomeevilsothey areafraid toeven tostepon thearea where they

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01:47:08

A Borderline Personality

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/11/04

Episode #425: Dr. LalitaHanwong, a Thai historian and analyst, has dedicated her career to understanding Myanmar and its ties to Thailand. “I’m morally attached to the peoples of Myanmar,” she says, summing up a lifetime of scholarship and advocacy that spans from the archives of colonial Burma to the war-tornThai-Myanmarborder. “I just want to talk to everybody.”Trained at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Lalita’s research explored how British rule relied on racial hierarchies

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01:11:10

Through Other Eyes

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/11/03

Episode #424: This episode opens the first of a three-part Insight Myanmar Podcast series recorded at the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University. The gathering brought together scholars, activists, and cultural workers exploring how colonial legacies continue to shape scholarship, storytelling, and identity in the region. In this opening episode, we hear from Jules Yim and Jochem van denBoogert, two voices who approach decolonization from distinct yet deeply

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01:54:29

Snap Judgments

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/31

Episode #423: Ian Taylorisa Canadian photographer whose life shifted from the film industry to decades of work and travel across Southeast Asia.His firstexperience was witha government-sponsored Asian Studies program in the early 1990s.His early visits to Burma during the junta’s “Visit Myanmar Year” left a strong impression, and he became involved fora short timein advertising there.By the late 1990s, Taylorhadleft advertising for photography, focusing on family portraits and NGO assignments across

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02:14:58

At The Edge of Self

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/30

Episode #422: “There is beauty in owning one's racial identity. There's beauty in owning, valuing,and respecting one's heritage, ancestors, sexual identity,andgender identity. Butonthe other side of the coin,there can also be imprisonment there.”Sosays Bhante Sumano, anAfrican-Americanmonk at Empty Cloud Monastery. This is the6thepisode in our ongoing “Intersections of Dhamma & Race” series, in which we examineentrenched protocols, practices and biases within the vipassana

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01:44:42

You’ve Got Harm

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/28

Episode #421: Saijai Liangpunsakul, whose first name means “the link between two hearts,” speaks of her journey through the turbulent conflict of Myanmar, and how the kindness and resilience of the Myanmar people continue to inspire her. Now a recognized expert on digital trauma and rights, she has come a long way from her small southern Thailand village. She travelled to Costa Rica on her own at 15 years on a student scholarship, and continued her global education in Canada and the US.The spark for

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02:14:26

Going Off Script

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/27

Episode #420: “This is this shit is real.This is not a dream. This is real.”Burmese actor and public figure Khar Rarecountsa path that runs fromMogokto Yangon, into entertainment, and then—after the 2021 coup—into public dissent, displacement, and ongoing advocacy.He grew up onMogok’swest side. Money was tight; his father died from alcohol; his mother remarried and left; with no siblings, he lived among relatives and kept one house rule:don’tdrink,don’tsmoke. Before leaving he told a friend he would

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02:20:07

A Movement Begins

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/24

Episode #419: “I’mjust doing what is right, what is wrong,what’sthe matter? What should I do as a human being?”After medical school, instead of choosing comfort, Dr.MyayLatt went to the Naga Self-Administered Zone — a place with no roads or electricity, where he was often the firstdoctoranyone had seen. He built bamboo clinics, trained villagers, and survived falls off cliffs while fighting malaria and tuberculosis. “They think I’m a strange person,” he says, laughing, “but they thank me.”His work

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02:05:13

Super Rabbit Person

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/23

Episode #418: Lorraine Pan is a 21-year-old queer, autistic, immigrant from China who now studies Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto (note that Pan’s preferred pronouns are they/their/them). Growing up in a small town, Pan felt alienated in a conservative school system that stigmatized neurodivergence. Their politicization began in high school during the Hong Kong protests of 2019: Chinese state media glorified police violence while censoring dissent, a contradiction that

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01:43:43

Bonus Episode: Meditation Across Borders

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/22

This bonus episode features the recording of a special online meditation fundraiser hosted by Better Burma in partnership with Vipassana Hawaii. The event combined meditation, reflection, and stories from the ground in Myanmar, highlighting how monasteries and nunneries have become lifelines—providing shelter, food, and education for displaced families amid crisis. Mora, who leads our monastic support team, shares firsthand accounts of resilience and need, while Vipassana Hawaii teachers guide

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02:04:40

The Military Monastic Complex

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/21

Episode #417: “There has been a massive lay critique of leading Buddhist monks that have been seen as pro-military… but to conclude that monks are either silent or pro-military is too hasty! What weactually seeis polarization and division within theSaṅgha,” saysIselin Frydenlund, a professor of religion in Norway who has spent decades studying Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka andMyanmar.One of herargumentsisthat theSaṅghahas never been truly unified. The coup simply shattered publicillusionsof

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01:51:01

The Doors of Repression

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/20

Episode #416: In the early 1990s, a chance encounter with Burmese student exiles in BangkoksparkedNic Dunlop’senduring interest in the country.Hisinitialignoranceof the country developed into curiosity, empathy, and visual storytelling. As a photojournalist, Dunlop has spent years documenting the “invisible dictatorship” of Myanmar’s military regime, focusing on the mechanisms of social control, forced labor, and repression.His2013book,Brave NewBurma,aimedto educate Western audiences about the

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02:22:21

Roots of the Dhamma

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/17

Episode #415: UJāgara'sspiritual journey is afascinatingexploration of monastic life, creativity, and the transformative power of the Dhamma. Born in Quebec, his introduction to meditation set him ona path that would span traditionsand continents.Hisspiritual journey wasinitiallyshaped by his time in the Goenka tradition, where he valued the rigor and structure of its method.He later practicedMahasiSayadaw’s teachingsin Yangon, whichintroduced him to the nuanced and adaptive approaches of Burmese

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01:13:33

Hamburger Hill

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/16

Episode #414: “They justdidn'tbelieve me at first.SoI had to prove to them.” With these words, Xiao YarYarcaptures his struggle for recognition—a struggle that has defined both his personal life and his role in Myanmar’s revolution.When the military staged its coup and dismissed the election as fraudulent, Xiao YarYarknew the generals were lying. He had collected votes and seen the results himself. Watching peaceful protestors shot down shattered any remaining illusions. A student training to be a

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01:52:17

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/14

Episode #413: “No one's liberated without everyone being liberated, right?” Those words belong to Nitchakarn “Memee” Rakwongrit, a Thai youth activist whose journey from a rural upbringing to the center of Bangkok’s protests has made her one of the country’s most visible young voices for democracy and feminist struggle.Born in Mahasarakham province in Thailand’s Isaan region, a place long tied to grassroots democracy but often dismissed by elites, Memee grew up in a politicized household, as her

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01:10:56

At The Breaking Point

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/13

Episode #412: “We are in Myanmar, and nothing is clear cut.”Anthony Davis offers a stark assessment of Myanmar’s war, drawing on decades of experience studying insurgencies. He begins with the United Wa State Army, a thirty-thousand-strong force running a state the size of Belgium. “It would be entirely wrong to see the Wa as simply Chinese puppets or Chinese proxies,” Davis insists. The Wa have scaled back arms transfers under Chinese pressure, but they remain determined to expand their autonomy

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01:02:46

Stairway to Jhāna

Insight Myanmar ·

2025/10/10

Episode #411: This is the second part of our interview with the meditation teacher, Tempel Smith, and it starts off with his decision “to commit to deep intensive Burmese-style meditation, break through some of these habits, and then find a more integrated lifestyle.” With this in mind, he boarded a flight to Myanmar with his friend Diana Winston, and ordained under Sayadaw U Pandita.Although U Pandita’s reputation as a stern and very demanding teacher caused him some concern, he went to the

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