Psychology in Singapore Issues of an Emerging Discipline edited by Tan Ai-Girl, Michael Goh.

The force of character : and the lasting life by James Hillman.

Colourful Myanmar by Khin Myo Chit. (NLB Singapore)

Kimchi and IT: Tradition and Transformation in Korea by Kim Choong-soon. (Seoul Selection) (partial)

Related: 'Kimchi and IT' Sheds Light on Korea.

Buddhism Religion in Korea by Choi Joon-sik. (Seoul Selection)

Going to Pieces without Falling Apart by Mark Epstein.

Contentment: A Way to True Happiness by Robert A. Johnson, Jerry M. Ruhl.

Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the...Second Half of Life by Robert A. Johnson, Jerry M. Ruhl.

Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth by Robert A. Johnson. (partial)

Wherever You Go There You Are Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Taming the tiger within : meditations on transforming Difficult Emotions by Thich Nhat Hanh.

The Miracle of mindfulness : A manual of meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Related: Meditation on Interdependence.

The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Luminous Mind The Way of the Buddha by Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche.

The Silk Road Journey With Xuanzang by Sally Wriggins.

Holy Places of the Buddha (Crystal Mirror 9) by Elizabeth Cook. (partial)

Related:

Books Read in 2007.

It is a scene Myanmar's ruling generals are unlikely to see played out for themselves: As a convoy of trucks carrying relief supplies, led by Buddhist monks, passed through storm-devastated villages, hungry children and homeless mothers bowed in supplication and respect.

"When I see those people, I want to cry," said Sitagu Sayadaw, 71, one of Myanmar's most respected senior monks.

Recently, people who had taken shelter at monasteries or gathered on roadsides waiting for aid to arrive were being displaced again, this time by the junta, which wants them to stop being an embarrassment to the government and return to their villages "for reconstruction." UN officials said Friday that refugees were also being evicted from government-run camps.

"In my entire life, I have never seen a hospital. I don't know where the government office is. I can't buy anything in the market because I lost everything to the cyclone," said Thi Dar. "So I came to the monk."

Nay Lin, 36, a volunteer doctor at the Kun Wan clinic, one of the six emergency clinic shelters Sitagu has opened in the delta, said: "Our patients suffer from infected wounds, abdominal pains and vomiting. They also need counseling for mental trauma, anxiety and depression."

Since the cyclone, the Burmese have become even closer to the monks while their alienation from the junta grows. This bodes ill for the government, which brutally cracked down on thousands of monks when they took to the streets last September appealing to the generals to improve conditions for the people.

Village after storm-hit village, it is clear who has won people's hearts.

Monasteries in the delta - those still standing after the storm - were clogged with refugees. People went there with donations or as volunteers. Monasteries that served as religious centers, orphanages and homes for the elderly were now also shelters for the homeless.

"The monks' role is more important than ever," said Ar Sein Na, 46, a monk in the delta village of That Kyar. "In a time of immense suffering like this, people have nowhere to go except to monks."

Kyi Than, 38, said she had traveled 25 kilometers by boat to Sitagu's camp.

"Our village monk died during the storm. I felt so good today having my first chance to talk to a monk since the storm. Monks are like parents to us," she said. "The government wants us to shut up, but monks listen to us."

"Meditation cannot remove this disaster. Material support is very important now," Sitagu said. "Now in our country, spiritual and material support are unbalanced."

However, like other senior monks here he must strike a careful balance. He has the moral duty to speak out on behalf of his suffering people but he must also protect his social programs and hospitals, which provide free medical care to the destitute in a country whose government views such private undertakings as a reproof.

But, speaking at his shelter as an afternoon monsoon rain drummed against the roof, Sitagu sounded frustrated with the government.

"In my country, I cannot see a real political leader. General Than Shwe's 'Burmese way to democracy?"' he said, referring to the junta's top leader. "What is it?"

Still, a 40-year-old monk at Sitagu's camp said that "monks are very angry" about the government's recent move to evict refugees from monasteries, roadside huts and other temporary shelters, even while the state-run media are filled with stories of government relief efforts. "The government doesn't want to show the truth."

A young monk in the Chaukhtatgyi Paya monastery district in Yangon predicted trouble ahead. "You will see it again because everyone is angry and everyone is jobless," said the monk, who said he joined the September "saffron revolution" and had a large gash over his right eye from a soldier's beating to show for it.

A monk from Mon State in southern Myanmar, who was visiting the delta to assess the damage and arrange an aid shipment, said: "For the government, these people are no more than dead animals in the fields."

The interdependence between monks and lay people is age-old. Monks receive alms - food, medicine, clothes, cash to buy books - from the laity. In return, they offer spiritual comfort. In villages without government schools, a monastic education is often the only one available for children.

"There is a relationship of reciprocity between monks and the lay people," said Desmond Chou, a Burmese-born scholar of comparative religion in New Delhi. "If a fire breaks out in a Myanmar village, it is usually the monks, not firefighters, who arrive first to rescue the people."

Related:

Doctors Without Borders Providing Aid in Myanmar and China.

Anger Grows over Myanmar Aid Block.

Myanmar Disaster And The Human Tragedy of Global Capitalism.

Dalai Lama Offers Support to Myanmar Monks.

.. The areas hit by the cyclone make up half of the irrigated farmland in Myanmar—which had produced 65 percent of Myanmar's rice. Millions of people who survived are now facing hunger, disease and lack of shelter.

There is tremendous wealth, resources, and technology in the world that could be used to respond to this disaster. There is no shortage of people with skills and compassion that could be mobilized to help. But clearly, this is not happening.

To understand the situation in Myanmar today you have to examine two interpenetrating contradictions. One is the relations between the world imperialist system and Myanmar as a poor country oppressed and dominated by global capitalism. The other dynamic is the geostrategic importance of Myanmar to imperialism and the rivalry between different capitalist countries in the region. These larger factors have deeply influenced the extent and character of the destruction caused by the cyclone, as well as the rescue and relief efforts.

Natural disasters do not “discriminate”—people all over the world are hit by tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes. But different people and different countries are not affected equally.

We live in a hugely lopsided world where a handful of rich, imperialist countries dominates the rest of the planet. The U.S. sits at the top of a global capitalist system driven and shaped by the maximization of profit. The majority of people live in poor countries oppressed and dominated by imperialism and by social-economic structures that reflect and reinforce the interests of local elites who are subordinate to imperialism. Development of these countries has been stunted and distorted by imperialism. And all this profoundly affects the capacity and ability of governments and people to respond to a natural disaster.

As Debarati Guha-Sapir, Director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, said: “The villages are in such levels of desperation — housing quality, nutritional status, roads, bridges, dams — that losses were more determined by their condition rather than the force of the cyclone.”

The official storyline says: Myanmar is run by a bunch of dictators who chose to isolate themselves from the rest of the world.

Reality: Myanmar society is repressive and relatively closed off from the outside world. The reactionary military regime seeks to maintain power and control society through brutal force and by limiting contact with the rest of the world. But this is not why the U.S. criticizes Myanmar.

What the U.S. really means when it says Myanmar has “isolated” itself is that Myanmar has not fully opened its doors to U.S. imperialism. The military regime has not been completely pliable, compliant, and subservient to the United States. And now it has refused to accept aid from the U.S. that has all kinds of conditions and potential “strings attached”—such as Bush’s insistence that Myanmar open its borders to U.S. officials, aid workers and military personnel.

U.S. sanctions on Myanmar (that began in 1997 and have since been extended) ban new investments in the country and prohibit imports into the U.S. from Myanmar. The U.S. says it maintains these sanctions because of human rights abuses. But in fact, this U.S. “isolation” of Myanmar is aimed at undermining and destabilizing the government and creating conditions to bring to power a regime more subservient to the United States.

Historically and up to today, Myanmar’s development has been conditioned by its integration into and subordination to the global system of imperialism.

Myanmar has the world's tenth largest gas reserves. It has been producing natural gas since the 1970s. Today, gas exports are Myanmar's most important source of national income.

In the 1990s Myanmar granted gas concessions to foreign companies from France and Great Britain. Later Texaco and Unocal (now absorbed into ChevronTexaco) gained rights to Myanmar’s gas as well.

In 2005 other countries in the region, including China, Thailand, and South Korea invested in Myanmar’s oil and gas industry.

In 1996 a human rights suit was filed against the American-based Unocal Corp. A group of villagers accused Unocal of using forced labor conscripted by Myanmar soldiers. Villagers were raped, murdered, and brutally relocated during the construction of a $1.2 billion gas pipeline to Thailand, started in 1990.

The suit, which Unocal settled in 2004, brought to light the kind of horrible crimes that were being committed by a consortium of foreign companies, including Unocal, all of which were receiving support and protection from the military regime.

Beyond the interest of imperialism in profiting off the resources and people in Myanmar there is the geostrategic importance of this in the world. And this is a big factor in how the U.S. and various international forces look at their relationship with Myanmar and how they have responded to the current disaster.

.. .. ..

“The U.S. State Department has recruited and trained key opposition leaders from numerous anti-government organizations in Myanmar. Since 2003, the U.S. has provided the NED with more than $2.5 million a year for activities that promote a regime change in Myanmar. The NED funds key opposition media including the New Era Journal, Irrawaddy and the Democratic Voice of Burma radio...

Today in such human catastrophes, the outmoded economic, political and social relations of imperialism stand out in stark relief. The world needs revolution, and things could be a different way. In a whole new socialist society power would be in the hands of the people. Society’s resources and knowledge and, most especially, the compassion, creativity, and political consciousness of the masses, could and would be fully mobilized to build a whole new emancipating society that will be able to figure out and solve all kinds of problems, including how to deal with natural disasters.

In the United States the name Doctors Without Borders is often used instead.

From PBS Online interview with MSF doctor in Myanmar.

Dr. Asis Min of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres is working in the aid group's operations base in Bassein in the southwestern Irrawaddy delta region of Myanmar -- the area hit hardest by the cyclone.

As of May 13, the group reported that it had 200 staff members in Myanmar with plans for more to arrive. The teams are conducting medical consultations, distributing food, plastic sheeting and other items, and working to purify water and clean up areas where people have taken temporary shelter. The group also was able to fly in three planes carrying 110 metric tons of relief supplies to Yangon to reinforce the teams on the ground, the organization said.

I'm in the capital of Irrawaddy division, the worst-hit part of Myanmar. Between 95 percent and 100 percent of the houses have been destroyed. One location is in the extreme south western part of Myanmar, where there are a lot of very small islands and small villages on the islands. Many small villages have been completely deserted -- there are probably no survivors.

It's very, very complicated because you can bring people and goods to one part of the island, but inside the island there are many villages where there is no transport. We are carrying sacks of rice, medical kits, and plastic sheets (for building temporary shelters) to these villages on motorcycles, the only form of transport available.

What's needed is a quick mobilization in terms of water supply and other sanitation work. In terms of food and shelter, we're going to scale up our distributions in the coming days. At the beginning our supply was limited, so we had to provide food only for two or three days. As a result, we have to go back again to those areas, while at the same time we are reaching new areas.

It's getting better, but I would not say that there is food for everybody, because we have not reached everybody yet. In one of our first intervention areas, there is no other organization working. There is a small amount of rice provided by the government. But I don't think everybody has food. For the time being we need more emergency response in terms of food distribution, shelter and health care. It's a complete abyss. Places are destroyed completely.

Most of the water sources have been contaminated. We are working on decontaminating the existing wells, but our capacity is very limited because we have not been able to send any materials like big water-bladders with modern decontamination technology. We currently have no means for that type of thing in the field. If we cannot act quickly in water and sanitation, then there is a huge risk of disease outbreaks.

We are procuring supplies locally, but I guess this will not be possible for much longer. We have authorization to land charters from abroad so this will solve a little bit our problem of availability of goods. But that will not solve the problem of reaching quickly the extremely remote places without any infrastructure.

Doctors Without Borders Calls For Immediate and Unobstructed Escalation of Myanmar Relief Operations.

Teams now work in over 20 different locations and are managing to push further into the outlying areas. They treat several hundred patients each day. In addition to wounds, the main health problems are respiratory infections, fever, and diarrhea. So far, 140 tons of relief materials have been flown into the country. More than 275 tons of food have been distributed since the beginning of operations.

“Although MSF is able to provide a certain level of direct assistance, the overall relief effort is clearly inadequate,” said Bruno Jochum, MSF director of operations. “Thousands of people affected by the cyclone are in a critical state and are in urgent need of relief. The aid effort is hampered by government-imposed restrictions on international staff working in the Delta region,” he said. “For example, despite the fact that some MSF water and sanitation specialists have been granted visas to enter Myanmar, they have not been permitted to travel into the disaster area, where their expertise is desperately needed. An effective emergency operation of this magnitude requires coordinators and technical staff experienced in large-scale emergency response.”

MSF calls on the Government of Myanmar to allow for an immediate increase of the relief effort and free and unhindered access of international humanitarian staff to the affected areas.

MSF Teams Working in China’s Quake-hit Areas.

The health-care infrastructure is good in Sichuan, but some hospitals have been damaged, and services have been limited and overwhelmed by wounded. Health-care interventions have been made free of charge in this post-earthquake period. There is a referral system in place for complicated medical cases (usually from towns to cities). Surgical equipment and capacity are needed, especially for orthopedic care and anesthesia.

The results from the initial assessment indicate urgent needs for shelters, drinking water, medical and sanitation supplies. Most pharmacies in the area were destroyed by the quake, and people are facing a dire shortage of medicines. Therefore, MSF is planning to send medicine and medical supplies to Chengdu.

“In the assessed areas, a lot of houses have been destroyed and many people have lost their basic living conditions,” says Philip Tavernier, the MSF Head of Mission in China. “We will therefore send blankets, plastic sheeting, and hygiene kits (soap, basin, towel, toothpaste, shampoo, etc.) from Hong Kong to the affected area.

MSF will donate surgical material, perfusions, dressing material, and additional drugs. Material to carry out dialysis will also be donated in order to treat the people suffering from the so-called crush syndrome.

In the next two days about 25 specialists (nephrologists, surgeons, doctors, nurses, psychologists, logisticians, and water-and-sanitation experts) should arrive in Sichuan, along with additional relief material.

Others:

AmeriCares.

China launches 3 bilingual websites for quake information.

The three sites were established by the Xinhua News Agency, the People's Daily and the China Central Television Station, respectively.

http://www.chinaview.cn/08quake/

www.xhwenchuan.cn

www.512gov.cn

www.wenchuan.cn

Mark Canning, Britain's ambassador to Myanmar, has told Al Jazeera that the relief operation for Myanmar is likely to be twice the size needed in Aceh province in Indonesia, after the 2004 tsunami.

His comments come as a UN official says that Myanmar's refusal to grant visas to foreign aid teams is "unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts", underscoring mounting frustration over the military governments' response to the cyclone crisis.

"Some aid is getting through. Some UN and other flights, some World Food Programme convoys, are getting through. But they're not getting through fast enough, not in the volume that is needed."

Some relief supplies have been allowed to land in Myanmar, but many more tonnes of aid and dozens of expert foreign staff have not leaving hundreds of thousands of survivors at risk of hunger and disease.

"It's clear that the government's ability to deal with the situation, which is catastrophic, is limited … and since it's not able to you would expect the government to welcome assistance from others," Zalmay Khalilzad said. (the US ambassador to the UN)

"We're shocked by the behaviour of the government."

Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, has called on the ruling generals to postpone a referendum due on Saturday on the country's constitution.

Myanmar's military government indicated on Friday that while it wanted relief supplies, foreign aid personnel were not being called for.

A foreign ministry statement said the government had given priority to receiving aid from abroad but using its own nationals to deliver it to stricken areas.

Many residents remain without food and shelter, while corpses rotting in the flood waters are creating a health hazard.

Describing the situation in Myanmar as "increasingly desperate on the ground", Holmes said Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, was trying to talk to Than Shwe, Myanmar's military leader, to urge him to "strongly to facilitate access" for foreign relief workers.

At least 40 visa applications from UN aid workers are pending and many others are waiting in Thailand to enter.

Among those stranded were 10 members of a USAID disaster response team.

A US state department official earlier hinted that it was considering dropping food aid over parts of the disaster zones, without Myanmar's approval.

But the Pentagon said it would not consider such a move without the Myanmar government's permission.

With the Irrawaddy delta's roads washed out and the infrastructure in shambles, large areas are accessible only by air.

Tim Costello, chief executive of World Vision Australia, said that "it's certainly the case that the Americans, as they showed in the tsunami, have extraordinary capacity".

Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's prime minister, has offered to negotiate on Washington's behalf to persuade Myanmar's government to accept US assistance.

France is arguing that the UN has the power to intervene without the Myanmar government's approval to help civilians under a 2005 agreement that the world body has a "responsibility to protect" people when governments fail to do it.

That agreement did not mention natural disasters.

The foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany have urged Myanmar's leaders to let foreign aid into the country.

U.S. envoy: Myanmar deaths may top 100,000. (cnn)

More organisations in Singapore rally to help Myanmar cyclone victims.

Support disaster relief in Myanmar (Burma). (google)

Satellite images of eastern Myanmar (Burma) seem to corroborate reports of human-rights violations in the troubled Southeast Asian country, an international team of experts announced today.

A detailed analysis of images spanning several years pinpoints locations where villages have been burned, settlements have been relocated, and military forces have expanded their camps.

Project participants hope that the images will force the ruling military junta to account for its practices in front of the international community.

In recent days, the project team also ordered satellites to document the current military crackdown against escalating antigovernment street protests in Yangon and other cities.

The images may prove especially valuable now that phone lines and public Internet access have been shut down in the country, noted Lars Bromley, project director for AAAS.

"These images, if they come through, will be one of the few ways to really understand the level of deployment of the military regime around the cities," he said.

The people of Myanmar have been largely living in poverty, experts say, and several ethnic groups have been systematically abused or displaced.

The release of the satellite analysis comes at a time when Myanmar has drawn international attention due to a growing conflict between protestors and the military government.

A government crackdown that started this Wednesday has included raids on monasteries and shots fired into crowds. The military has reported ten fatalities, although the exact death toll is uncertain.

At least one confirmed death is that of Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai, a photographer for the AFP news service. Images smuggled out of the country seem to show Nagai being deliberately shot by a military gunman.

Din, of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said he hopes the newly released satellite images will increase political pressure and rally other governments—including Burma's closest ally, China—to take action.

"With this satellite imagery," he said, "at least we are able to organize international activists around the world to stand together with us to put the pressure on the Chinese government to change its policy on Burma."

Related: Dalai Lama Offers Support to Myanmar Monks.

'I extend my support and solidarity with the recent peaceful movement for democracy in Burma,' the Dalai Lama said in a message released by the Tibet office and datelined in Dharamsala in northern India.

'I fully support their call for freedom and democracy and take this opportunity to appeal to freedom-loving people all over the world to support such non-violent movements,' he said.

'As a Buddhist monk, I am appealing to the members of the military regime who believe in Buddhism to act in accordance with the sacred dharma in the spirit of compassion and non-violence.

'I pray for the success of this peaceful movement and the early release of fellow Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,' he said.

The generals have normally been tough on dissent, and a crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 left hundreds if not thousands dead.

But today's rally was the latest in more than a month of growing demonstrations against the junta since a massive fuel price hike triggered public anger.

Buddha vs the barrel of a gun by Pepe Escobar. (Asia Times Online)

Democratic Voice of Burma Myanmar protests photos.

Photographs from Rangoon. (Times Online blog)

TIMELINE-45 years of resistance and repression in Myanmar. (Reuters)

国家最高道德权威 缅甸僧侣挑战军人政权 (联合早报)

在这个近90%人口是佛教徒的国家，僧侣在人们心灵扮演重要的角色；青少年一生至少要出家一小段时期，这是他们的宗教义务，也是他们答谢父母为他们做出牺牲的方式。

　　在泰国的缅甸分析家温明说，许多青少年会在16岁以前进入寺庙见习，20岁左右再度出家。也就是说，几乎每个家庭都有成员当过和尚，这造就了一大群有组织的青年，在反政府示威中打先锋。

　　缅甸全国在任何时候都有至少40万个僧侣，其中约八成住在缅甸第二大城市曼德勒。

　　僧侣和民众在许多方面唇齿相依：僧侣依靠人们的布施，布施者则相信这么做能为来世积福积德。僧侣拒绝领受军人的布施，这一来，如英国《经济学家》指出，就可能导致后者来世不能有更好的出身。

　　另一缅甸分析家昂奈乌指出，由于军人政府的忽略，缅甸国内的学校、医院和社会福利制度都崩溃了，僧侣在填补这方面的空缺扮演越来越重要的角色。 他说：“寺庙开放园地，充当孤儿院和学校。他们也开始参与爱之病服务，以及许多社会及基层工作。”