The smallest trigger can bring it back. This particular time, the sound of sticky pages was the cause while I was browsing through an old book placed too near the window pane. That is the effect of damp air. I lingered for more time than was needed, pulling the pages apart one at a time, and in that stillness, his name reappeared unprompted.
There is something enigmatic about figures of such respect. One rarely encounters them in a direct sense. One might see them, yet only from a detached viewpoint, conveyed via narratives, memories, and fragmented sayings that remain hard to verify. In the case of Tharmanay Kyaw Sayadaw, I perceive him through his voids. The absence of spectacle. The absence of urgency. The absence of explanation. Those missing elements convey a deeper truth than most rhetoric.
I remember once asking someone about him. In an indirect and informal manner. Merely an incidental inquiry, as if discussing the day's weather. The individual inclined their head, gave a slight smile, and replied “Ah, Sayadaw… remarkably consistent.” That was it. No elaboration. At the time, I felt slightly disappointed. Today, I consider that answer to have been entirely appropriate.
Here, it is the middle of the afternoon. The light is dull, not golden, not dramatic. Just light. For no particular reason, I am seated on the floor instead of the furniture. Maybe my back wanted a different kind of complaint today. I keep thinking about steadiness, about how more info rare it actually is. We talk about wisdom a lot, but steadiness feels harder. It is easy to admire wisdom from a distance. Steadiness has to be lived next to, day after day.
Tharmanay Kyaw Sayadaw lived through so much change. Transitions in power and culture, the slow wearing away and the sudden rise which appears to be the hallmark of contemporary Myanmar's history. Nevertheless, discussions about him rarely focus on his views or stances. They speak primarily of his consistency. He was like a fixed coordinate in a landscape of constant motion. I’m not sure how someone manages that without becoming rigid. That level of balance seems nearly impossible to maintain.
I frequently return to a specific, minor memory, although I cannot be sure my memory of it is perfectly true. A bhikkhu meticulously and slowly adjusting his attire, as though he possessed all the time in the world. It might have been another individual, not Tharmanay Kyaw Sayadaw. Memory tends to merge separate figures over time. However, the emotion associated with it persisted. That feeling of being unhurried by the expectations of the world.
I find myself wondering, often, what it costs to be that kind of person. Not in a theatrical way, but in the subtle daily price. The quiet sacrifices that don’t look like sacrifices from the outside. Forgoing interactions that might have taken place. Allowing misconceptions to go uncorrected. Letting others project their own expectations onto your silence. I don’t know if he thought about these things. Perhaps he did not, and perhaps that is exactly the essence.
My hands are now covered in dust from the old book. I wipe it away without thinking. The act of writing this feels almost superfluous, and I say that with respect. Not everything has to be useful. Sometimes it’s enough to acknowledge that some lives leave a deep impression. without feeling the need to explain their own existence. I perceive Tharmanay Kyaw Sayadaw in exactly that way. A presence to be felt rather than comprehended, perhaps by design.