Preamble: 

Myanmar Political and Governmental systems evolved after Independence (1948), and then radical changes instituted by the military dictatorship era happened. Now in the civilian/military pseudo dictatorial/democratic weird mix era, it becomes imperative for the Myanmar people to fully be aware who the patriots are, and who the traitors are. This short article below will make it crystal clear of knowing those with SAMADHI, and those without.

The short article below is an extract from Part 2 (last segment) of a larger article "Living a Life with Values."  Foreign readers are unlikely to know the sense of some of the Bamar words used in this article.  

Myanmar has a high level of unemployment of people who have matriculated or graduated, as the country's economy worsen under decades of bad governments. Years of time and money spent studying equate to not having any added value. Myanmars have sound basic intelligence and are trainable. Myanmars are not afraid to work. Many of them in their millions have already moved to neighboring countries who could make good use of them. Many professional caliber people have migrated to advanced nations and have become successful doctors, engineers, etc. Many of them will not be coming back. Something unthinkable when I was growing up more than seventy years ago, and we were then all very proud to be Myanmars, and the country's economy was among the best in Asia.

The kind of people that need to be extinct out from Myanmar are the political leaders not fit to be where they are or where they were. The quicker those undesirable characters still wielding political influence directly or indirectly are removed from the state, the better the country will be. But they are not going to abdicate voluntary from their powerful statuses. Their objectives are to reach out to as many ng-beins (easy to spin), ng-tones (dense, obtuse, stupid), ng-kyungs (meat heads), and ng- yaungs (nut heads), as much as possible and manipulate them to do their bidding, and to create a politically unenlightened off balanced public, unfocused and unable to get rid of the traitors and vile self-servers.

Those with Personality Disorders have obvious physiological or/and psychological problems. They need help with appropriate medications and doctors. They usually are not high achievers educationally or socially as they can be spotted without difficulty to be unfit persons. Borderline Personality Disorders are normally not easy to detect, but they usually merged into character disordered people who have propensity to Lie, Cheat and Deceive (LCD). Some of them camouflage their true characters by hiding behind religious practices lacking in positive spirituality (not much sense of humanity), and try to manipulate and control their nearest and dearest. They are incapable of sane sustain responsibility, and on the long run, those who closely associated with them usually get hurt badly (M. Scott Peck MD, see Web). LCD can be quite a bright person, but without ethics. If a character disordered person become successful within a society, he or she can do significant harm to others beside his or her own family. Some of them can become very good in cultivating their persona and can even be community or society leaders, by being good at the manipulation games.

In this era, culture of advance societies tends to evolve much faster than say fifty years ago. And will be even much faster in the coming next fifty years. People usually think mainly in terms of science and technology advancements. In cultural changes, the most important factors are morality and human rights and justice aspects. Even in advance societies, there are still currently abject racialism and mistreatment of women related (political, social, and even religious) problems. Those are to do with morality and economics, and not with positive spirituality. Morality usually has to do with culture and often religious aspects are included. Spirituality is timeless, era-less, above religions, and is what is truly good for humanity and planet Earth. About two thousand years or more ago, the majority of human kind could hardly read or write, and major religions were great civilizing forces. Religions also taught mankind to be respectful of all forms of life. However, in the real world, history have many accounts of religious and ideological conflicts where people (like Hindus, Moslems, Christians, Communists, Capitalists, Imperialists, etc.) murdered one another by hundreds of thousands. I have written a book about twenty years ago called "Pragmatic Spirituality for a Progressive and Humane Society." A book (pages 250 in English) to especially help third world countries to put together a politico-cultural manifesto for progressive evolution.

The Cultural Disorders that impacts Myanmar in many ways are political and civil rights. During the rule of Bamar kings, the people had absolutely no political or very little civil human rights. That was also true for many other Asian countries of the previous similar centuries. During the time of the British Raj, there was a legal system that supported many codified rights for the ruled, but kind of rights were selected by the ruler. That legal system had a high standard of civil justice for its time and purpose. Dictatorship started in 1962. Many Myanmars were against it, and tens of thousands of Bamar nationality ended up in prison. Dictatorship lasted till early 2011, and followed by a quasi-democratic government of President Thein Sein (ex-military). One of its important purpose is to serve as a shield from retribution for illegal acts (by civilize standards) the senior generals and the judges of the previous regimes committed. Any illegal acts committed by President Thein Sein regime is apparently shielded (not taking any corrective action) by the succeeding regime. The only way to shield the illegal acts committed by the current regime is to get itself reelected (fair or foul) and shield itself for the next 5 years with the help of toady or corrupt judges. This kind of justice related cultural disorder can be traced back to the days of the mindset of the Bamar kings and the dictatorships after independence, and the current Myanmar populace need to rapidly culturally cultivate zero tolerance toward any political leadership practicing cultural and character disorders, and to vote it out of office. This type of disorder appears to be prevalent in third and fourth world countries that are educationally and politically backward. 

The quasi-democratic form of government should only be transitory and during that period, it is very important that the judges legal practices are of the highest standard to facilitate and not to impede, in moving quicker toward fuller evolution of democracy, regardless of less-than-ideal constitutional laws. Let it be known that this article and those like it is going to hold the judges to ethical practice with full integrity. Payback time will surly come for the lawless and those who consider themselves to be above the law, and especially crooked judges. Only by ridding these entities effectively, can the kind of cultural disorders they propagate, can be effectively vanquished.

Another Cultural Disorder is the "(I) WIN-(You) LOSE" attitude. It is very satisfying for the winner. The winner gets one hundred percent, and the rest get zero. This kind of attitude was taught at school when I was young as though it is a fact of life, at my Bamar language class. A verse by Amutgyi Anandathuriya containing that meta message was to be learned by heart. In the real world, the WIN-LOSE choice is destructive and is simply an illusion, an unreal choice for the long run, and subsequent failures will show it was really a NO WIN, or even a LOSE-LOSE situation for everyone involved. This kind of cultural disorder from the days of Bamar kings should long be gone.

The ability to think and act WIN-WIN is the power of cooperation.  Without this power, the scope and scale of an organization is very limited when compared to an organization that has this power.  History is full of cultures that disappeared or were relegated to a minor stature because of their inability to peacefully work out deals among themselves and with neighboring ethnic groups. Hopefully, as we become older, we also may become smarter and more mature; we gain greater relevant experiences and knowledge, and consequently become better at finding the correct solutions for working with challenging projects as well as with many types of people.  As our ability to understand different realities improves, our flexibility should increase, enabling us to find the right balances or compromises, without being unrealistic and avoiding wasteful work. That means to be fully mindful of what value added work in contrast to non-meaningful wasteful work means. With the WIN-WIN mindset, and by regularly performing value added work, bigger and more numerous "pies" (products, produces) can be outputted. Sharing the rewards equitably should become easy.

There are also Cultural Disorders at the community and family levels that may also be functions of ethnicity but are not going to be discussed here. But they definitely should be subjects of interest for the Central Think Tank group (to be described in Part 3 of the main article) to contemplate.

Once a person sufficiently knows who he is, and also sufficiently aware of his immediate reality and of the super and global realities, and has made the effort (drive) to better himself and his society, he is normally also evidently clear of his aims and objectives (direction).  He would then steadily compel himself to make progress with regard to his objectives.  Frequently, especially during the initial stages, he may be deflected from reaching his preliminary objectives because he does not yet possess sufficient knowledge, maturity, or resources to assess situations correctly. A person can make mistakes and fall down from time to time. It is important that those shortcomings not be repeated.  It is even more important that he gets up again and does not let setbacks defeat him permanently. Even if the path to a particular goal is blocked off, other meaningful alternatives that could ultimately be for higher accomplishments are to be sought. Only such a persevering person with a set of coherently focused and synergistic character attributes can have SAMADHI. His focused beliefs are coordinated with his actions; only then can he perform deeds that are above the ordinary. Note that without aims and objectives, there is nothing to, or no need to focus, and therefore no need for any specific SAMADHI. Some people equate SAMADHI with focus, but that is very over simplified, if at all meaningful.

There are those who never bother to set meaningful aims and objectives, are not concern of having SAMADHI. If for any reason, somehow their fortune increases by some luck and they need to perform well above their normal self, they will simply fail, unless they can cheat as needed. Take the example of an ordinary person who must enter a foot race against trained athletes to win a million dollars prize. He only can hope to win by playing foul, like drugging the competition, or something similarly vile. Those without SAMADHI simply need their characters to concomitantly become disordered, that is, to apply the required amount of LCD to become competitive. In many ways, the character disordered people are the opposite of people with SAMADHI. They may be intelligent to a certain level but just do not have sufficient knowledge, or discipline imperative for required SAMADHI related tasks. These LCDs then have no qualms to become unethical. The Ng-Tones, Ng-Beins, Ng-Kayungs, Ng-Yaungs, are just loonies (Ng-Yoos) or flunkies (Ng Nyaunts) of one kind or another (riff raffs), and simply too dumb to even be LCDs. Many of them may fancy themselves that they can be successful like some LCDs which they may have considered as their role model/s, but as dense as they are, they usually are manipulated and recruited to become underlings and lackeys of the LCDs.

SAMADHI is to be understood as capable of according a powerful constructive force within progressive people, organizations, systems, societies, and nations.  It is an action word; it is expansive and responds in a positive sense to World-Nature.  It is that of the spiritual positive which is right in the path of positive evolution.  To the extent that a man has SAMADHI, the unlikely will he be wantonly destructive and petty.  SAMADHI is integrity, awareness, courage, and drive, and is of this Earth and of the here-and-now. SAMADHI is pragmatism with principle.  There is nothing idealistic or hallowed about it.  For those people lacking SAMADHI, they will fumble perfectly doable tasks whenever sufficient appropriate SAMADHI is lacking.

Many people do not explicitly realize that the power of specific SAMADHI will synergistically be enhanced by practicing appropriate concomitant SILA and MINDFULNESS.

SILA broadly stands for religiously obeying commandments like basic five in Buddhism, and ten in Christianity. Usually it is associated with "Thou shall not" commands issued by some powerful religion related esoteric being/s. But non-religious practice self-commandments can also be "Thou shall." For example, a student studying for a very important examination must obey "Thou shall" study a minimum of eight hours a day. "Thou shall" stay healthy. "Thou shall" always going to be thinking better than Thou can think now. Another example is a sports person training to be a champion, he should obey "Thou shall not" take dope. SILA can have a spiritual factor to it. For example, "Thou shall not" be an LCD. Those with the highest order of SAMADHI are cognizant of the highest level of concomitant SILA set needed and to live accordingly.

Character Disordered people usually know what is right or wrong most of the time—except they are good at repeatedly conning (act like they truly believe their own LCD baloney) themselves to make unethical gains as long as they can get away unpunished, or if their actions are condoned by their associates.  The preaching of morality generally has no impact upon them. Only effective resistance or punishment of some kind will stop them. 

The other important component for SAMADHI is MINDFULNESS (nearest but not exact emphasis equivalent Bamar word is THADEED; some may use the Indic pronunciation SADEED). It means to be cohesively aware in regard to a task or situation. MINDFULNESS must involve correct action or inaction. It may require planning to take appropriate action to effectively cope with challenging conditions, subsequently calling for total commitment to execute that plan, as much error free as possible. It is extremely important to be MINDFUL of SILA set that one has decided to obey and make absolutely sure that one is being practice error free.  To be merely conscious of a situation while devoid of subsequent appropriate preparedness or action equates only with ordinary understanding of mindfulness, that is, which is, less than being MINDFUL. The meaning here of MINDFULNESS have special emphasis to mean mistake free, error free, fault free. MINDFULNESS is essential to attain the highest levels of SAMADHI.

A good driver is MINDFUL of the SILAs related to his quality of driving when operating a vehicle and is fully aware of the driving environment.  He may be driving a bus or a family sedan, in snow or in desert country. He may be driving alone or with others. And he would plan his driving needs accordingly.  While driving, he is aware to always drive within the performance limits of his steering and braking.  To that end, he ensures that his brakes, tires, and steering mechanisms are in good working order. He is aware of the nature of the traffic and driving regulations, and he has adequate vehicle insurance. He knows when to start, speed up, overtake, slow down, or stop safely. If he is driving to a new and unfamiliar place, he gathers as much information as possible prior to the trip, from his contacts, maps, books, etc.  Above all, while driving he stays sober and does not allow himself to be distracted by his passengers, the cellular phone, or attractive or interesting views on the road side, even for an instant. His mind constantly monitors the traffic conditions. With experience, one may develop all these considerations and skills, with zero mistakes, backed up by appropriate actions regarding each and every factor to be a MINDFUL driver with SILA and SAMAHDI. 

SAMADHI backed up by SILA and MINDFULNESS to the highest order, can         accomplished what is deemed by conventional wisdom to be impossible, possible.

For my last project before retirement, I was involved with the CMM (Capability Maturity Model, see Web for details) training program that the US Defense Forces were instituting for their software development programs, capable of supporting their highest and extremely critical space and nuclear technologies. Since 1995, they have spent billions of dollars to implement that methodology. Essentially, it is to ensure to the highest order of SAMADHI for their software for super critical tasks, and using giant spreadsheets to make things happen totally and exactly to plan. Their objectives were for zero error, zero defects for their systems to be operated in conjunction with the full set of required SILAs.

Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China now have computer technology capabilities much higher than many European countries, and with solid economies. All these were accomplished in the last three decades or so. These nations have SAMADHI. In the same last decades or so, Myanmar's self-serving and good-for-nothing political leaderships, many of whom were or are LCDs, had severely eroded the economy, the education system, the national characters of the society, the self-respect and the self-confidence of the people, and spawn many ignorant semi-literates who have very little idea of who they are.

Presently, Myanmar people has a poorly conceived democratic political system with many shortcomings. However, there is a very important right that every voter has gained since 2015. At the general election, coming in 2020, the people may (assuming fair elections) elect, or may dispose of governments. Myanmar people must cultivate the courage and the intellect to vote out bad governments and not afraid to meet the challenges of a meaningful evolving political and governmental systems. The nature of politics to elect viable government is a constant struggle between the forces of SAMADHI (good) verses LCDs and their contingents of riff raffs.

SAMADHI is a power with which a person can empower himself to make the correct decisions and actions; nobody else can take that power away from him, except himself.

By reading this article thus far, a person should within his mind, have a kind of character (principles, values) measurement system and should be able to answer the question of who am I, and what kind of life I want, for myself, for my family, and for my country. If you are against the LCD types in higher up governmental positions, the next questions to ask yourself are: Are we going to let these LCDs, maybe even traitors devalue Myanmar and its people? Are we going to let them keep on perpetrating this kind of despicable cultural disorders? Are we going to let them defeat us? If the answer is NO, then we shall together fight the good fight and to WIN. ☼