“Open your heart”

The moment we landed in Myanmar on 10^th September 2019, I started getting the message, ‘Open your heart’. I have done Heart opening meditations and attended a ‘Heart Transmission’ session from Jacqueline before. So throughout our stay in Myanmar I was consciously doing ‘breathing from the heart.’

It was on 19^th that we came to The Mingun Pahtodawgyi, which is an incomplete monument stupa on the banks of the Irrawaddy river in Mingun.

As we were approaching the monument, my inner voice said, “This is it”, and my heart started beating in anticipation. I was curious to observe what was in store.

About the stupa

The massive construction project of this stupa was begun by King Bodawpaya in 1790 which was intentionally left unfinished. King Bodawpaya had acquired a sacred Buddha tooth relic as a gift from a Chinese delegation that visited the King’s court. To enshrine a Buddha relic of such great importance, the King wanted to build the largest pagoda in the country and probably in the world.

Bodawpaya used thousands of prisoners of war from his expansionist campaigns and slaves working on the construction of the stupa. The construction was also seen as having a heavy toll over the people and the state, thus a prophecy was allegedly created, to stop the project. The prophecy went "as soon as the building of the pagoda was over, the country would also be gone". A variation stated that king would die once the project was completed. Thus, construction was slowed down to prevent the prophecy's realisation and when the king died, the project was completely halted. By the time the construction project was abandoned, the pagoda had attained a height of 50 metres, one third of the intended height. An earthquake on 23 March 1839 caused huge cracks to appear on the face of the remaining structure.

Buddha with hand on his heart

As we entered inside, I was awestruck. There He was standing- Buddha with hand on his heart.

During these ten days of touring, first time we came across an idol like this. I just stood there, mesmerized, absorbing all the transmission that was happening from that divine heart to mine! I can now  feel a vastness, an expansion, lightness in my chest. After doing a short meditation, we left the place.

The result

I can sense an increase in compassion inside me. The physical proof?  Birds and animals like cats, and dogs just are not bothered of our presence. It is as if they know that we are aware of our oneness with Nature. A pair of crow pheasant would slowly walk in front of us. Yesterday night we were standing in the portico when a cat came in and was searching for some prey. It would walk around so close to us, without even looking at us, as if it was unaware of our presence. It was such an unbelievable experience!

References:
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/09/the-mingun-pagoda-and-worlds-2nd.html