My Buddha is Punk is a new documentary about a 25-year-old punk rocker in Burma, named Kyaw Kyaw, who uses his music to raise awareness of social issues. In an October Al Jazeera article about Burma’s punk activists, the athor wrote that Kyaw Kyaw blames the military dictatorship for ruining Burma’s education system, and is harshly critical of the radical Buddhist organization Ma Ba Tha.
“Some fans of the Ma Ba Tha sent me messages of warning [saying]: ‘We know who you are and where you live,’” Kyaw Kyaw told Al Jazeera. “[But] I don’t worry about what I did. I know that I say the truth.”
Many Buddhists in the West have seen a notable confluence between Buddhism and punk, as manifest in the personages and work of Dharma Punk Noah Levine, Zen priest and punk bassist Brad Warner, Buddhist blogger and punk fan Tanya McGinnity, hardcore bassist and Chan teacher Guo Gu, Teenage Bottlerocket bassist Miguel Chen, and so on. Likewise, Buddhists in other countries have been drawn to punk’s DIY immediacy as a way to address suffering both personal and social.
Watch the trailer: Click here
