Twenty years ago today on the eighth of the eighth, eighty-eight, Venerable Sayadaw U Thilawunta (Aungming Aung Sayadaw) and his assistant monk completed the building of our pagoda after eight days of building. It still had to be painted and the relics brought by Aungming Aung Sayadaw, as well as the Buddha rupas and earth from the Shweh Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon that I had brought back with me the year before, had yet to be enshrined. I don’t keep a diary so I can’t remember how long after it was that the Tih on the very top was formally installed.

In Burma on that day too, twenty years ago, on the 08/08/88, began a series of demonstrations against the tyrranical and dreadful Burmese military government, a regime that we were reminded only a few months ago will stop at nothing to remain in power.

Our Pagoda was named The English Shwe Dagon Pagoda and was dedicated to the welfare and happiness of all beings. Today let us remember all those who were murdered and imprisoned in Burma at those peaceful demonstrations twenty years ago and may we continue to hope that peace, happiness and prosperity will one day return to the Golden Land.