A tip of the hat to Tricycle friend Frank Olinsky for this one: A Monastery Grows in Brooklyn in the New York Daily News:
Three orange-robed Burmese Buddhist monks have made their home in Bedford-Stuyvesant for nearly a year, and are gradually adapting to life in Brooklyn.
Last August, they founded Metta Parami Monastery on the bottom two floors of a stately Bed-Stuy brownstone.
Their Madison St. digs, decorated with bright Burmese flag banners hung over the stoop, stand out from the desolate, boarded-up homes nearby.
There are other positives: living in Brooklyn means they can finally speak out. One of the monks was tortured and jailed for a decade by his homeland’s current military regime.
“Here in America, you have freedom, human rights, justice,” said monk U Agga Nyana, 28. “In Burma, we don’t have any rights to express our view.”
Read the whole article here. And read Richard Eskow’s article on Burmese monks in Utica, “Rustbelt Dharma,” which includes a slideshow of the author’s photos.
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