Flamboyant funeral sees off Myanmar monk in costly style.

Mail Online  

4 April 2019

By AFP

It took the monk's followers nine months to raise the $80,000 needed for the extravagant cremation - a fortune in one of Asia's poorest countries

Thousands of devotees flocked to a mock palace of kaleidoscopic colours in Myanmar this week to dance, sing and pay their final respects at the lavish cremation of a local celebrity monk.

Abbot Kay Lar Tha was just 48 when he died last year from leukaemia in Mudon village, in the country's southeast.

An Unholy Alliance: Monks and the Military in Myanmar

Aljazeera 

18 Mar 2019 

Is the joining of forces between radical Buddhist monks and generals threatening Myanmar's young and fragile democracy?
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A film by Fatima Lianes

With almost 90 percent of Myanmar's population being devoted Buddhists, the religion has been at the heart of the nation's very identity for centuries.
But while the pillars of Buddhist teachings are love, compassion and peace, there is a very different variation to the philosophy being taught at the Ma Ba Tha monastery in Yangon's Insein township.