What do you do when you live in India and you’re obsessed with meditation and you need a life partner who shares your obsession? Post a personal ad in the New York Burmese community Facebook group, of course, just like 44-year-old Manish Agarwala did on Monday.
“I am looking for an non-conservative strongly dhammic life partner who may be more than eager to dedicate life to dhamma/dhamma service/pariyatti studies,” the Kolkata resident wrote in the Facebook group Myanmar/Burmese Community in New York.
His ad continues: “I have a flexible, open-minded, and progressive attitude towards life. Past marital/relationship history, religion, caste, community, nationality, food habits, etc., makes no difference to me as long as there is a strong intellectual, emotional, moral, and dhammic compatibility and commitment between me and my would-be life partner from present moment onwards.”
He also invites potential life partners to get to know his “tastes/inclinations” by reviewing the posts on his Facebook profile from the last year and invites “gut-level truthful and frank discussion.”
Why does he want a Burmese life partner? He explains that he’s a huge fan of the Vipassana meditation tradition popularized by Burma’s first accountant-general and meditation master U Ba Khin. The modern Vipassana movement, which U Ba Khin developed in part at the International Meditation Centre in Yangon’s Golden Valley, promises enlightenment through reflection on impermanence, suffering, and the realization of non-self.
U Ba Khin dispatched disciples around the world to spread the movement, including to India, hoping Buddhism would get big again in its country of origin. So, it kind of makes sense that Manish is looking for like-minded people in the Burmese community, right?
Not to the one person who commented on Manish’s post just to say he has no idea who U Ba Khin is.
We hope you find the right life partner, Manish! And hopefully enlightenment, too.
