Interviews with Ashin Issariya

When I’m in childhood, at the time my teacher is very interested to read a lot of books. Also he want me to read a lot of books. At the time I study and reading books. And also I know there is a Dalai Lama way and a Mahatma Gandhi way. And I read about him, about that life. So I read more and more, and I study more and more.

So I try to use the nonviolent way, is very okay. Our religion is according to that way. Our Buddha way is a nonviolent way. So we can use that way. I decided to do like that. Chants of loving kindness also, for the people, and trying to do like that.

Venerable Ashin Issariya (“King Zero”) is a Buddhist monk from Burma. In 2007 he was a principal organizer of the nationwide protests that became known as the “Saffron Revolution.”

After the Burmese military regime used violence to break up a peaceful march by monks who were calling attention to poverty and starvation in the town of Pakkoku, Ashin Issariya and other monks organized nationwide protests against the violence. Over 100,000 monks and tens of thousands of ordinary citizens demonstrated in Rangoon, Mandalay, and other places throughout the country, often chanting Buddha’s teachings on “loving kindness”. The government responded with more violence, killing dozens of monks and other protestors and inflicting serious injuries on hundreds more.

Ashin Issariya became widely known in Burma and around the world under the name “King Zero”— which, as he explained in his Freedom Collection interview, meant that Burma should have no kings and no dictators. But it took the government some time to uncover his real identity, so he was able to spend several months assisting victims of Cyclone Nargis before fleeing to Thailand in 2008. He now lives in a monastery near the Thai-Burma border and remains in close touch with democracy advocates inside and outside Burma.