June 16, in Oslo Norway, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi finally accepted her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
In her acceptance speech, she said her award was recognition that "the opprerssed and the isolated in Burma were also a part of the world, they were recognizing the oneness of humanity." She continued, "it did not seem quiet real, because in a sense I did not feel myself to be quite real at that time...The Nobel Peace Prize opened up a door in my heart."
During her 21 years of house arrest, she had much time to consider the 1st Noble Truth of Buddhism: as sentient beings, we suffer, we are caught in dukkha, in dis-ese.
But she mentioned that a practice of simple kindness was a way out of suffering.
"Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that those are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, in the lesson I learned on the value of kindness."
Aung San Suu Kyi described the Burmese concept of peace as, "the happiness arising from the cessation of factors that militate against the harmonious and the wholesome."
Nyein-chan, a literal translation meaning, "the beneficial coolness that comes when a fire is extinguished", refers to the cessation of suffering.
It seems remarkable to me that she has been released from house arrest and now sits in Parliament and leads Myanmar's opposition party. Remarkable still, is her lack of bitterness and her vision of harmony for an oppressive regime that did everything short of murder to silence her voice and destroy her spirit. As a symbol to all prisoners of conscience throughout the world, she is a living example of a true Bodhisattva!
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