Introduction Foreigner monk gets a COVID vaccine jab during the times of the new Myanmar government In this article, I want to share with you some of my experiences of living as a monk in Myanmar during the covid pandemic and the government change that happened recently. I also want to explain why I left Myanmar at the end of 2022 and what I am doing now. I am an American Buddhist monk who has been living in Myanmar for many years. I was first ordained in 2001 at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery and then later did a resetting ordination in Sri Lanka during 2007. I have spent the majority of my monastic life in Myanmar, learning mostly from Pa-Auk Sayadawgyi but I have also spent 6 years at Na-Uyana, Sri Lanka. Most of my monastic life was spent practicing meditation, but now I am studying at the International Institute of Theravāda (IIT) in Sri Lanka.

Now the world is getting used to COVID-19 and many countries are announcing a new policy called “Living with COVID”. Now we are too. I will explain…. On March 17, 2022, Pa-Auk Pyin Oo Lwin literally started to live with COVID. On that day, there were 5 monks that were sick and tested positive. When lunch came, we were on high alert. Massive testing happened within the next few days and we went from 12 positive cases to 25 and then to 35 and now we are at 50 cases for the male size and 15 for the female side only one week later. It spreads quickly but I think the increase of numbers will go down. I have succeeded in testing negative for 2 tests in one week thus far.