U Thuzana

This post contains the Myaing Gyi Ngu Sayadaw (U Thuzana)'s foreword to his biography ဘဝအချိုးအကွေ့များ ယွန်းစလင်းအမြုတာ (Life behaviours turning to the essence of the light) written by မြိုင်နန်းဆွေ. A review of the English translation of the biography is available here. I must admit that I find my translation of this particularly piece woefully confusing.

Vocabulary:

ယွန်း ။ veering (course or direction)
အမြုတေ ။ essence
ထေရုပ္ပတ္တိ ။ biography of a monk
လောကဓံ ။ way of the mundane world
မှတ်တမ်း ။ record
ကြမ်း ။ rough
ဆုံ ။ meet, come together, coverge,
ကောက် ။ bent, curved
ဖြောင့် ။ straight
ကြုံ ။ to be opportune
ဓမ္မတာ ။ law of nature
အညွန့်အဖူး ။ the best; the top; the flower (of a nation, etc)
အင်္ဂါရပ် ။ feature
ယူဆ ။ to deduce, form an opinion, presume
ခွင့်ပန် ။ to request
ပင့် ။ to raise; carry sth reverently; invite sb respectfully; support; aid; adulate; flatter
ကွန့် ။ to embellish
ညွန့် ။ to taper upward; be the choicest; be the best; be the pick of the lot
ရင်းနှီး ။ to be close, familiar, intimate
ကျွမ်းဝင် ။ to become intimate friends
ကျကျ ။ in conformity with; word comparable to the adverbial suffix " -ly " in such compounds as realistically; centrally; stylishly
တစ်စုံတစ်ရာ ။ pron. something ("anything" in questions and negative sentences; "nothing" in negative statements)
အနေအထား ။ situation; position; location; condition; posture
အံကိုက် ။ to coincide

Translation:

Myaing Gyi Ngu Sayadaw's foreword

This "going to the essence of light" is not the sayadaw's biography.  It a record of the facts of the sayaday's journey of life that he has gone through being a human always getting experiences that are of the mundane world

In accordance with the journay of life, it is tender and it is rough, it has come together.  It is bent, it is straight, it is opportune.  There was advancement.  And there was decline.  As for that, in accordance with humanity it is the law of nature to always get experiences.  It is a setting down of a record of experiences of life according to the perspective of the sayadaw who is a human from within humanity.

Will it be erroneous? I do not know.  As much as I have read the biographies of monks, they are pieces of writing that collect together the best parts [of a monk's life].  It has been noted that it is a custom to write the biography of monks, at least if they are famous sayadaws mature in age and rains retreats.  If that is the case, as a sayadaw I am of the opinion that as much as features can be written in the biography of the monk it is still not complete.  Some people have wanted to know very much and have requested to be able to write about the sayadaw.  I have been worried that it would come to resemble a monk biography, as I understood them, and I did not given permission.  If people who do not know the matter write, they would flatter, they would raise, they would embellish, they would choose the best [parts of the life].  I do not want that.  From the perspective of a sayadaw, I want it to be only the truth according to the truth.

Being like that, I wanted it to be written by "a close childhood friend" who became a close friend since the sayadaw's childhood student life.  That person knows well the sayadaw's personal history and natural characteristic.  Therefore, I had it written.  And what was said was...

"In your disciple's writing, like the writing of a biography of a monk I do not want to write that all is good, venerable sir.  The facts will only be written according to the facts.  It will be the reader's responsibility to make a decision on everything.  If [I] get permission, your disciple will write with that kind of condition," he said.

In the foreword I must write that this was in accordance with the sayadaw's view and it is a collection of records of the sayadaw's life which are not "going to the essence of light" that I had [someone] write.

Sayadaw U Thuzana

Nan U Bay Meh Forest Monastery

Myaing Gyi Ngu