Aung San Suu Kyi’s patience and fierce determination have been tested repeatedly during a 20-year war of wills against Myanmar’s military rulers.
Those qualities, honed by a daily morning regimen of Buddhist meditation, have helped her in a battle in which she has effectively spent 15 of the last 20 years under house arrest.
Born June 19, 1945, Suu Kyi (pronounced Sue Chee) was only two when her father, Burmese independence hero General Aung San, was murdered by political rivals.
Her mother, Khin Kyi, served in several posts in the newly independent country, including ambassador to India. Suu Kyi grew up abroad, attending Britain’s Oxford University where she received degrees in philosophy and economics in 1967.
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[…] Wildmind offers up a nice background piece on the situation and how it got to where it is. Also, readers might be interested in what Berkeley Zen Center's vice abbot, Alan Sanauke has to say: There must be an honest and irreversible process of dialogue involving Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, all the embattled ethnic groups, and the junta itself towards a clear goal of democracy and national reconciliation. Anything short of such deliberations is simply the continuation of the junta’s business as usual — the business of theft, fraud, impoverishment, and systematic violence. We cannot allow these policies to shadow the lives of our Burmese sisters and brothers. […]