Insight Myanmar is a beacon for those seeking to understand the intricate dynamics of Myanmar. With a commitment to uncovering truth and fostering understanding, the podcast brings together activists, artists, leaders, monastics, and authors to share their first-hand experiences and insights. Each episode delves deep into the struggles, hopes, and resilience of the Burmese people, offering listeners a comprehensive, on-the-ground perspective of the nation's quest for democracy and freedom. And yet, Insight Myanmar is not just a platform for political discourse; it's a sanctuary for spiritual exploration. Our discussions intertwine the struggles for democracy with the deep-rooted meditation traditions of...
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Nov 13, 2026 · 1:47:44
Episode #641: “You cannot aim a landmine because you put it in the ground and you wait for whoever to come upon it to step upon it.” Tamar Gabelnick, director of the…
Nov 12, 2026 · 1:53:47
Episode #640: Eugene Sein’s life has repeatedly been shaped by categories imposed from outside: Karen people cast as dangerous through Myanmar’s Burmanized education system,…
Nov 10, 2026 · 1:42:18
Episode #639: “I don't want this kind of accident to be happening in our new generation.” Htoo Chit Chit, founder and executive director of the Foundation for Education and…
Nov 9, 2026 · 3:20:58
Episode #638: Leslie Hover has inherited an extensive archive documenting the life of her father, Robert Hover, an American aerospace engineer who became an early Western teacher…
Nov 6, 2026 · 2:07:01
Episode 637: Anthropologist Céline Coderey's research in Rakhine State examines why people combine biomedical treatment with astrology, Buddhist rituals, traditional medicine,…
Nov 5, 2026 · 1:03:24
Episode #636: The second episode in this seven-part series explores how Buddhist law and institutions have shaped religious life and continue to intersect with secular legal…
Nov 3, 2026 · 1:35:27
Episode #635: “The thing that works the best is always to humanize the numbers,” says Australian journalist Libby Hogan. That principle has emerged from more than a decade of…
Nov 2, 2026 · 2:12:04
Episode #634: Christopher Titmuss has spent more than fifty years teaching Buddhist insight meditation, yet he warns that the very practices intended to bring liberation can…
Oct 30, 2026 · 2:09:59
Episode #633: “We’re in the dreams-come-true business.” Barry Broman uses that line to explain the human side of espionage, but it also captures the path that took him from…
Oct 29, 2026 · 1:59:20
Episode #632: “I was not political at all until 1988,” says Dr. Maung Maung Myint, the National Unity Government’s (NUG) representative to Norway. He describes how dictatorship,…
Oct 27, 2026 · 1:56:13
Episode #631: “Community for me is an other-making category.” Judith Beyer, a legal and political anthropologist and the author of Rethinking Community in Myanmar , uses an…
Oct 26, 2026 · 2:02:38
Episode #630: “There's no fixing saṃsāra.” Khemarato Bhikkhu heard that line from a bhikkhuni in Berkeley after the 2016 U.S. election, at the moment when his faith in progress…
Oct 23, 2026 · 1:25:42
Episode #629: “They don’t sleep with their leg on.” Jason Bender, a certified prosthetist who lived and worked in Myanmar from 2014 to 2021 before supporting cross-border work…
Oct 22, 2026 · 1:52:51
Episode #628: “We started with emotions, not with the basic fundamental facts.” Nay Chi Min Htun was a university student and hotel receptionist in Yangon before the 2021 coup.…
Oct 20, 2026 · 2:25:15
Episode #627: Joseph Goldstein’s introduction to meditation came almost accidentally. Sent to Thailand with the Peace Corps in the 1960s, he discovered Buddhist practice through…
Oct 19, 2026 · 1:23:13
Episode #626: This is the first episode of a seven-part series reflecting voices of people who attended the Fifth International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies in Chiang Mai,…
Oct 16, 2026 · 1:21:41
Episode #625: “When nobody helps you, what you have to do is go . You know what? I’m just gonna do it myself.” Adrian Zaw, a Burmese-American actor, producer, and founder of Zaw…
Oct 15, 2026 · 1:01:01
Episode #624: “Even before the coup, books gave me ideas, empathy, and hope,” says Zu May Lwin, a student activist and library organizer from Magway, She argues that education…
Oct 13, 2026 · 1:44:16
Episode #623: This is the third episode in a series of talks with Tempel Smith, who shares his deeper impressions of Burmese Buddhist culture, and how he became a bridge for…
Oct 12, 2026 · 1:57:22
Episode #622: “We need to recognize that we really don't know as much as we think we do about what's going on,” Jason Eligh says. As senior expert on drugs and drug markets at…
Oct 9, 2026 · 1:24:46
Episode #621: Please note that interview is intended solely as a record of Aki Ra’s personal experiences and historical demining work in Cambodia. His descriptions of past…
Oct 8, 2026 · 1:48:47
Episode #620: “This was not just my family's mission, but it could also be mine through Jesus.” For Peter Eubank, that realization marks the shift that also defines the lives of…
Oct 6, 2026 · 1:21:33
Episode #619: “My motto is love is the most powerful magic,” says Elizabeth Yee, a Burmese medical doctor, writer, and activist who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement after…
Oct 5, 2026 · 1:42:45
Episode #618: U Jāgara’s journey into Burmese Buddhism provides valuable exploration of meditation traditions and their adaptation to modern contexts. In this fourth appearance…
Oct 2, 2026 · 1:45:49
Episode #617: This is the first episode in a seven part series, which examines how Buddhist law and institutions have shaped religious life, and how they interact with secular…
Oct 1, 2026 · 1:13:30
Episode #616: Joseph, a community leader among Myanmar refugees in Malaysia, and Patrick, an advocacy specialist working on refugee and migrant issues there, speak about their…
Sep 29, 2026 · 1:30:49
Episode #615: “My passion for journalism and for telling stories to others still remain,” says Min Mitchell, former executive editor at Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-funded news…
Sep 28, 2026 · 1:02:53
Episode #614: Richard Evans, an architect who began practice in the S.N. Goenka Vipassana tradition, describes his life as a search for truth grounded in direct experience rather…
Sep 25, 2026 · 2:11:31
Episode #613: Mike is a lifelong martial artist who came to Myanmar through martial arts training rather than faith, and yet found himself pulled into a Burmese esoteric world he…
Sep 24, 2026 · 1:25:49
Episode #612: “You do create a dependency. You create a long-term relationship that also you can leverage into political influence as well.” Ian Storey, a principal fellow at the…
Sep 22, 2026 · 2:07:45
Episode #611: “I always want to be free.” Lienchi Tran, a Vietnamese American meditation teacher, first learned what unfreedom meant in postwar Vietnam. After South Vietnam fell…
Sep 21, 2026 · 1:34:16
Episode #610: “I can't leave anymore, because if I were to leave now, I would like never be able to live the same way, because of the comrades who have fallen and the comrades…
Sep 18, 2026 · 1:46:25
Episode #609: Jostein Kobbeltvedt, director of the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights in Bergen, Norway, reflects on how the 1990 Rafto Prize awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi helped…
Sep 17, 2026 · 1:53:38
Episode #608: Dave Hopkins came to vipassana meditation not as a scholar, traveler, or spiritual seeker, but as a working-class tree worker carrying grief, anger, addiction, and…
Sep 15, 2026 · 1:58:56
Episode #607: “I could not stay under a military rule that’s been killing thousands of people,” Maple says. “I cannot just sit and watch.” When Myanmar’s military seized power in…
Sep 14, 2026 · 36:46
Episode #606: Anusorn Tamajai’s attempted intervention during Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to Thailand began with an undelivered letter. Prevented from placing his proposals directly…
Sep 11, 2026 · 1:08:35
Episode #605: Note: this podcast episode, as well as the following text describing it, includes frank language about sexuality, male sex work, and self-harm. Reader and listener…
Sep 10, 2026 · 2:34:08
Episode #604: “I chose hip hop.” Born in Yangon in 1979 to parents who were nationally known singers, Anegga grew up in a household where art was both celebrated and watched. His…
Sep 8, 2026 · 59:25
Episode #603: Saw Poe Wah assists the Karen Refugee Committee (KRC) and speaks from a life shaped by the Thai–Myanmar border camps where he studied, lived, and later worked with…
Sep 7, 2026 · 2:09:02
Episode #602: “The things that I was devoted to for liberation became the weapons that were used to harm me. The community that was a refuge became the thing that exiled me.”…
Sep 4, 2026 · 1:27:36
Episode #601: Chalida Tajaroensuk, chairperson and founder of the Thailand-based People Empowerment Foundation, argues that responses to Myanmar’s post-coup crisis must be…
Sep 3, 2026 · 2:12:53
Episode #600: “I won’t be disappointing the people.” Before Kyaw Moe Tun took the UN General Assembly floor on February 26, 2021, that was as much as he had disclosed about the…
Sep 1, 2026 · 1:34:52
Episode #599: “I've been blessed to be on a spiritual journey for well over the last 50 years,” says psychiatrist Raman Khosla, reflecting on the lifelong search that eventually…
Aug 31, 2026 · 1:35:10
Episode #598: Rare earth mining has drawn Kachin State into a global struggle over minerals essential to electronics, green technologies, automobiles, and defense, while…
Aug 28, 2026 · 1:39:16
Episode #597: Victor Chan’s life began not with a spiritual calling but with motion. Born in Hong Kong and trained in physics, he left without a fixed destination and spent the…
Aug 27, 2026 · 1:59:38
Episode #596: “I needed to find another way... through research, writing, education, mentoring, community work,” says CS Kyaw, a Myanmar-born doctor turned development researcher…
Aug 25, 2026 · 1:07:15
Episode #595: Salai Vanni Bawi, a Chin researcher focused on migration, refugees, and transnational repression, speaks about how the country’s crisis extends beyond its borders…
Aug 24, 2026 · 1:19:33
Episode #594: “We fumble through life a little bit, and we end up doing different kind of things.” Arthur Nichols uses this modest explanation for a life that has now been shaped…
Aug 21, 2026 · 1:30:31
Episode #593: “Why are values included in international trade?” Arianna Bondi’s research begins with that question, but Myanmar turns it into a problem of limits. A PhD candidate…
Aug 20, 2026 · 1:49:56
Episode #592: In this, the 7th installment of a series of discussions with Jonathan Crowley, a former longtime practitioner and assistant teacher in the Goenka Vipassana…
Aug 18, 2026 · 1:59:02
Episode #591: “The war may end, but for years and years, landmines indiscriminately will kill and maim people, quite often children, as well as farm animals, long after the act…
Aug 17, 2026 · 2:27:08
Episode #590: Chie Ikeya’s work on colonial Burma began almost by accident. Trained as a historian and originally planning to study the Japanese occupation, she found herself in…
Aug 14, 2026 · 1:19:23
Episode #589: The AAS Conference in Vancouver brought together thousands of scholars and practitioners focused on Asia, with Burma emerging as a key topic amid its ongoing…
Aug 13, 2026 · 2:42:42
Episode #588: Historian Douglas Ober began questioning the standard history of Indian Buddhism while traveling to Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, and other sacred sites in his twenties. The…
Aug 11, 2026 · 1:18:16
Episode #587: Su Thit, the founder of Spouses of People’s Soldiers, frames military defection in Myanmar less as a single brave act than as an extended struggle against survival…
Aug 10, 2026 · 3:25:39
Episode #586: This is the sixth installment of our ongoing discussions with Friedgard Lottermoser. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience with Sayagyi U Ba Khin and other…
Aug 7, 2026 · 2:10:20
Episode #585: “We can’t go back to the normal life, because our country is not even normal,” says Tone Tone, a former psychology student from Yangon, describing how Myanmar’s…
Aug 6, 2026 · 1:53:38
Episode #584: Lora Roy, a longtime Vipassana meditator in the S.N. Goenka tradition, reflects on a lifelong effort to live truthfully from direct experience rather than fear,…
Aug 4, 2026 · 1:32:04
Episode #583: “If you can maim them, you can get multiple people off of a battlefield, and it’s also a terror tactic as well.” Collin Mayfield, an American journalist and…
Aug 3, 2026 · 2:21:14
Episode #582: “If you're having weird meditative experiences, I'll be happy to talk to you about those for free. I won't even take a donation.” Daniel Ingram, a physician,…
Aug 1, 2026 · 52:03
In this bonus episode, we share a special online fundraiser for Better Burma led by Richmond Heath, a certified TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) provider and trainer…
Jul 31, 2026 · 1:43:40
Episode #581: Tin Tin Htar Myint, a medical epidemiologist based in France who has worked in vaccines for more than two decades, describes Myanmar’s immunization collapse as a…
Jul 30, 2026 · 2:15:51
Episode #580: Professor P. L. Dhar, a longtime Vipassana teacher in the S.N. Goenka tradition, reflects on his life-long spiritual journey. A decade immersed in Vedanta and other…
Jul 28, 2026 · 1:42:14
Episode #579: “I did not expect to be conversing in Urdu with someone in Yangon.” Bilal Hassan, a Pakistani creator and doctor, traveled to Burma after noticing how much of…
Jul 27, 2026 · 1:54:10
Episode #578: Aye Myat Thwe is a Burmese lay Buddhist practitioner raised inside the Mahasi Vipassana world, where devotion, meditation, and study were braided into ordinary…
Jul 24, 2026 · 1:51:43
Episode #577: Thomas Shapwon, a Naga elder and former politician, recounts the long struggle of the Naga people for sovereignty and survival between India and Myanmar. He…
Jul 23, 2026 · 1:04:52
Episode #576: “I have been attempted [at assassinations] twice when they shot me, but I escaped. My family, my brother, they are targeted, and armed groups are always behind us.…
Jul 21, 2026 · 1:26:42
Episode #575: Lindsey Kennedy, an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker focused on organized crime, corruption, and conflict, argues that the scam-compound economy…
Jul 20, 2026 · 1:06:26
Episode #574: Diego Prieto, a Chilean filmmaker, embarked on a journey to explore the Buddha's legacy and its modern relevance. His documentary started as an effort to explain…
Jul 17, 2026 · 3:21:17
Episode #573: “I brought you here to the United States not so you could forget our homeland,” Salih Hudayar remembers his father telling him, “but so you could become educated…
Jul 16, 2026 · 1:54:34
Episode #572: “The government will survive for as long as it can feed the people,” says Christopher Lamb, former Australian Ambassador to Myanmar, distilling what he believes…
Jul 14, 2026 · 1:25:04
Episode #571: “For students living through uncertainty, I think online learning and online education becomes a lifeline rather than simply an alternative.” Eaint Thet Hmu, a…
Jul 13, 2026 · 57:46
Episode #570: The AAS Conference in Vancouver brought together thousands of scholars and practitioners from around the world, creating a dense, fast-moving environment of panels,…
Jul 10, 2026 · 1:32:29
Episode #569: When Hla Hla Win was sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison at age twenty-three, she did not focus on the number. “I decided that in politics, the way things…
Jul 9, 2026 · 1:44:42
Episode #568: “I think a world where people partner and support each other is the world I want my kids to grow up in,” says Greg Tyrosvoutis, co-founder and director of the…
Jul 7, 2026 · 1:08:21
Episode #567: Stella Naw, a Kachin academic activist focused on indigenous and decolonial peacebuilding, is joined by Dustin Barter, a senior research fellow at the Humanitarian…
Jul 6, 2026 · 2:53:28
Episode #566: Daniel M. Stuart, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Carolina and a visiting scholar in Hamburg, examines the elusive historical…
Jul 3, 2026 · 1:05:29
Episode #565: In Anyar , or the central Dry Zone, community protection is by necessity locally led and informed by facts on the ground. In a huge area comprising swathes of…
Jul 2, 2026 · 1:13:40
Episode #564: “We want to make federalism not just as a slogan, but also as an action. We want to turn it into action!” Neineh Plo is secretary to the International Relations and…
Jun 30, 2026 · 1:28:19
Episode #563: As president of the CCDK (Chin Community in Denmark), a non-profit organization established in 2003 by refugees from Myanmar, Van Neih Thang believes he has a duty…
Jun 29, 2026 · 2:05:51
Episode #562: “I thought there was something, but I didn't know there was a way to get there.” That sense of longing has shaped Eion Meades’s spiritual life. His father abandoned…
Jun 26, 2026 · 1:23:09
Episode #561: The third episode in a three part series, this was recorded inside Malaysia’s Parliament during the final stretch of Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship. It sits where…
Jun 25, 2026 · 2:56:17
Episode #560: “We have to get rid of this military dictatorship. Otherwise the whole country and the coming generations will be in a really troubled situation.” Mun Awng, born in…
Jun 23, 2026 · 2:26:52
Episode #559: “Comrade,” Renata says, when asked how she would like to be remembered. A member of the People’s Defense Force and a former political prisoner, she uses the word to…
Jun 22, 2026 · 2:20:06
Episode #558: “I've always had a certain resistance to the over-institutionalization of anything,” says renowned meditation teacher Delson Armstrong, who argues that one of the…
Jun 19, 2026 · 1:46:10
Episode #557: Born in Yangon, Aung Tun grew up listening to foreign news broadcasts, which provided an uncensored view of a world beyond Myanmar’s military control. Inspired by…
Jun 18, 2026 · 3:06:25
Episode #556: “I just find it so interesting that the Buddha actually talked about discussion as being a really important part of our Dhamma journey,” says Bruce Stewart, a…
Jun 16, 2026 · 2:01:30
Episode #555: Note: this podcast episode includes frank anatomical language and extended discussion of women’s bodies, including terms for female genitalia, in the context of…
Jun 15, 2026 · 2:31:58
Episode #554: Bruce Stewart, an early Western student and teacher in the S.N. Goenka Vipassana tradition, reflects on a lifelong search for spiritual meaning driven by curiosity,…
Jun 12, 2026 · 2:19:24
Episode #553: Naw Moo Moo Paw grew up in a Karen village near Bago where conflict and landmines were part of everyday life. “I have seen a lot of people injured or die because of…
Jun 11, 2026 · 2:26:01
Episode #552: Mon Mon Myat, a journalist, filmmaker, and peace scholar, frames Myanmar’s political struggle as a long contest over power, moral discipline, and the possibility of…
Jun 9, 2026 · 2:19:01
Episode #551: Fred Stockwell arrived in Mae Sot by accident more than twenty years ago while traveling through Thailand to photograph temples, a wrong bus dropping him off in…
Jun 8, 2026 · 2:05:58
Episode #550: “There was something inside of me that was calling me,” says Jerry Roy, a long-time Vipassana meditator and early student in the Goenka tradition. “Not a thought,…
Jun 5, 2026 · 1:28:04
Episode #549: Mohammad Siraj, a Rohingya researcher, political analyst, educator, and aspiring legal scholar living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, studies citizenship,…
Jun 4, 2026 · 2:36:38
Episode #548: Sunda Khin shares a remarkable family journey through contemporary Burmese history. She starts with her father, U Chan Htoon, who suggested that a young Indian…
Jun 2, 2026 · 1:42:02
Episode #547: Scott Leckie, an international human rights lawyer, and Jose Arraiza, a specialist in housing, land, and property rights and citizenship in conflict-affected…
Jun 1, 2026 · 1:17:56
Episode #546: Recorded in Kuala Lumpur during Malaysia’s final stretch as ASEAN chair, this is the second episode in a three part series which looks less at policy language and…
May 29, 2026 · 1:19:41
Episode #545: The promise of justice for war crimes in Myanmar is far from perfect, says Dr. Stuart Casey-Maslen, a leading legal expert on disarmament and international…
May 28, 2026 · 1:17:24
Episode #544: May Shine, a recent graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs, approaches policy work from the position of someone shaped by displacement and minority…
May 26, 2026 · 1:08:10
Episode #543: “We believe in dialogs among people of different backgrounds,” says Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, a Thai professor at Chiang Mai University and director of the Regional…
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