Alan Clements is an enigma.
His phone number is a closely guarded secret, and few people know the address of his apartment. Inside, Clements has assembled tapes, transcripts, photos, and films of his interviews with the founders of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD), 200 former political prisoners, and—his most precious archive—Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Clements is one of few Westerners to ordain as a Buddhist monk. After leaving the monastery, he expanded his experience into a diverse range of work as an author, investigative journalist, human rights activist, spoken-word artist, public speaker, and non-sectarian Dharma teacher offering retreats and lectures worldwide. He has published more than 18 books, with more on the way, as well as blog posts and a steady stream of YouTube videos (more than 400 at last count).
Born in Boston in 1951, Clements is a second-generation Lebanese Syrian. Raised in a Christian household, his mother was a Lebanese-Syrian Christian and his grandmother, who Clements was close to, was a Christian mystic.
He says he loved his parents and they were exceptionally good to him. His entire extended family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—were all “great.” There were no struggles or regrets; life was good, and he loved being alive. But as time went on, he began feeling intense discontent with his life.
A keen athlete, Clements attended the University of Virginia on a football scholarship but left in the second half of his junior year, at a pivotal point in the Vietnam War.
From the late ‘60s to the mid-‘70s, the U.S. was swept by major demonstrations against the Vietnam War and for civil rights. People, especially young people, were struggling to understand a world full of war, poverty, and racial discrimination. The search for self-awareness launched trends in religion and meditation practices, where psychedelics often helped people along their journey.
Clements began using LSD in high school and continued in college and afterward. When he learned that his draft number was 156, which would have placed him in a moderate-risk category for being drafted into the Vietnam War, he “did a high dose of acid (LSD), went to the Blue Ridge Mountains, [and] thought about God and myself and life.”
Psychedelics led to a spiritual awakening which he describes as “mind-illuminating”—an experience that is common to practitioners of Eastern philosophy who have used psychedelics.
During that profoundly reflective period, “I was painting full time, doing a lot of LSD, very healthy, healthy doing yoga, but still deeper inside unsatisfied, and I went to the bookstore.”
There he came upon Practical Insight Meditation by the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master. A spark was ignited and lit the way to Clements becoming a Buddhist monk and a life of meditation and self-examination.
Clements made his way to Burma in 1977 and met Mahasi Sayadaw, telling him he wanted to become a Buddhist monk and practice meditation under his guidance. He was captivated by the monks living and meditating in the peaceful environment of the monastery. Although his stay was short due to Burma’s seven-day visa restrictions, he kept in touch Mahasi Sayadaw and was ordained by him when the monk visited the U.S. in 1979.
Barely four years later he disrobed but began sharing the meditation practices he learned and the spiritual awakening he gained through speaking, writing, interviews, and retreats. That work continues today.
World Dharma
“I don’t want to identify with a theology or an identity. I don’t want to be a Buddhist. I don’t want to be a former Christian. I don’t want to be a former monk. I want to be nothing but open. And that’s the concept—you’ve got to label it something—World Dharma, freedom, freedom for the world.”
Clements started World Dharma in 1999. As described on the website, it is a nonsectarian organization of “self-styled seekers, artists, rebels, writers, scholars, journalists, and activists dedicated to a trans-religious, independent approach to personal and planetary transformation (through the integration of global human rights, meditation, and the experiential study of consciousness) with a life of expression through the arts, media, activism, and service.”
The description is typical of Clements’ grandiloquent style.
Aung San Suu Kyi Interview
In 1995, Clements was asked by the distinguished French publisher Editions Stock to consider reentering Burma to interview Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Clements was put in touch with her husband, Michael Aris, who in a telephone conversation discouraged him from going, but that did not deter him.
Despite the difficulties and dangers, Clements had the drive, focus, and tenacity to make the interview happen. He interviewed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi over a six-month period from 1995 to 1996. There were 13 interviews lasting between an hour to an hour and a half each. Clements was accompanied by The New York Times’ investigative journalist Leslie Kean who recorded, photographed, and filmed each meeting.
Clements’ friendship with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi grew over the course of the interviews. There was a commonality and connection between them since both were students of Sayadaw U Pandita, a prominent Burmese Buddhist monk and meditation teacher. The relationship also transformed Clements’s relationship to Myanmar from that of a former Buddhist monk to an advocate for Burma’s “revolution of the spirit.”
“Daw Suu’s home was a catalyst, an incubator for freedom and action. You felt you were walking on existential water there with beauty, with dignity, with courage.”
During that time, he also interviewed U Tin Oo and U Kyi Maung, two prominent activists in Burma’s democracy movement and close associates of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He admired the collegiality in the NLD, which to him embodied Buddhist philosophy, political activism, and the spirit of personal resistance during imprisonment. Clements says that spirit of personal resistance is a powerful source of strength, commitment, and inspiration for other imprisoned political prisoners and for all people fighting for democracy in Burma.
In the years following the interviews, Clements continued his journalistic work and spoke with almost 200 former political prisoners from 2012 to 2020. He documented the stories of activists’ prison experiences and the inhumane treatment they and other inmates endured. He and his associate Fergus Harlow reported their findings in a four-volume set of books, Burma’s Voices of Freedom.
The Mission: Use Your Freedom
Clements began the Use Your Freedom campaign after Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest during the February 2021 military coup and dedicated himself to informing the world of her dire situation in prison and his mission to get her released. He believes her release, along with that of government officials and political prisoners, is “crucial for the nation’s future.” The global campaign stresses the primacy of dialogue and diplomacy over violence and repression. Clement’s approach is partly based on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Buddhist principles and centered on reconciliation and cooperation with the military. The Use Your Freedom website is committed to the belief that “the necessity of urgent dialogue cannot be overstated.”
Many people around the world believe that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was complicit in what is often referred to as the Rohingya genocide. But Clements is one of her fiercest defenders on all Rohingya-related controversies and is vehemently critical of media reporting on the issue. His book Aung San Suu Kyi from Prison provides a context to her actions during the 2017 Rohingya crisis. Outlining her speech at the International Court of Justice, he points out a “true” contextual breakdown of her actions during the devastation in Rakhine State.
The importance of Clements’ interviews, writings, and presentations cannot be overstated. The extensive recordings, transcripts, photos, and films he has collected at critical moments in Myanmar’s history can provide valuable insight to historians, researchers, and freedom fighters in the future.
