An anthropologist examines the role of Burma?s ?New Laity? in the complex relationship between Buddhism and the military regime... "Burma?s Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power, by Ingrid Jordt.... DURING his official visit to Burma in March, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej learned something about his Burmese hosts that apparently struck him as significant. ?Myanmar?s leaders meditate,? he said upon his return to Bangkok, as if this fact alone should be enough to convince anyone that Burma?s despotic rulers are not as bad as they are made out to be. While Samak?s implied approval of the Burmese generals on the grounds that they meditate may strike most observers as absurd, it does highlight a practice that has played an important role in forming Burma?s post-independence political consciousness. As anthropologist Ingrid Jordt argues in a recently published book, Burma?s mass lay meditation movement ?has become a resistance and a parallel construction of economy, spheres of potency, and influence that stand against the state in its militaristic unity"...."