Lived Experiences of Saṃvega

Saṃvega, a moralized emotional state that embodies the Buddha’s teachings on suffering, initiates the beginning of a person’s ethical self-transformation. While existing scholarship focuses on the scripturally prescribed role of saṃvega in deepening aversion to the world and the desire for enlightenment, this textualist perspective overlooks its localized interpretations and lived experiences. This article explores how popular understandings of saṃvega are intertwined with ethical concerns related to everyday life in Myanmar, extending beyond renunciatory impulses to include remorse for unwholesome deeds and empathy for others’ suffering. Focusing on Myanmar’s Free Funeral Service Movement, this article shows how Burmese Buddhists transform encounters with death into opportunities to cultivate these ethical sensibilities. This article contributes to Theravāda studies by demonstrating how embodied moral emotions, like saṃvega, bridge textual traditions and lived religious practices. It also highlights the centrality of an ethnographic approach in understanding Buddhist everyday ethics.