I appreciate the thoughtful replies. (I'm directing this at Paul because he mentioned attending various centres in Burma but both responses are quite useful, so thanks to Andrew as well!).
I'm curious you have a preference with regard to the centres you mentioned? The placestomeditate blog seems to me to show preference for Panditarama. He mentions a few cautionary points about the Mahasi Centre [
https://placestomeditate.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/the-mahasi-centre-yangon-myanmar/]:
> One feature of the centre all potential meditators should know about is the noise. The centre sprawls over an area of high land, surrounded by construction sites, some of which bang and clang all through the night. There are also nightclubs nearby that go on all night sometimes, and there are the usual Burmese monastery mangy dogs that have random barking fits throughout the night. All of these noise sources were usually random and intermittent. I brought earplugs and managed fine, and the construction sites (my experience in Feb-Mar 2019) will some day end up being finished.
> One more feature important to note is the teacher-student challenges. Interviews are held twice a week as a group, which is awkward as you have to describe your practice in front of several or even a couple dozen strangers. There are translators for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese languages. Everyone else is expected to use English. The teacher's English pronunciation is shockingly poor, and unless you use specific terminology, he may have trouble understanding you as well. A frequent feature of interviews was getting stuck on a word that he couldn't get across or understand us saying. Having said all that, when communication ran well, his advice was solid, which is rare for this tradition where teachers often say little or just offer very basic reminders.
> The other point is how exclusionary the management seem toward non-Burmese. Signage is almost always mono-lingual - Burmese only. Foreigners who ordain as monks/nuns don't get to participate in the usual monastic activities like going out to receive donations of food from the community or chanting in Pali. [This seems like less of an issue from the perspective of those merely interested in developing their meditation practice].
These don't sound like dealbreakers to me but I did notice that the Mahasi Centre lists the schedule [
http://www.mahasi.org.mm/content/whole-day-tasks-mahasi] as sleep from 11p - 3a (4 hours!). My understanding is that as practice deepens, the amount of sleep needed decreases (without feeling sleepy or adverse health issues) but I'm curious how strictly they enforce this. I'd hope that it's possible to sleep after the 9p group sit and have the option to continue practicing, but if 4 hour sleep window is forced without allowing the practice to develop into it, that seems unhealthy. I don't know if Panditarama is different with respect to the sleep schedule here but they list 9p as the last activity [
http://www.panditarama.net/index.php/time-schedule].
I'm also curious about the distinction between Panditarama Yangon and the Forest Centre. I suspect the main appeal of the Forest Centre would be being in nature (forest... this seems obvious, right?), but I imagine most of the time is spent indoors so I'm not sure if yogis are in a position to reap much of this fact. I suspect one might deal with more mosquitos, snakes, and bugs as well. Yangon seems more practical as there isn't the additional travel cost in getting to Bago. I'd be interested if anyone has any related thoughts on this.
Glad to get more detail regarding strictness. These descriptions paint a reasonable picture; I'd read some more sensational accounts online that raised some unease.