Ingyinbin Journal: Returning to Each Breath

John, a meditator from New Zealand, spends extended periods in Ingyinbin each year, the home of the revered Webu Sayadaw and with his friend Ashin Mandala. This winter, he has decided to keep a journal, which he has kindly offered to share with us. His journal alternates between observation and poetry, between meditation practice and commentary about Burmese Buddhist society, from his learnings and his questions. The full collection of his musings can be found here.

4 January

Pigeon hoots in Mahamuni hall - dogs wanting to be petted - one bullock cart, bamboo mat floor & slats with a rail made by hand - a child with its mother and infant brother, his eyes peering examining us from under the sibling’s arm - the mother at intervals with a switch in her right hand slapping the white bullock pair - a final hard pull on the reigns brings the lumbering beasts to a standstill - staggering we disembark - passing villagers on their motorcycles laugh and wave or are slightly dumbfounded.

Returning to each breath
Itself a harvest,
a hundred byways.

Ingyinbin Journal: Meanwhile, Sitting Continues

John, a meditator from New Zealand, spends extended periods in Ingyinbin each year, the home of the revered Webu Sayadaw and with his friend Ashin Mandala. This winter, he has decided to keep a journal, which he has kindly offered to share with us. His journal alternates between observation and poetry, between meditation practice and commentary about Burmese Buddhist society, from his learnings and his questions. The full collection of his musings can be found here.

1 January

After breakfast we are met by Aum Pyee who offers his assistance. The ibises appear to have left their roost, and the matting of weed that covers the lake allows smaller birds to land and walk about on its surface. The new pagoda is at the east side, its stainless steel and gold-finished spire still brightly lit by the display lights as well as the new rising sun, a combination that absorbs the surrounding scene with a mirrored clarity. On the farther bank the younger nuns, fresh-looking in pink and orange robes, sweep the bare earth around the kitchen and outside their own quarters with coarse bamboo brooms. The trees are drenched in dust and sunlight. Outside the green cottage that was constructed by his family, a solitary older monk, as on all other mornings, appears at first light and proceeds to sweep the ground around his accommodation, leaving here and there little piles of dust and debris.

The rising sun, disinterested,

lights the trees, the white pagoda, the near-empty compound 

where the lone monk sweeps, clothed in sparkling dust.

Meanwhile sitting continues:

Leaves, birds, dogs,

one sound, three sounds: 

I slog on in my hut!

Webu Sayadaw, the reputed arahant who trained as a novice in the paryatti (learning) monastery in which we are housed and for whom on his return to the area the extensive patipatti (meditation) monastery, including the hut where we meditate daily, was built.

The little brown puppy with the unusable rear quarters munches on the beans and rice that Karen places before him. On Uposata day (On each eighth day of the lunar cycle layfolk dedicate this day to their Buddhist practice, taking eight precepts, undertaking of moral behavior, and spending time at their local monastery, as well as contributing the meal shared with those at the monastery) a local engineer, recently returned from America, arrives with his extended family to give dana and a shared lunch. Outside one boy makes another boy cry. An older woman smokes a cheroot as she comforts another young child beside the lake. The novices take turns sliding down the angled stack of coloured roofing iron, lifting their robes and grinning as they do so. A photo with the dana family and foreigners and they’re away! We take food with the monks; the Sayadaw and senior monks sit at the head table, others in descending order of seniority down to the most junior, who pile their plates with rice and add a morsel of vegetables. Some adults serve while others stand near us, marvelling at our plates loaded with various vegetables taken from several of the seventeen dishes that crowd the round table. The nuns, who have spent the entire night in food preparation, take a table together in the rear near the entrance door. As we leave, the men working on the pagoda approach the dining room: the straggler carries a mortar board and sings near the top of his voice. Nearby,

half the length of its tail, the squirrels

campers along the aerial cable:

earth its mirror.

In the evening we visit the family of Aum Pyee: two families and three generations share a large compound. We are sat down and offered fruits and bread and a sweet tonic drink and local tea. Everyone talks gently and convivially and with sweetness. The compound houses white bullocks and a cow with its calf, dogs, pigs, piles of cut rice stalks (harvest is near-finished and what isn’t stored indoors is sold in the nearby towns), tamarind and other fine trees, and various accommodations, the latest a tidy brick house occupied by the elder brother with his wife and their two children, aged 7 and 12 and both quite shy. We are returned by Aum Pyee to the monastery near 6pm, the distant sky golden and near dissolution as the white birds home in to the lakeside trees to chatter and groan before sleep.

Ingyinbin Journal: The Unguarded Mind

John, a meditator from New Zealand, spends extended periods in Ingyinbin each year, the home of the revered Webu Sayadaw and with his friend Ashin Mandala. This winter, he has decided to keep a journal, which he has kindly offered to share with us. His journal alternates between observation and poetry, between meditation practice and commentary about Burmese Buddhist society, from his learnings and his questions. The full collection of his musings can be found here.

31 December
It takes time finding a routine that suits. Sitting, it is astonishing how the mind teems with numerous unrelated thoughts. Occasionally, beneath a kind or morass, clarity gathers and briefly surfaces. It takes at least an hour on the mat before the concentration gains a steadier attention on the breath:

Following each breath
pull deeper
no bottom or top.

Evening walk. We approach the village to the west of the monastery, greeted by couples who stand smiling at their gates. A group works the threshing machine in one dust-filled yard, tossing in bundled rice stalks that get separated on exit into a growing pile of stalks (to be chopped and fed to the cattle) into one place while in another the husked rice (paddy) falls into a neatly placed large woven basket that, near full, a young woman swings easily onto her head and carries with surprising elegance to the place of storage. The track leads us past a dozen or so simple thatched houses with yards populated with families and their charges, cattle, dogs, chickens, pigs, including an occasional cat. One young woman stops in her tracks when she realises she has been observed striking out at a large feeding sow in the pen. The unguarded mind excites in a scene supported by a hundred contrary things. And getting back to the monastery grounds, overhead we see groups of ibises, their wings stretched wide, almost stalling as they seek a place to roost high in the tamarinds beside the weed-covered lake:

Nadia points out the darkened
shapes arriving in small groups into the upper branches
of the tamarind & neighbour trees

that skirt the matted lake: birds
spilling onto the monastery,
masters of the evening sun.

Ingyinbin Journal: Arrival in the Village

John, a meditator from New Zealand, spends extended periods in Ingyinbin each year, the home of the revered Webu Sayadaw and with his friend Ashin Mandala. This winter, he has decided to keep a journal, which he has kindly offered to share with us. His journal alternates between observation and poetry, between meditation practice and commentary about Burmese Buddhist society, from his learnings and his questions. The full collection of his musings can be found here.

"The enthusiastic young student in the restaurant encourages us to return later to Kin-U and use her phone for wifi access if needed, given there is no internet available at the monastery. A few minutes later U Mandala arrives in a white car with the Sangha flag positioned mid-bonnet, his passenger a fellow meditator on a visit from Belgium, to drive us on the dirt and stone road, past multiple fields of mature rice plants interspersed by others containing only stubble on cracked earth, to the monastery.

Nearing Ingynbin 

egret buffalo buffalo egret: 

coming, staying, going.

Bhante is pleased to see us and clearly appreciates the National Geographic Atlas that, with other small gifts, we place before him following our prostrations. A new toilet is to be installed in the main building, itself freshly re-painted on the outside with a mixture of white green gold & silver; we also are shown the freshly painted white pagoda nearing completion that sits on a small mound between the guest house and the lake. Greetings ended, we pass by the dogs sleeping on the ground on the way to our accommodation and sit with the surroundings somehow seeming unshakeable:

Suddenly barking village dogs
enter an evening without disturbance
Already at home here.

The agreed time to sit is 5am; at 4:45 bhante’s torchlight appears at the glass panels of the metal door. The surroundings remain still until near 6 when the temple bell is struck in series of three calling the monks to breakfast - only to launch another crescendo, barks and yelps. Anapana together starts to reshape an internal sense of proportion:

A small boat 

smaller, smaller: 

sea everywhere!

When Karen and I in early afternoon head to the small white stupa in which Tamara said she had also meditated, it is the athletic young monks playing caneball who impress: some of them have draped parts of their red robes over nearby branches or tucked them round their bellies as they nimbly cavort. We see them kick the ball backwards over their heads or header it deftly to a teammate:

The cane ball repeatedly crosses the net 

dextrous monks!

- cane ball my mind.

The mythological duck placed atop the stone pillar adjacent our meditation place marks the historical extent of the monastery’s land. The elderly women with her few remaining blackened teeth who seems to be living out her life in one of the bamboo huts in the compound retains a wide smile as she fingers Karen’s lungyi ‘la la la’.

As we had done on the previous visit, now with Thierri we walk the local dusty lane, used by bullock carts leaving for the rice fields in the morning and re-entering the village near evening. Again the girls, at sunset, stream from the weaving factory, empty tiffins shining in their hands, smiling and laughing together, as they enjoy gazing at us and giggling:

A line of bullockcarts returning to the village: 

sunlight tangled in dust, 

girls smiling."

So Profound, So Deep, and So Wide...

"Thank you so much for making all the arrangements and for calling Khaw Thein to check in on how things are going. I had a very spiritually profound day today. To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect when you suggested I visit the pwa bwe gyi village. I had not even heard of it before and only went to read about it when I knew I was going.

I really learned a lot from Khaw Thein about Buddhism today and to hear his personal story. It has helped me see that the teachings of the Buddha is so profound, so deep and so wide. I will try to study more about the teachings of the Buddha when I return to Singapore. The visit to Myanmar has been very meaningful. It feels like my life has come full circle. Myanmar people have really inspired me with their devotion and dedication to dhamma. I'm especially grateful to sayama (daw hto) and her sister for their hospitality and kindness. Here's a picture we took at her home."

Joan Low, Singaporean meditator, writing to thank a Dhamma friend for arranging her visit to Pyaw Bwe Gyi village

Aung San Suu Kyi: A Treasure Among Treasures

"A treasure among treasures is she who served as faithful wife,

Who built within her house a home secure and free from strife,

But treasured more is she for her unwavering devotion to the Golden Land,

Outshining even the gilded stupas with her simple elegance and open hand.

She, whose dedication to the common good is tribute to her father's name,

Whose humanity and strength of character are unalloyed by politics or worldly gain.

Oh youth of Myanmar, the jewel within your midst you seek afar

And thereby miss the glorious light of Burma's eastern star,

For true heroism is born within the heart and cannot be bought or planned.

For proof or this, you need seek no further than the lady of your land."

Bhikkhu Moneyya
Pa-Auk Tawya Buddhist University
Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar
September 2013

A Surprising Encounter

“The last three evenings we were there, two young novices would visit us in the evening to keep us company and practice their English. We would sit with them and look through his small tattered English note book and they would help us learn new Burmese words. They were teenagers and had both ordained as novices about a year earlier. I asked them how long they wanted to be monks and they both said without hesitation that they would be in robes for their whole life.

“At one point we asked U Mandala about the Buddha relics that we had heard about. He very willingly agreed to take us to meet his teacher and meditate with the Relics. A few hours later we met him and he led us to one of the buildings adjacent to the main hall. We went in and paid our respects to his teacher who was sitting on a large chair. The old Monk had a childlike smile and explained to us that ‘the Webu Sayadaw method is to be aware of the breath all the time’ and encouraged us to try to achieve this. One of the younger monks was there and he lifted a large square box out of the corner that had about 10 cloths wrapped around it. 

They placed it on a small table and one by one untied all of the cloths to reveal a dark colored wooden carved box. As they lifted off the lid inside was a small silver and glass container that contained many tiny spheres. We were encouraged to hold the container in our hands and meditate so we took turns doing this and felt a lot of uniform subtle sensation in our bodies. Afterwards they wrapped it all back up again and we thanked them and paid our respects to the teacher before leaving.” 

Dylan Fry, Canadian meditator

The Widow's House of Ledi Sayadaw

How, especially in the days before digital media and when the printing press was just gaining widespread use, was Ledi Sayadaw was able to keep up with his scholastic duties despite living in extremely remote places and traveling at a frenetic pace for two decades? During his travels, he was often accompanied by an extremely large teak crate-- the original now on display at at the Maha Ledi Monastery-- and an additional container that stored palm leaf manuscripts. Ledi advised that if one writes next to a library, preference is given to points of dry academia, limiting the audience and preventing anyone except the highly learned from accessing the material. However, if one writes surrounded by the fields of nature and coming off a steady meditation practice, the genuine flavor of the Dhamma can come out within the lines. 

As for his writing supplies, students and lay attendants always made sure these were on hand, a common responsibility in the day for anyone looking after their teacher. Stories remain of students sharpening hundreds of pencils at once, so prolific was the author! Ledi Sayadaw frequently spent entire nights writing, with only a small oil lamp by his side. One of his few requests was to not have a a “widow house” lamp, but rather a larger one that would allow him to write more easily for long periods. However, his prodigious output steadily diminished his eyesight, so that by the last years of his life, he was entirely blind.

Now what, one may ask, was a "widow house"? In Ledi’s day, oil lamps were not large, and so had to be powered by repeated pushing and pulling of a stick which would ignite the petrol within the lamp, eventually causing the thick wick in the glass portion of the lamp to be lit. As this was a job done only by men, those women who lived alone (often as widows) had to do so in the dark, giving the lamps its name.

The carved dipanis of Ledi Sayadaw, chiseled into marble at Maha Ledi Monastery in Pyinmana, central Myanmar, near Naypyidaw

ThaBarWa Meditation Course in Pyin Oo Lwin

The following information has been shared by ThaBarWa Monastery, who has requested Burma-Dhamma to share:

"We have a new course happening soon at ThaBarWa Center:

Title: Universal Truth and Personal Truth
Including Basic Buddhism , meditation, discussion

By Sayalay Cala (ITBMU)
12-22 March 2016

Please contact :
dawkhema@gmail.com, 09 250047330, for inscription

This is the 2nd ThaBarWa center, established in 2012. Full time retreat. Few yogis are residing there as well as few monks. (During raining season we have a lot of monks). It's quite extended in a very beautiful place. Foreigners can also stay there but outside the monthly 7-days retreat there is no one speaking english. It's easy to reach from Pyin Oo Lwin...
It is highly encouraged to spend time first to learn about our teacher and understand ThaBarWa aim before going to Pyin Oo Lwin center.

The course with Sayalay Cala is happening at our Thanlyin branch. The Pyin Oo Lwin retreat is monthly, every first week-with Usin Yevada Nanda