The Meditation Movement in Burma

Why did the patipatti (meditation) movement take off in Burma's postwar era? The Golden Path has tackled this question, and has discovered over 20 factors leading to the conditions where this not only could grow, but thrive. The following excerpt is taken from an unpublished draft, which would be included in the meditator's guide Part 3. (However, with minimal dana now available past Part 2, and given that the volition to ultimately share all works freely to all, it is unlikely this will reach publication, unless further support is forthcoming.)

One theory relates to the powerful experience of surviving the brutal war years. Such a period allowed some of the great future teachers to spend more time in meditation, and both during and immediately following the war many thousands of lay people were pushed from their home and found refuge in the monasteries. Author U Tin Oo notes that many Burmese fled to the Sagaing Hills during World War II, where they began a vipassanā practice that was maintained well after the fighting subsided. The same has been said of the vast Buddhist communities that the Mohnyin Sayadaw cared for at Thanboddhay Monastery. And even Mahasi Sayadaw himself saw his development and teachings affected by his experiences during the way. At this time, he had to leave Taungwainggale and return to his native village of Seikkhun, for it was safer. While here he practiced, taught, and wrote his famous Manual of Vipassana Meditation, a comprehensive guide on how to practice according to the Satipattana Sutta.

However, yet another factor seems to directly contradict this. Rather than seeing the hard times of the war as guiding people to concentrate on what was really important, Maha Gandayone Sayadaw U Janaka instead felt instead that they led to an opposite result. In Autobiogrgahy, he wrote that “[m]orality became too low after the war among both young and old people. The government commissioned a committee to give Buddhist lessons at school to check this moral deterioration.” U Silananda seems to bridge these two views in discussing his opinions on how the war affected morality. He writes: “World War II had caused to upset the living conditions of many a people in one way or another. Just as the people who were originally seemingly delicate, mild and soft-hearted in nature had joined the tough army as impulsed by their intense patriotism; there were some who had entered into monkhood being fed up with their own’ life’s condition.” 

Objective reporting certainly backs up U Janaka’s observations, as the rise in dacoits at this time in Burma was well documented—however, others made a political argument to account for this, and that it was more due to a weak central government than the overall morals of people. In any case, in U Janaka’s view, this decline began many years before, stemming from the Colonial Era, and only peaked after the war years. For this reason, he fully supported the idea of the Buddhist Revival, commenting that “State and Religion would have a perfect coordination to work out the progress of the State as well as the Religion.” With such low morality amongst the people, he compared the work ahead with that of King Anawrahta and Shin Arahan one thousand years earlier when Theravada Buddhism was established in the country. In this way, the rise of the patipatti movement could be seen as a kind of state-orchestrated policy accomplished with the cooperation of renowned monks, and having been motivated by the decline of the faith and morality that had been building for decades, and culminated only now.

Syriam: from Orwell to Ledi Sayadaw, where the Great Game met the great Dhamma practitioners...

Than Lyin-- across the river from Yangon, and known historically as Syriam-- is a place combining such dynamic figures as Philip de Brito, Mahasi Sayadaw, George Orwell, Ledi Sayadaw, the Burmah Oil Company, Mohnyin Sayadaw, etc. Following tells how these all happen to come together in this unlikely place...

Way back in 1897, George Bird was already recording (in Wanderings in Burma) that “beyond the ruins…nothing now remains of the once flourishing European settlements [of Syriam].” Now, over a century later, there are very few European footprints left in the sand here anymore, either. These include a ruined Portuguese church from 1750, some Armenian tombs, and parts of the old wall of the city. And at nearby Henzada village, a small pagoda bears the inscription of the apparent descendants of the Portuguese (and anti-Buddhist) warlord Philip de Brito, (a somewhat ironic twist of Dhamma that one of the few remaining testaments to the existence of that foreign pagoda-destroyer in Burma would be…a pagoda, and built by his own descendants to boot).

Syriam was certainly not known for its beauty during the Colonial period, during which time the Burmah Oil Company set up a refinery here, although it was later destroyed in World War II. George Orwell was posted here from 1924, where he worked as an Assistant District Superindentent. It was a toss-up as to whether the rough town was better known for its frequent murders or acrid air at that point. It seems that Orwell spent much of his days reading what British literature he could acquire from nearby Rangoon bookstores. According to Keith Ferrell in George Orwell: The Political Pen, Orwell “lived in a house that lacked all the amenities to which Europeans were accustomed: there was no running water, toilets, or electricity.” Today, Than Lyin’s port—Thilawa—is the largest port in the country, building on its status as the port of choice for European ships during the Colonial era.

But on more of a Dhamma note, the area does have some significant Buddhist past. Small Gonnyinsu Village is where the deeply revered Mohnyin Sayadaw was born in 1873, and who went go on to become one of Ledi Sayadaw’s most important disciples. And yogis today can attend a course at the Saya U Than Kammathan Center, which offers teachings in the tradition of Saya Thet Gyi. Mahasi Sayadaw arrived here just one year after Orwell, in 1925, after leaving his hometown of Seikkhun and prior to his intensive study in Mandalay and Moulmein. Finally, Ledi Sayadaw practiced the jhanas here in 1895 following his Indian pilgrimage. 

The photos seen with this text are from a monastic education monastery in Than Lyin today.

The Summit of her Ambition: The Spirited Life of Marie Byles

The Australian Marie Byles claimed to be the first Westerner to set foot in, and learn the Dhamma at, both Maha Bodhi Monastery in Mandalay and Thanboddhay Monastery in Monywa. She learned under Saya U Thein, the student of Saya Thet Gyi at the first site; then from Mohnyin Sayadaw, the greatest monastic disciple of Ledi Sayadaw at the second. She wrote meticulously about her experiences traveling and meditating throughout Burma in 1957 in Journey Into Burmese Silence, a book that is freely available here.

Now, Anne McLeod has written a biography about his pioneering woman, looking at what drove her to take trips few others were making at this time. 

Here is an excerpt about her life story:

In 1924 Marie Byles became the first woman allowed to practise law in New South Wales. Told she could only work as a law clerk, she triumphed over the patriarchal legal profession and a society that viewed women as second-class by establishing a successful practice. As legal advisor for women’s organisations in the 1930s she helped change legislation that discriminated against women’s rights in marriage and divorce – most cruelly, in the guardianship of their own children. Instead of the fame and fortune she could have earned through law Marie devoted herself to the conservation of the Australian environment. 

An early member of the elite Sydney Bush Walkers club, Marie and her friends (including Paddy Pallin who made their camping equipment) spent every weekend exploring unmapped terrain within reach of Sydney. As they grew to know and respect the landscape, the bushwalkers developed a commitment to protect the most beautiful and ecologically sensitive areas and became leaders of the conservation movement.
A zealous advocate for wilderness Marie worked as legal advisor on behalf of the Federation of Bushwalking Clubs to petition the government to reserve vast areas of land for future generations. Before the National Parks and Wildlife Service was constituted in 1967, bushwalkers took responsibility for managing the reserved areas by serving on Trusts and attending regular working bees to make paths that are still walked today. 

It was mountains though that held the greatest fascination for Marie. After reaching the summit of Mt Cook in 1928, she twice returned to New Zealand’s South Island to climb virgin peaks and map unexplored areas before leading an international expedition to south China in 1938. The failure of this dream became the catalyst of a journey into places not found on a map as she began a quest to find the meaning of life beyond success and failure.

Mohnyin Vipassana Monastery

Mohynin Sayadaw was one of the most prominent students of Ledi Sayadaw, and his more famous monastery can be visited near Monywa. This branch extension can be visited on the southern end of Golden Valley Road. Inside the compound are a large cluster of buildings, with newer and renovated multi-storied structures mixing with others made of wood that date back much further. This site was built for the monk in the 1940s, and Monhynin Sayadaw himself came here regularly to teach Vipassana practice over the course of the last 40 years of his life. (As a younger monk, following his venerable teacher Ledi Sayadaw's advice, he spent ten years without speaking while practicing intensive Vipassana meditation) 

Although the area is now considered an older part of town, when the monastery was first built there was only jungle here, with tigers roaming not far away. Foreigners are not allowed to stay here overnight, but the relics of the original Sayadaw may be viewed, and this makes a wonderful site for one to practice meditation amongst such purity and strong vibrations. Another shrine building has a large standing statue of the original Monyhin Sayadaw, next to one of a Buddha that is customarily placed in the center. The pagoda is also quite beautiful, and is a very suitable place for meditation. A new Mohnyin center is now being constructed in Nay Pyi Daw, and here foreign yogis will be welcome to stay and practice. For more information, contact Sayadaw U Indaka, the current abbot overseeing the center. As this is off the normal meditator-circuit, it is truly a special place to spend a day-- or many more-- silently pursuing one's meditative practice.

Standing statue of Mohnyin Sayadaw

Intersection of Dhamma Travel and Tourist Travel in Myanmar

 As Myanmar continues to open up, more and more Dhamma pilgrims can come to experience the richness of its Buddhist sites. Unfortunately, more and more tourists can also come to tramp around these very same Buddhist sites. Such a fact comes out in an article written by Douglas Long in My Magical Myanmar. He describes his visit to Monywa. This was the place recognized as the home of the great Ledi Sayadaw, which meditator David Lambert celebrated in his essay Chindwin by writing that “beyond the conventional radar, this is the heart of yogi tourism, where foreign meditators... come to explore the heartland of their spiritual souls. For some, this is the area ‘where it all began.’”

Now, however, as Long's essay shows, it is no longer "beyond the conventional radar," as for him, it is a place to be "sheltered in our air-conditioned room and [wait] until late afternoon for a walk around town."

Long goes on to write that "we... enjoyed the long, casual amble that took us past a statue of national hero Aung San on horseback, the town’s central clock tower, a buzzing street market and the Shwezigon Pagoda. At the riverside, we enjoyed fresh-squeezed sugarcane juice as we watched the sun descend toward the horizon." Shwezigon, of course, is the pagoda where Ledi Sayadaw lived, mediated, wrote, and taught after a great fire in Mandalay destroyed nearly all of his books and he retreated the then-capital city.

The next stop is Bodhi Ta Htaung, where Long writes: "Myanmar’s tourism boosters are fond of declaring that this statue is one of the tallest such images in the world, but given the Buddha’s teachings on humility and impermanence, these trifling boasts seem somewhat contrary to the spirit of the religion." Not known or mentioned by the casual tourist, however, is that the great Bodhi Ta Htaung Sayadaw, originally known as U Narada, practiced meditation across Upper Burma, although his work was hindered by bouts of tuberculosis. Even after becoming Sayadaw, he regularly planned extended self-courses to pursue his own meditation practice, going to such sites at West Prekhemma Monastery in Sagaing, Kyuakse Hill, Kaunghmudaw Pagoda, among others. Between 1988 and 2004, he also travelled extensively throughout Asia and the West. His last known words, said while in the hospital were: “He who always cultivates mindfulness, attains Nibbana. He who does not cultivate mindfulness, is born and dies endlessly. Lord Buddha delivered a discourse time and again, mindfulness should be cultivated at all times.”

The road to Bodhi Ta Htaung Monastery

Long's next stop is Thanboddhay Monastery, which he notes as a "beautifully painted in a riot of bright colours and decorated with thousands of small Buddha images." Much more importantly, however is the former Mohynin Sayadaw who oversaw this site. He was one of Ledi Sayadaw's most renowned students, and followed Ledi's advice by coming here to meditate ten years in seclusion without talking to another soul. When World War II struck Burma, this became a refuge for thousands of lay Buddhists, with many learning meditation for the first time. It was a thriving meditation center after the war, with unique meditation cells constructed along the walls of the inner compound that still exist today. 

Thanboddhay Monastery

Long also mentions passing by Letpadaung mine, and he notes that "Myanmar riot police had used unnecessarily heavy-handed tactics while confronting monks and villagers protesting against the environmental and communal impact of the mine." However, he seems to miss that it was not just environmental concerns that people had. Even more importantly, this was where Ledi Sayadaw resided for over one year, living remotely in a cave while practicing meditation, and the local Buddhist community did not want his cave damaged or access to the site prevented to future pilgrims.

Finally, Long visits Hpo Win Daung caves, about which he says this: "We wandered around the main hill, saw a few Buddhist monks looking into the alcoves, and ran into a group of local kids who asked for packets of shampoo." Much more important to the Dhamma pilgrim, however, is that this is the site where Saya Thet Gyi was instructed by Ledi Sayadaw to practice his own teachings, and where he made his earliest advancements in meditation practice.

One wonders if these sites will become open further and further to conventional tourists who do not know-- and are not interested-- about the rich and important dhammic past of these sites, or if they may also be visited by those who recognize the sacred importance of these sites within the great tradition of Burmese Buddhist practice.

Maha Ledi Monastery in Monywa, where Ledi Sayadaw resided

Chanting at Thanboddhay Monastery

When Pariyatti pilgrims descended upon Thanboddhay Monastery in Upper Burma in January 2014, they were pleasantly surprised to find nearly one hundred college students, who had arrived to chant Buddhist suttas at the holy site. The two groups were able to sit together in meditation for some time before making one another's acquaintance. One may be hard-pressed to imagine Western university students doing similar things in their free time!

Today, there are three distinct parts of the grounds: (1) the Thanboddhay area, (2), the old Mohnyin monastery and meditation center (sometimes known in English as Mohnyin Forest Monastery Retreat), and (3) Mogaung Pagoda. All sites were developed by Mohnyin Sayadaw, one of the earliest disciples of Ledi Sayadaw. He was advised by Ledi to spend ten years living in the forest, eating food only from alms rounds and avoiding speech with others. During the lifetime of Mohnyin Sayadaw, there were man-made “caves” or niches at this site where monks and yogis could sleep and meditate. It was also known as a site where many locals came to seek protection from the violence of World War II, and those that arrived were sheltered and kept safe until the war’s end. The Sayadaw was famous for laying down a strict code of discipline guaranteed to ensure the community’s survival, which prohibited waste of fuel and water, regular education to children, and daily maintenance and cleaning of the compound. As a result, thousands of Burmese survived when the Japanese left in 1945, and many of them following a strict Buddhist regimen as they did so. This resulted in the construction of a meditation center on the grounds following the war, as well as a pagoda and a collection of huts where yogis could stay for practice and carry on with their study. The grounds were divided in two, with monastics on one side and laypeople on the other, and further segregated by gender.

The monastery today bursts forward with color like few other Theravada Buddhist sites you will find in Myanmar. Built between 1939 and 1952 upon thirty-seven acres, it is believed to contain 573,888 distinct Buddha images and an additional 7350 relics and other holy material. Arriving at the complex, your eye sense door will be flooded with bright colors and your field of view will be filled with uncountable small Buddha images—some large statues but most are simple hand-sized figurines that literally cover the walls. The complex has been compared to Borobodur in Indonesia, and unlike other Burmese pagodas the entrances are not guarded by chinthe but instead by white elephants. Another unique feature is its shape, which has a square base topped by receding terraces, over which rise hundreds of small stupas (864 to be exact). There are many smaller monasteries to be found between the larger pavilions, each one featuring similar architectural style and motifs. Some statues feature fashionable ladies out of the 1930s on a stroll with parasols, dogs sneaking into open doorways, and some donors even commissioned their own likelihoods. There are several statues of Mohnyin Sayadaw himself, depicted at various stages in his life. One compound was even donated by the Tiger Balm family, easily identifiable by the two plaster tigers trying to scale the wall as two barefoot men in Western suits look on. There is also a large square pool filled with fish and turtles, known as Laik Kan, and the animals here are free from harm. Popped rice and watercress is sold nearby and can be fed to them by pilgrims. The large tower (completed in 1936) is called Arlain Nga Sint, or “Five Stages Spiral Tower”, and symbolizes the hair that Prince Siddhattha cut off before seeking his spiritual journey. The hair was said to float upwards, eventually reaching the King of the Celestials, who built Sulamuni Pagoda in the sky. Additionally there are twenty tagundaing (large decorated pillars), and many stone sculptures of different fruits that are venerated by local farmers.

To learn about current pilgrimage offerings, see here.

"The Beauty of Burmese Life is Hard to Qualify."

Pilgrims listen to a dhamma talk by monks in Sain Pyin Gyi, the small village where Ledi Sayadaw was born.

The following essay was written by Branden Macie, an American pilgrim who attended the recent Pariyatti pilgrimage in Burma (and is at present moment sitting a Satipattana course at Dhamma Joti!). The original piece can be found on the Living Vipassana website. To read more about the pilgrimages, see here. To learn about current pilgrimage offerings, see here.

"From January 2012 to March 2012 a nickel of wisdom arose in me while serving long-term at Dhamma Patapa in Jesup, Georgia, U.S.A. I was there to strengthen my individual walk in Dhamma and to share my merits with others who came for meditation alongside other meditators who wanted to apply the technique in daily life-like scenarios. At the time of my stay, I jumped into study (pariyatti) to gain a view of the context of Vipassana being taught there at the Center. Zipping through books with the lightning evaluation capacity which comes with strong concentration episodes, the texts chronicling the lineage of the Vipassana tradition appealed to me most.

One particular book which wedged a great impression in me was the Sayagyi U Ba Khin Journal where details unrelated to the teaching of the typical 10-day courses tested and touched my faithful side, enlivening my understanding of this Path. Leaving the center and maintaining the practice for years following that service period, heavy dreams of pilgrimaging within Burma made their eruption into my conscious stream over and over. Then, Burmese folks I’d meet would lift up those dreams further by inviting me to Dhamma related outings, studies unrelated to the language and practice Goenkaji’s teaching.

For the a long while a needle of uncertainty was lodged into my mind about living Dhamma through different techniques and actions than were known to me through the 10-day retreat center’s presentation. I held on so closely, so personally. The conditioning I’d developed was strong and a barrier to outside Dhamma works, events, and representations of ‘Dhamma’ began to form — I felt a bit off the mark even knowing the Buddha’s Liberation Teachings were specific to each individual. The attachment had to be let go of.

Navigating those walls, the concepts, the emotions they arose became easier with continued acceptance that Buddha’s Dhamma can’t only fit one categorization of language and practice. More important the Real Time at each individual’s mental level, efforts, and energies is where Dhamma exists and that’s gladdening.

Therefore, seeing Burma and the way the society has structured itself while noticing my own inner pilgrimage along the way helped me realize the vastness of walking toward liberation — all the efforts one CAN make for others (regardless of tradition). When one’s mind is settled into the heart of Right Intention much can be shared.

The beauty of Burmese life is hard to qualify. Learning of enlightened Arahats, even ones so recently passed away who revealed their attainments through body relics, were Great teachers of the Dhamma in their own special ways for the Burmese locals. The amount of devotion and merit gaining on a daily level in Burma is astoundingly high. One can go from Alms round serving monks to Pagodas for paying respects to Sayadaws and end the evening with a Dhamma talk on the Abidhamma or any of the hundreds of Suttas contained in the Tipitaka.

Pilgrims arrive at Thanboddhay Monastery, established by Mohnyin Sayadaw, a disciple of Ledi Sayadaw. Thousands of Burmese were sheltered here during World War II and learned meditation during this time. When the pilgrims arrived, dozens of Burmese college students were there for meditation and devotion.

The fruit to seeing the wider context of Buddha’s Dhamma is so sweet, so virtuous, so needed and for anyone interested in investigating Burma Dhamma, I would willingly be a contact point once one enters the country.

Here’s a quote by Harold Fielding from Soul of a People to end on:

“To hear of the Buddha from living lips in this country [Burma], which is full of his influence, where the spire of his monastery marks every village, and where every man has at one time or another been his monk, is quite a different thing to reading of him in far countries, under other skies and swayed by other thoughts. To sit in the monastery garden in the dusk, in just such a tropic dusk as He taught in so many years ago, and hearing the yellow-robed monk tell of that life, and repeat His teaching of love, charity, and compassion — eternal love, perfect charity, endless compassion — until the stars come out in the purple sky, and the silver-voiced gongs ring for evening prayers, is a thing never to be forgotten. As you watch the starlight die and the far-off hills fade into the night, as the sounds about you still, and the calm silence of the summer night falls over the whole earth, you know and understand the teacher of the Great Peace as no words can tell you. A sympathy comes to you from the circle of believers, and you believe, too. An influence and an understanding breathes from the nature about you — the same nature that the teacher saw — from the whispering fig-trees and the scented champaks, and the dimly seen statues in the shadows of the shrines, that you can never gain elsewhere. And as the monks tell you the story of that great life, they bring it home to you with reflection and comment that has application to your everyday existence.”

Two pilgrims relax at the base of a pagoda stupa