Ledi Sayadaw and Mahasi Sayadaw... sharing a home?

On a visit with Myanmar Pilgrimage to the Pyinmana monastery where Ledi Sayadaw lived between 1914-16, we were taken into the inner shrine area where Ledi resided, wrote, and meditated. Here we found two photos: one of Ledi, and the other of an elder Mahasi Sayadaw. In the West such a side by side juxtaposition would be comparable to the American baseball fan hanging Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees pennants in his house (e.g., that of two opposing teams). But in Myanmar, there is nothing the slightest bit out of the ordinary by this arrangement, in which the current monastic resident merely wishes to show his great respect for the two meditation masters, scriptural scholars, and Burmese Buddhist reformers.

Where the lineage lines outside of Myanmar can appear as fixed and rigid, these hard lines are transposed within the country as being dotted instead of solid, and fluid rather than set. Here, it is well understood that spiritual masters usually develop through a variety of influential teachers (either living or in the past) as well as contemporaries, and in many cases charting clear causal lines of influence can be somewhat arbitrary or artificial. That is why, then, it is completely normal to find a portrait of Mahasi Sayadaw in the monastery where Ledi lived and taught for two years, and just a drive away from the site where he ultimately passed away and was cremated.

This site is called "Zingyan Monastery", the Burmese word zingyan indicting a walking meditation path, so the site name suggests that this is where Ledi practiced mindful walking. The current abbot kindly showed us the very path where the great Ledi's feet once tread. Passing through a row of trees on either side and heading towards the ruins of an old water tank that captured and stored rain water, the modern yogi can retrace Ledi's very footsteps while following his instructions of mindfulness. The last picture is the Burmese plaque still standing of the donor who sponsored this practice area for Ledi.

The Death of Ledi Sayadaw

Ledi Sayadaw spent the last two years of his life at Zingyan monastery in Pyinmana. U Sarana explains that the Burmese term Zingyan (စႀကၤံ) is derived from the Pāḷi word cankamana, which means “walking up and down.” The Buddha’s doctor, Jīvaka Komārabhacca, recommended walking as a way to maintain health, and the Buddha acknowledged the value of this advice by suggesting that monks use special paths for walking meditation (from the Mahāvagga, the third book of Vinaya Piṭaka). In Burmese, the term “zingyan” often refers to a place where walking meditation is practiced, so it may indicate Ledi's dhamma practice at that time. By then, however, he had gone completely blind, the result of so many years of reading and writing in poorly lit places.

In 1923, the day before a full moon, a strong earthquake rocked the region, and the monastery trembled. Ledi lay on his bed and explained to his students that this was in fact a request from the devas that he teach them the Abhidhamma in the Celestial Realms, suggesting that the human realm had already benefited adequately from his years of guidance. After a second earthquake occurred the following day, Ledi instructed his top disciples to recite the Mahāpaṭṭhāna (Pañhāvāra Pāli) from the Abhidhamma, since it was now his time to depart the human realm entirely. The moment the recitation finished, at 2:30 p.m., Ledi passed away. He was 76 years old. Apparently his death was partly due to accidental poisoning from a laxative herb by a visiting Thai monk, who fled in terror when he realized what had happened.

The photograph shows an American meditator standing before the central Buddha image at Ledi Sayadaw's forest monastery in Monywa. 

Ledi Sayadaw's Legacy

Ledi Sayadaw was a dynamic figure whose great accomplishments continue to be felt today, even a century after his death, in both the mundane as well as spiritual spheres. As with other great innovators and transformational figures throughout history, the complete extent of his influence (on Burmese society, culture and the spread of Dhamma) is hard to measure. 

However, one can say that many of the subsequent monastic biographies, meditation practices, and contemporary characteristics of Burmese Buddhism were built—either directly or indirectly— upon Ledi’s sturdy foundation.

The photo below shows the Third Ledi Sayadaw at Maha Ledi in Pyinmina, the site where Ledi passed away. The current monk is showing kamawasa written by Ledi and still stored at the monastery today. 

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

"What's So Special About the Sagaing Hills?"

Regarding the recent news about U Sarana undertaking an intensive research trip in the Sagaing Hills, some readers who have not been to Myanmar have asked, "what's so special about this area, anyway?"

This is a fair question, and one that would require a book to answer-- or, perhaps, the upcoming Shwe Lan Ga Lay.

One cannot find the words to adequately describe such an unusual gem as these Hills. It is noteworthy that it has played critical roles in the genesis of the two major Burmese Buddhist practices that have been exported from Burma: Mahasi Sayadaw and Sayagyi U Goenka. It was in Sagaing, at Thameikdawdaya Nunnery just after World War II, in 1947, where Sir U Thwin beheld Mahasi Sayadaw speaking for the first time. He was transfixed listening to the sermon, and later remarked that “[Mahasi Sayadaw] was teaching with utmost dignity in a tranquil state of mind without any distraction….This eminent teacher is the savior I have been searching for.” Conferring with Prime Minister U Nu, Sir U Thwin invited Mahasi Sayadaw to the newly opened Sasana Yeiktha in Rangoon, asking him to be the lead teacher here. It was from this this center where the Mahasi movement swept not only Burma but the entire Southeast Asian region in unprecedented ways, an unparalleled Dhammic movement that had its origins in a humble Sagaing nunnery.

Similarly, U Goenka has suggested that Ledi Sayadaw learned Vipassana meditation deep in the Sagaing Hills from an unknown master. Although there are questions about this speculation, it is extremely significant that this region would be chosen as the origin of Ledi's Vipassana practice, for it is a region especially known for patipatti-minded monks. Ledi would be asked on two separate occasions to return to the Sagaing Hills to drive away plague epidemics, and was successful both times, according to one monk biographer. He also spent the last couple years of his life in a monastery near the Ayeyarwaddy River (although passed away in Pyinmina), where pilgrims can still today go and meditate just beyond the peaceful flowing river. It was also here where he was given the highest award by British colonials. (by this time, however, Ledi was legally blind, having exhausted his eyesight from his continual reading and writing) Also, perhaps U Goenka's greatest contemporary Dhamma friend in Myanmar was Sitagu Sayadaw, who played a critical role for the spread of U Goenka's teachings within Myanmar. And Sitagu Sayadaw, of course, established his famed Sitagu Academy just at the foot of the Hills-- and is now building a massive Vipassana Center much deeper into the Hills in the model of Borobudur in Indonesia.

Until just a generation ago, tigers roamed the dense forestation of the Sagaing Hills, and some monks even today bear tiger scars upon their bodies from attacks that occurred during alms rounds-- talk about unwholesome kamma for the great beasts! Countless arahants have been produced from these Hills, and the surviving stories of their challenges and ultimate successes make some of the most inspiring reading available to meditators today-- it is histories and stories such as these that U Sarana hopes to further track down.