Liberation through the Kanni Method of Vipassana and Samatha

The following was written by Dr. Khin Maung Win, describing his experience at Bodhi Aye Nyein Yeiktha. They teach within the tradition of Kanni Sayadaw, who taught Sayadaw U Wayama, the famed presumed Arahant of Prekhemma Monastery in the Sagaing Hills. Kanni Sayadaw 

was also a younger contemporary of Ledi Sayadaw, and a meeting between the two great monks is memorialized in a statue exhibit in Kanni village.

“I practiced the Insight meditation by means of the mindfulness of breathing. At the first stage, I had to practice to comprehend the nature of materiality. The observing mind penetrated the body. The brain, the skull, the heart and the spinal cord and ribs where burnt [sic] and destroyed, the skull became a fine gauze, the skeleton was broken down. When the observing mind pin-pointed at the toughness of the body, the feeling of pains disappeared and the mind knew that the materiality was subject to decay.

Then I practiced to comprehend the immateriality. The observing mind highlighted on the severe pain. It was composed of many small pains. Each small pain showed their own nature of pricking, hotness, numbness, coldness, hardness, and each of which were in flux. The whole body became minute particles and then disintegrated. Only the observing mind was left in the sense of knowing.

When I pracied to comprehend the condition factors of mind and matter, the whole physical body changed to the particles, some of which were in tremendous motion and some in slow motion. At that stage, the last eleven past extensces were seen in my mind’s eye. The first four existences were a tiger, a horse, a goat, and a cow. The fifth was a woman. That woman reverended [sic] a high priest and did a lot of wholesome deeds with the intention of becoming a monk in the future life.

As a result of good deeds the next life was a monk. That monk trained himself and followed the disciplines and rules for monks. The seventh life was a god. The successive life was an acestic who took delight with sensual pleasure. The next was a pig. That pig wanted to be free and wished to run like a rat. So, the tenth life was a rat. It was afraid of cats and wanted to be a cat. The eleventh was a cat. That cat lived in a monastery. It was familiar with the Triple Gem and never chased the rats. The wholesome deeds done in the monk’s life reinforced to be reborn in the human wold.

One day, when that cat suffered from the disease of ageing, a lay woman came to the monastery and made donation. Soon after the woman went back hom then the cat died and followed the woman. That woman became my mother in the present life.

During the practice of Insight meditation, I saw the blood flowing thorugh every nook and corner of the body, and everything in the body were in flux. More than that I saw the dissolution of all parts of the body. The whole body was seemed to be [sic] a fearful disaster or a great enemy. I felt weariness of living with that socalled body. I wanted to liberate [sic] from that pyscho-phyiscal aggregates.

I kept on practicing with steadfast mindfulness to observe the phenomena of mind-matter processes in all four postures. I encountered the intense light beams, more brilliant than the light image, appeared in me and I felt the great rapture.

Once the physical body transformed into particles and disappeared while the observing mind rapidly moved to a far distance… I observed the rise-fall phenomena for half an hour, then I was in void, and enjoyed a peaceful feeling. When the observing mind reappeared, I observed the nature of impermanence.”