Saturday 28 April 2018

Webu and U Ba Khin: An Extraordinary Friendship


Much has been written about the special Dhamma relationship between Sayagyi U Ba Khin and Webu Sayadaw. Here is Gustaaf Houtman's take on it:

"Nonetheless, good meditation teachers establish credibility with their pupils by demonstrating their knowledge of the scriptures. 
But U Ba Khin, whose Buddhist knowledge was primarily based on self-taught experience, needed to have his competence in scriptural learning confirmed by third parties, mainly by monks. U Ba Khin's knowledge of scriptural learning was established indirectly from famous learned monks such as the Webu Sayadaw and others, who appear every once in a while in the hagiography to sanction U Ba Khin's teachings as correct. His work `Scriptural learning is the basis of practice' recorded Webu Sayadaw's teachings, and visiting famous monks (in particular Webu Sayadaw himself) sanctioned it; this helped confirm U Ba Khin's teachings as scripturally correct. Above all, however, U Ba Khin's quality of scriptural learning was borrowed from his teacher lineage, the practice side of a lineage combining scriptural learning and practice earlier on. So though U Ba Khin advocated meditation as a layman for laymen, the monk was crucial to the U Ba Khin life as described in the hagiography; he sought permission to teach from monks, for his funeral monk's advice was sought, and so on."

Stay tuned for the upcoming Shwe Lan Ga Lay Part 2, the meditator's guide to Burma, in which we discuss the relationship and influences of these two great men in extraordinary detail, and how this affected the worldwide transmission of the Dhamma. 

2 comments:

  1. Dear brother and sister,

    I am Myanmar who working in Malaysia more than 10 years and I would like to explain about SAMNAK SAMBODHI BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION. Therefore, recently I stayed at SASANARAKKHA BUDDHIST SANCTUARY (SBS), Taiping, Perak. I am very close with Ven. U Nandiya Maha Thero.

    My monk Ven. U Nandiya is very good heart and compassion to everyone in the world, also I heard when he stayed at Kuala Lumpur Buddhist Temple, he lends donation money to President of Temple (Datuk Yip Kum Fook, MCA Gombak) with amount RM20,000.00 only and he said that money belong to Myanmar society in Malaysia.

    On the other hand, my monk said, also many things happened when he stayed there because committees always disturbing, I am very sadly about that matter, why committees are very poor and crooks. Others Temple, people come to Temple to respected Buddha and Monks, also give red packet to monks. Why this Temple, monks must give money to committees, this is opposite.

    If anyone receive or read this message, please inform to DATUK YIP KUM FOOK (president of SAMNAK SAMBODHI BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION) to return that amount to my monk as soon as possible.

    My monk contact place:
    Ven. U Nandiya
    Sasana Daja Buddhist Temple
    49 Bombay Street, Lidcombe NSW 2141.
    Tel: (02) 9649-8124
    And:
    SĀSANĀRAKKHA BUDDHIST SANCTUARY
    c/o: 28 & 30, 1st floor, Jalan Medan Taiping 4.
    Medan Taiping 34000, Taiping, Perak, Malaysia.

    With kindness

    KO KO NAING
    Taiping, Perak, Malaysia

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  2. If you are a Buddhist monk from abroad to come and stay in any Buddhist association in Malaysia, any Buddhist monk should be more careful because some Malaysian Buddhist associations as committees are very dirty in their minds and they do not have Dhamma in their mind they (without Dhamma)

    For example, SAMNAK SAMBODHI one of Buddhist Temple (Malaysia Buddhist Association) located at Taman Desa Jaya, Kepong… YIP KUM FOOK as president, there is another more problem because the committee is like a ghost and animals

    Committees in SAMNAK SAMBODHI, they can collect any money from Buddhist monks, whose monks live in the Temple, one of our Myanmar Buddhist monks (VEN. U NANDIYA) lives there, the temple committee cheated his money about rm20,000.00, our monk is very sadly about that

    On the other hand, VEN. PHRA PIYA DHAMMO from Penang also committees at SAMNAK SAMBODHI BUDDHIST TEMPLE remove him out, without any mistake, this is very stupid committees in the world

    If anyone reading this message, please forward it to anyone who knows...we will protect and save Buddhists teaching

    Sharing by Buddhist groups in Malaysia & Myanmar Buddhist People in Malaysia

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