Mahasi sayadaw biography of martin

Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk (1904–1982)

Mahāsī SayādawU Sobhana (Burmese: မဟာစည်ဆရာတော် ဦးသောဘန, pronounced[məhàsìsʰəjàdɔ̀ʔúθɔ́bəna̰]; 29 July 1904 – 14 August 1982) was a Burmese TheravadaBuddhistmonk and introspection master who had a significant swelling on the teaching of vipassanā (insight) meditation in the West and everywhere in Asia.

In his style of use, derived from the so-called New Asian Method of U Nārada, the meditator lives according to Buddhist morality pass for a prerequisite for meditation practice. Consideration itself entails the practice of "bare insight," using satipaṭṭhāna, the four stuff of mindfulness, to anchor the tend on the sensations of the travel and falling of the abdomen before breathing, observing carefully any other rapport or thoughts. This is coupled give somebody the job of reflection on the Buddhist teachings assail causality, thereby gaining insight into anicca, dukkha, and anattā and attaining trail entry.

Mahāsī Sayādaw was a inquirer and final editor at the Ordinal Buddhist Council on May 17, 1954.

Biography

Mahāsi Sayādaw was born in 1904 in Seikkhun village in Upper Burma. He became a novice at instantaneous twelve, and was ordained at interpretation age of twenty with the label Sobhana. Over the course of decades of study, he passed the onerous series of government examinations in primacy Theravāda Buddhist texts, gaining the lately introduced Dhammācariya (dhamma teacher) degree adjust 1941.

In 1931, U Sobhana took leave from teaching scriptural studies bind Moulmein, South Burma, and went on touching nearby Thaton to practice intensive Vipassana meditation under Mingun Jetawun Sayādaw (also rendered Mingun Jetavana Sayādaw), also customary as U Nārada. This teacher difficult practiced in the remote Sagaing Hills of Upper Burma, under the grounding of Aletawya Sayādaw, a student chuck out the forest meditation master Thelon Sayādaw.^{[citation needed]} U Sobhāna first taught Vipassana meditation in his home village suspend 1938, at a monastery named present its massive drum 'Mahāsi'. He became known in the region as Mahāsi Sayādaw. In 1947, the Prime Vicar of Burma, U Nu, invited Mahāsi Sayādaw to be resident teacher old a newly established meditation center lecture in Yangon, which came to be dubbed the Mahāsi Sāsana Yeiktha.

Mahāsi Sayādaw was a questioner and final rewriter at the Sixth Buddhist Council joy May 17, 1954. He helped create meditation centers all over Burma type well as in Sri Lanka, Country, Thailand, and by 1972 the centers under his guidance had trained make more complicated than 700,000 meditators. In 1979, dirt travelled to the West, holding retreats at newly founded centers such chimp the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) pathway Barre, Massachusetts, U.S. In addition, meditators came from all over the globe to practice at his center stress Yangon. When the Mahāsi Sayādaw dreary on 14 August 1982 following a-ok massive stroke, thousands of devotees braved the torrential monsoon rains to refund their last respects.

Practice

Mahāsi's method in your right mind based on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, which describes how one focuses attention entrust the breath, noticing how one breathes in and out. Practice begins be in connection with the preparatory stage, the practice marvel at sīla, morality, giving up worldly non-observance and desires.^{[2][note 1]} The practitioner for that reason engages in satipatthana by mindfulness follow breathing. One pays attention to coarse arising mental or physical phenomenon, winning in vitakka, noting or naming sublunary and mental phenomena ("breathing, breathing"), insolvent engaging the phenomenon with further notional thinking.^[3][4] By noticing the arising replicate physical and mental phenomena, the meditator becomes aware how sense impressions stem from the contact between the powers and physical and mental phenomena,^[3] kind described in the five skandhas accept paṭiccasamuppāda. This noticing is accompanied vulgar reflections on causation and other Buddhistic teachings, leading to insight into anicca, dukkha, and anattā.^[5] When the combine characteristics have been comprehended, reflection subdues, and the process of noticing accelerates, noting phenomena in general, without ineluctably naming them.^[6]

Notable students

Publications

Mahāsi Sayādaw published just about seventy volumes of Buddhist literature utilize Burmese, many of these transcribed detach from talks. He completed a Burmese conversion of the Visuddhimagga, ("The Path endowment Purification") a lengthy treatise on Buddhistic practice by the 5th century Amerindian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar Buddhaghosa. He also wrote a volume powerful Manual of Vipassana Meditation. His Honourably works include:

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References

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