Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Sayadaw U Pandita
Sayadaw U Pandita (b. 1921 in Burma and also known as
Ovadacariya Sayadaw U Panditabhivamsa) is one of the foremost and
most accomplished living meditation masters in the Vipassana or
Theravada Buddhist tradition. He is the abbot of
Panditarama Monastery in Yangon Myanmar, the successor to
Mahasi Sayadaw and one of the teachers who brought the Mahasi
style of Vipassana meditation to the West.
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Brief Biography
Sayadaw U Pandita was born in 1921 in the greater Yangon area in Myanmar. He became a novice at age twelve, and ordained at age 20. He passed the rigorous series of government teachership examinations to become a dhamma teacher or Dhammachariya between 1915 and 1952.
He began studying Vipassana meditation using the meditation instructions of Mahasi Sayadaw beginning in 1950.
He has been the principal preceptor in the Mahasi tradition beginning in 1982, and he has founded a group of his own meditation centers in Burma, Nepal, Australia and the United States. He became well-known in the West after he conducted a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society Centre in Barre, Mass in Spring of 1984 in the United States. He leads retreats and gives dharma talks, but no longer conducts interviews.
A complete biography by Thâmanay Kyaw is available at http://vmc128.8m.com/contents/index.html under the title "One Life's Journey"
Method and style of teaching
Sayadaw U Pandita is known for teaching a relentless (a.k.a. as heroic) and precise method of self-examination. He teaches satipatthana meditation with an emphasis on vipassana meditation, and which has as its basis sila or mental and moral discipline. He is also a scholar of the Pali Tipitaka or Theravada Buddhist canon of the first order.
Complete meditation instructions from Sayadaw U Pandita are available at: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/pandita3.htm
A first hand account of meditation at his forest center near Yangoon is in audio format by Diana Winston is available at http://www.audiodharma.org/mp3files/DianaWinston_022501_NoDistractions.mp3
Publications
In This Very Life, Wisdom Publications, 2002, ISBN 0861713117 also available in part on the web at: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/pandita9.htm
On The Path to Freedom available as a free e-book in PDF format at http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/path-free.pdf
Quotations
Back on the first trip abroad the author accompanied Sayadaw on, we stayed one night at the cousin of the King of Thailand. At the Bangkok airport, she asked Sayadaw a question,
"If you were to give the most concise, the most clear explanation of the nature of vipassanâ possible, how would you do it?"
Sayadaw had the king's cousin open her palm and then make a fist. "What do you perceive?" he asked.
"I perceive tension and hardness, Bhante," the king's cousin answered.
Sayadaw had her spread her hand, "What do you perceive?" he asked again.
"I perceive loosening and movement, Bhante," she answered.
Sayadaw told her to slowly, minutely and mindfully make a fist and open it. "What do you perceive?" he asked again. She answered, "Other than coming to perceive even more the tension and hardness, looseness and movement, I came to perceive hardness and softness, warmth and coolness."
"That kind looking to perceive the natures which are, as they are, is the work of vipassanâ," Sayadaw said. When he said that, she understood well the nature of vipassanâ. She was extremely pleased with Sayadaw's ability to give such an immediate and experiential explanation. Most people think that Vipassanâ is extremely difficult work. It seemed that the Thai king's cousin had thought that way, too. Apparently, she concluded that though she had thought it difficult work before, now that Sayadaw had explained it, it was quite easy.
Excerpt from "One Life's Journey", chapter on Vipassana.
Monasteries
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