Enlightened Dipa Ma with Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Meditation) (eds.), Ellie Askew, Wisdom Quarterly

Sharon Salzberg, daughter Dipa, Saint Dipa Ma, Roy Bonney, Calcutta, India (dipama.com)

Dipa Ma: An extraordinary female Buddhist master in the 20th century (Buddhistdoor.net)
What's an enlightened person look like? Judge not. There is no physical way to tell.

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Sharon Salzberg (sharonsalzberg.com)

Today is the 32nd anniversary of [enlightened householder and Buddhist teacher] Dipa Ma's passing. I remember Dipa Ma (dipama.com) not only as my teacher but as a woman, a mother, and a grandmother.

I remember her sitting on the floor of the house in Barre where she and her family were staying when they visited the Insight Meditation Society. She would be playing games with her young grandson, Rishi -- laughing. Then she would get up to instruct someone in meditation.

Dipa Ma: Life a Buddhist Master

Afterwards, perhaps she might go wash her clothes by hand and hang them out to dry. She might do walking meditation then return to the house to sit.

• DIPA MA: Nani Bala Barua (March 25, 1911-September 1989) was a Bangladeshi/Indian meditation teacher of Theravada Buddhism of Barua descent. She was the extraordinary student of Anagarika Munindra. She was a prominent lay Buddhist meditation master in Asia and also taught in the United States, where she influenced the American branch of the Vipassana movement because of her involvement with Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Her story is told in Knee Deep in Grace: The Extraordinary Life and Teaching of Dipa Ma by Amy Schmidt. More

Knee Deep in Grace (A. Schmidt)

Rishi would be running around the room while Dipa Ma's daughter, Dipa, would be cooking. Dipa Ma would be meditating right there in the midst of all that activity.

Whenever anyone sat down in front of her, she would open her eyes and shower the person with blessings. This was how Dipa Ma taught, with warmth, simplicity, and goodheartedness.

Many times I hear her voice whispering to me, challenging me to extend myself to find what I am actually capable of, especially in terms of love and compassion.

She was an incredible model of kindness, the type born of great suffering and a consequent constant remembrance of what is really important.

In meditation we can always begin again.

When I find myself hesitating, frightened of opening up to somebody, I see an image of her as she comes out of meditation in a chaotic room and blesses someone.

I hear her voice encouraging me. Then, filled with her blessing, I reach beyond my fears to find within me the lovingkindness she embodied so strongly.

• Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master (Amy Schmidt, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg
• Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra by Mirka Knaster, Joseph Goldstein