Who's U Pandita? Interview: The Best Remedy

Alan Clements, U Pandita's (Tricycle: The Buddhist Review); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

U Pandita at Panditarama Meditation Center, Burma, 2014

Regarded as one of the world’s most eminent meditation masters and Theravada Buddhist scholars, Venerable Sayadaw U Pandita of Burma (Myanmar) passed away on April 16, 2016, at the age of 94. 

Successor to Mahasi Sayadaw and spiritual adviser to Burma’s Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, Sayadaw U Pandita entered monastic life at the age of 12.

Through decades of experience in the theory and practice of meditation, he cultivated in others the motivation to know and experience the taste of the Dhamma, which he viewed as many times better than all the other tastes of the world.

Sayadaw is a good teacher.

With this goal in mind, he established meditation centers throughout the world, working tirelessly to share the Buddha’s Teachings, the Dhamma (Dharma) in accordance with the instructions of Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–1982), encompassing both texts and practice so that neither would be omitted.

He lived as head teacher for eight years at the Mahasi Meditation Centre in Rangoon, where the worldwide mass lay insight meditation movement began in 1947, until 1990, when he founded the meditation and study monastery Panditarama Shwe Taung Gon Sasana Yeiktha, also in Rangoon.

In the months before his death, Sayadaw-gyi (as he was known in his later years, the suffix -gyi meaning “great”) granted me a special invitation to discuss the “dhamma of reconciliation.”

Over eight successive nights in February 2016, Sayadaw-gyi shared the wisdom that forms “Dhamma Advice to a Nation,” his final message to those seeking to heal from decades of brutal totalitarian rule in Burma.

The following interview is a short excerpt from that material. While his is perhaps the most renowned and respected voice, U Pandita was but one of many of Burma’s “voices of freedom” — the courageous individuals who have fought for human rights and democracy against the tyranny of one of history’s most vicious military regimes, often at risk of imprisonment, sometimes at the cost of their lives.

And while the realities of our inhumanity to one another still threaten to drag us into realms alien and incomprehensible, the message of these voices, of freedom through reconciliation, comes from the front lines of a familiar and collective struggle for justice, dignity, and triumph over oppression in all its forms.

–Alan Clements

The following interview will appear in the book Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s Voices of Freedom in Conversation with Alan Clements and its accompanying film highlighting those at the heart of Burma’s 28-year nonviolent revolution of the spirit.

It is common to react to violation with hurt, anger, outrage, and at times revenge. As we know, many millions of people in [this] country have been oppressed for over 50 years by a succession of dictatorships. What advice can you offer those who harbor feelings of hostility and retribution?

Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi

How can one overcome those feelings and refrain from acting on them? Forbearance is the best. In this country we say, “Khanti [forbearance] is the highest virtue.”

In the human world we are certain to encounter things we do not like. If every time one encounters difficulty there is no forbearance and one retaliates, there will be no end to human problems. There will only be quarrels.

To be patient and forbear fully, there must be the ability to reason, to think logically. Without forbearance, a fight occurs, both sides get hurt, and there’s no relief. Many wrongs are done.

When one can forbear, the quarrel quiets. In this, one needs to add metta — the desire for another’s welfare. When the desire for the welfare of others becomes strong, one can be patient and forbearing.

Aung San Suu Kyi pays respects to U Pandita at his meditation center, Panditarama, 2013

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When harmed, one can forgive, one can give up one’s own benefit and make sacrifices.

So to end the cycle of conflict, first neutralize one’s reaction? There are two kinds of enemies, or danger -- the danger of akusala and the danger in the form of a person.

Akusala are the unwholesome deeds that occur when lobha [desire, selfishness], dosa [anger, cruelty, hatred], and moha [delusion, foolishness] are extreme.

These are called the internal enemy. They are also called the nearest danger because they are inside one’s own mind.

Danger in the form of a person is an external enemy, a person who is hostile to us.

The Buddha practiced to gradually weaken the internal enemies until they disappeared. What is the basis, the spiritual or moral motivation, to refrain from committing unwholesome deeds, akusala?

One should be as disgusted by akusala as one would shrink from picking up a red-hot coal. With a healthy disgust and fear, understanding that participating in unwholesome deeds brings trouble, one can refrain from wrongdoing.

Further, there should be consideration for others. One should spare others because one understands how they would feel if harmed. That is important.

Hiri and ottapa [moral shame and moral dread] and consideration for others are the qualities that motivate one to refrain from performing unwholesome deeds.

Hiri and ottappa are also called the deva dhammas. Deva dhammas means dhammas [mental qualities] that make virtues brilliant.

When one lacks these, one’s human virtues fade. The quality of behaving like a human being, being able to keep one’s mentality humane, having human intelligence, being able to develop special human knowledge — without moral shame and moral fear, all these human virtues fade.

When one has these qualities, one’s virtues become bright. They are the dhammas that make human virtues shine. They are also called the lokapala dhammas.

Lokapala means “the guardians of the world.” They preserve the world, keep it from being destroyed.

What’s important here is one’s own individual world as well as the world around one. To the extent that these qualities are strong, one’s own world is secure, and equally, one no longer harms the surrounding world.

We know that if there isn’t some preventive measure to cure the delusions of the old guard, the very horrors of that old order — imprisoning people, torturing them, and denying them their most basic human rights — could easily recur.

And generation to generation, we’d have the same problems.

In your worldview, how do these dhamma attributes of forbearance and lovingkindness intersect with accountability and justice? Don’t we need accountability and justice for reconciliation to become real?

Those who have done wrong should correct it by dhamma means, just like when a monk commits a monastic offense. They should make an honest admission: “This act and that act were wrong. I ask your forgiveness.”

No matter how great the fault, with this, about half [the people] will be satisfied. They will have lovingkindness [for those who confess their wrong]. A hero/heroine, a person who is courageous, has the courage to admit one’s mistakes, one’s faults.

Such a person also has the courage to do things that are beneficial for society. The most effective way to create peace among the people is for the oppressors to courageously admit their faults and reconcile with the oppressed. That is the best.

One should understand that wrongs done because of selfish greed bring only bad results. On the other hand, tasks done free of selfishness, with lovingkindness and compassion present, bring only good results.

One should understand the nature of good and bad results. If one knows neither the unpleasant results of lacking lovingkindness or compassion nor the pleasant results from having lovingkindness and compassion at the forefront, there is blind stupidity. There is darkness.

And with darkness, one can’t see. As long as this understanding is absent, one lacks moral shame and moral dread. And the cycle of oppression continues? Without moral shame and moral fear, there are unwholesome actions. With moral shame and moral dread, there are pure, clean, wholesome actions. That is important.

What should one do to prevent problems from occurring in the world? There should be both control and preservation, so that one’s personal world is not destroyed and the world outside one is protected from harm.

And if the number of people were to become great who kept their own individual world from being destroyed by restraining unwholesome thoughts, speech, and actions, the world would become peaceful.

Another way to foster self-restraint is to have consideration for others. When there are thoughts, speech, and actions strong enough to cause suffering, reflect: Just as I do not wish to suffer, neither do others wish to suffer. As such, one avoids doing harm.

Being able to put oneself in another’s place is very important. Because people try to conquer others instead of gaining victory over themselves, there are problems.

The Buddha taught that one should simply gain victory over oneself.

• PHOTO: Sayadaw U Pandita's body in its glass casket at Panditarama, April 2016.
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