Amy Schmidt, Sara Jenkins (dipama.com), originally published in Buddhadharma Magazine, Spring 2003; edited by Dhr. Seven and Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly
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| Sharon Salzberg, Dipa Ma (seated), and Roy Bonney in India (dipama.com photo gallery) |
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| Awakened daughter Dipa with mother and teacher Dipa Ma (right) at home in Calcutta, India |
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| Dipa Ma with husband (dipama.com) |
Dipa Ma (1911-1989) taught Buddhist Vipassana or insight meditation in Burma, India, and the USA. Gautama Buddha’s familiar story follows the archetypal heroic journey:
He renounced, leaving behind wife and child and the throne, all the allures of the ordinary world to seek the supreme life seeking liberation from suffering and rebirth.
Dipa Ma followed a similar path, but it took an unexpected turn. Ultimately, she took her practice home again, just as the Buddha returned to Shakya Land to save his family, friends, and the Scythians.
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| Dipa Ma with Westerner in Bodh Gaya, India |
Her responsibilities as a parent were clarified by her spiritual practice; she made decisions based not on guilt and obligation but on wisdom and compassion arising from meditation.
Instead of withdrawing to a forest hermitage or cave, Dipa Ma stayed home and taught from her bedroom — appropriately enough, a room with no door.
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| Wig play with Western and Eastern meditation students. She was stern and ultra loving. |
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| Knee Deep in Grace (A. Schmidt) |
Born Nani Bala Barua, later known as "Dipa's Mother," in 1911 in a village on the plains of Chittagong, Bangladesh (which at the time was British India).
The tiny indigenous Buddhist culture there traces its lineage in an unbroken line back to the Buddha. By the time Dipa Ma was born, meditation practice had almost disappeared among her clan (the Baruas), but they did continue to observe Buddhist customs and rituals.
Though intensely interested in Buddhism from a young age like most Asian women of her era, Dipa Ma had little opportunity to undertake serious spiritual training.
However, by midlife she came to devote herself fully to meditation, attaining profound levels of mental unification (samadhi, jhana, purifying concentration) and insight in just a short time.
She found a way to incorporate her family into her spiritual journey and went on to teach specific techniques for practicing mindfulness in the midst of everyday activities.
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| Westerners loved Dipa Ma (Susan O'Brien) |
Dipa Ma’s influence has been widely felt in the West, in part due to her relationship with the three founders of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts.
She was a primary teacher of Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, as well as one of Jack Kornfield’s teachers.
Kornfield recalls that Dipa Ma’s first questions were always, “How are you feeling? How is your health? Are you eating well?” No matter who showed up or what state they were in, Dipa Ma reached out to them with love.
Both Salzberg and Goldstein call her “the most loving person I have ever met.”
IMS teacher Michele McDonald-Smith considers meeting Dipa Ma a turning point in her life. “At the time I met her,” McDonald-Smith says, “there were mostly male role models — male teachers, male buddhas.
“To meet a woman householder who lived with her daughter and grandson — and who was that enlightened — it was more profound than I can put into words. She embodied what I deeply wanted to be like. For me as a woman householder, I immediately felt, ‘If she can do this, I can do this, too.’” More
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