10% Happier with Beth Upton (Dan Harris)

There's happiness that does not depend on external things the Budda called piti (rapture)

Beth Upton as Brit Buddhist nun in Burma

Friends, at the beginning of the year, I made a commitment to write more. Since then, I have actually done a little writing every single day. Five gold stars!

Writers tell me it is important to keep up the habit, that practice makes progress. Obviously, it’s the same with meditation, so I am humbly practicing what I preach, trusting that if I just keep writing, eventually something good will come of it.

At the same time, it would be a huge help to know what readers actually want to read about.

Awesome enlightened teacher Pa Auk Sayadaw

My strength, if I dare say so myself, is attending and attuning to the person sitting in front of me. I’ve never been great at addressing a large or anonymous audience. It’s never quite clear what’s being requested of me with such an audience.

So when I sit down to write, I’m often left with a sense of well, What do readers want to know?

A few weeks ago, I recorded a podcast (see above) with the charming Dan Harris. As one can see, I enjoyed the conversation. He asked great questions and did a wonderful job of playing proxy for the average viewer who doesn’t know too much about the world of advanced Buddhist meditation.

• How contemplating reincarnation can upgrade your life
• Journey to Pa-Auk Forest Monastery? (Pa-Auk Tawya)

The first time Pa Auk Sayadaw came to America, he was invited to California in Napa

.

For me, it was my first real foray into addressing an audience I do not know. The same issue crops up here. Of all the precious and hidden gems the Dhamma (the Buddha’s Teaching) has to offer, which of them should I give this hour to? Again, instinct prompts me to ask, What does anyone want to know?

Podcast interview

Venerable Sayadaw Ashin Revata

Dan and I touch on past lives, absorption (jhana), science, and its relationship to the Buddha’s “Doctrine in Ultimate Terms” (Abhidhamma), eventually landing on a topic dear to my heart: the skillful and wholesome (kusala).

But the topic choice from my side was basically just a series of guesses. I don’t really have a clue what the average viewer of Dan’s podcast, or the average reader of my newsletter might want to know more about.

So please let me know at bethupton.com. Let me know in our next one-on-one meeting, or on a group call, or better still, in the comments below.

Also, if anyone would like for me to do more podcasts like this one with Dan Harris, please take a moment to like the video and leave a comment there.

Let us know in the comments which kinds of things the world would want to hear more from me in future videos.

Another successful Western female student of Pa Auk Sayadaw: Dr. Nikki

Happy Hour: Practicing Equanimity in Challenging Times (Dr. Mirghafori)

Where is the Buddhist hermitage they mention?

And for those of wondering where the button is to book one-on-one time with me, I am sending out monthly newsletters, interspersed with these ones that are just me writing about things. Open and read them all, just in case it’s the one with the button. 🌝

All of my work is done on a donation basis, which means that all of this is only possible because of generous voluntary support. Support this work at bethupton.com.

With much metta and gratitude, Beth Upton

What is the “Happiness Recipe,” Dan?

Recipe for happiness: unpacking kusala

There are two kinds of happiness, ecstatic (piti, rapture) and extended (sukha, blissfulness).

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I feel ecstatic!

Key takeaways: Kusala states = happy states: Kusala, drawn from the Buddhist psychology of the Abhidhamma—a system that breaks down experience into its most granular mental and emotional components—refers to a constellation of virtuous, skillful mind states.

Beth Upton calls it a “Buddhist happiness cake,” made from ingredients like generosity, mindfulness, uprightness, loving-kindness, and more.

One entry point unlocks the rest: We don’t need to cultivate them all at once—because focusing on just one quality (like loving-kindness, integrity, or gratitude) invites the rest to arise. These mental states are “best friends” who tend to show up together.

Letting go feels better than giving in: Our culture glorifies small, fast pleasures—like scrolling, snacking, and checking out—but deeper, more lasting happiness comes from subtle, wholesome states.

Letting go of ego and craving isn’t a sacrifice; it’s a relief. It’s not just for monastics: We don’t need a cave or a meditation cushion. Kusala can be woven into daily life—as we parent, commute, chop vegetables, or write emails. More

• Beth Upton, July 2025, Dan Harris (podcast), Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Top US, World Headlines — Sept. 18, 2024

(Democracy Now!) Sept. 18, 2024: Israel's terrorism and war crimes continue to escalate, pushing neighbors to find a way to attack, undermine, and expel the Zionist state and settler colonial project, possibly waging internet attacks on Israel and the U.S.

• Don't fool yourself about the Israeli war crime and mass terrorism on the people of Lebanon with exploding pagers and other electronic devices (The Atlantic)
• Newsweek: Iran president promises retribution against Israel's terrorist pager attacks

ABOUT: Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8:00-9 a.m. ET. Latest Shows. Support this work: democracynow.org/donate/sm-de...

Protestants rise up against Burmese dictators

FRANCE 24 English, Sep 29, 2023; Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Theravada Buddhists and visitors enjoy the great Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma.

Burma: Inside the Protestant Chin ethnic group's armed resistance against ruling junta

Hateful nationalist monk Ashin Wirathu (AP)

(FRANCE 24 English) France 24 is a French public broadcast service. Since the February 2021 coup in Burma (renamed "Myanmar" by the new military dictators), the Protestant Christian Chin ethnic minority -- one of 135 officially recognized in Burma -- has taken up arms to defend its land, identity and ideals against the all-powerful ruling junta in the Theravada Buddhist-majority country. The team reports. Read more about this story in this article: f24.my/9p4i.y

Myanmar: How the Chin are fighting the Junta

(DW Documentary) DW is a German public broadcast service. Aug. 8, 2023:  After another military coup in Burma (Myanmar) in 2021, the Christian Chin ethnic minority took up arms. The Chin people are fighting to defend their territory, their identity, and their democratic principles against the junta (military dictatorship). In the mountains in the remote west of Burma, a bitter war is raging. The Chin, a primarily Christian minority, still control most of the area after putting up a fierce resistance against the Myanmar military. The resistance fighters train in the mountains along the peaceful Indian border. Hundreds of young people gave up their jobs or studies to join the battle. Although they’re equipped with little more than light weapons, they’re determined to stand their ground. But the civilian population is paying a high price for the war. Thousands of villagers have been bombed by the junta, their homes destroyed. Many have been forced to flee. Nevertheless, the Chin remain committed to the fight to overthrow the military regime. #Myanmar

COMMENTARY

As monks we oppose this bad gov't.

It is not quite correct to call the generals that form the military junta after the coup "Buddhists," they do tend to be Buddhists in name only, as they kill and oppress Buddhist monks and nuns (sayalays), as during the Saffron Revolution when Buddhist monastics stood up against the military dictatorship and were brutally suppressed.

Gen. Than Shwe: Come back, Hillary

That suppression came with the aid and blessing of U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who was in the country making deals with Aung San Suu Kyi to fight a proxy war against China and exploit Burma's resources for the U.S. and Western markets.

As Clinton lost in a humiliating defeat to dumb Donald Trump, the whole plan of setting up a fake nominal democracy in the style of America's farcical one-party system (the Money Party with two wings, moderate and extreme-right) fell through.

Aung San Suu Kyi (Time cover)

After the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority and their return, the Myanmar military committed more atrocities against perceived enemies of the junta (military dictatorship).

The Rohingya, Karens, and Chin are just three of the ethnic minorities so suffer at the hands of oppressive military rule in this police state (which has suffered troubles since the British invasion and arising of George Orwell, who was born here and served in the Royal Forces as a soldier who did not want to side with Great Britain. Much of what he wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four was witnessed and learned in Burma under British rule and applied to England and the West.

Miraculously, Theravada Buddhism survives and is practiced, benefiting from its isolation from Western tourists and outsiders.

While the Burmese people are open to visitors, particularly Westerners, the country's rulers are not interested in anything but the foreign currency tourists bring. So visiting at this time may not be the best idea out of humanitarian concerns.

The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk

However, a closed Buddhist country, as for example Bhutan once remained closed, preserves culture. Burma has already been exposed to Western influences: British imperial oppression, the first Western Buddhist monk to be fully ordained being an Irishman more than a century ago who also opposed the British and Christian proselytizers and got in a lot of trouble as a rebel and excellent public speaker. (See the Western Dharma bum Ven. U Dhammaloka).

Then Burma was wooed by its Chinese neighbors, who advanced the corruption of new military leaders out to enrich themselves and their families. Then Burma was made promises by Secretary of State Clinton, promises that fell through, leaving Aung San Suu Kyi in the lurch and disgraced -- and the ASEAN country in turmoil.

Suu Kyi, after years of house arrest, entered government but was such a nationalist and patriot, she could not see the crimes of the real rulers behind the scenes (the junta left in place by Clinton as the country move toward the appearance of parliamentary democracy), the junta attempting to expel or annihilate the Rohingya.

So the world turned against this once great female peace activist who was the greatest hope of the majority of Burmese, as Suu Kyi's father was once a great national hero. She was destined for greatness, restoring the Buddhist country to greatness, but it was not to be. See Burma VJ for a look into the Saffron Revolution and the silly American movie Beyond Rangoon for a hint of what happened that led down this road.

• The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire (Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, Brian Bocking)

Knowing and Seeing with Beth Upton

Beth Upton, Host Guru Viking, 8/5/22; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why is Buddhist Meditation Teacher Beth Upton extraordinary? She is capable of explaining things more quickly and deeply than most monastic teachers. Why? She set off on a spiritual quest at the age of 21 and attained it. She was a monastic for a decade at the best monastery with the most brilliant scholar-practitioner monk alive today, who has produced a number of excellent teachers.

This is 

Soft spoken British supermodel nun

why Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal backs Beth Upton's efforts to teach and create a meditation community.

The "secret" to attainment is not a special technique; it is right practice with a mind accompanied by wholesome states. Then a technique that cultivates an increasingly subtle object will work to produce knowing-and-seeing. Come and see. Investigation will turn into direct knowledge and vision of the Buddha's Dharma.

Should Westerners become monastics in Asia? Yes. What if they don't want to? In that case, study with Upton. What if they do want to? Then ordain and then study with Upton. 

Natural Meditation: Beth Upton (2)

(Guru Viking) In this interview (Episode 161) Guru Viking is once again joined by Western Theravada Buddhist meditation teacher Beth Upton.

Upton is a former Burmese Theravada Buddhist nun (actually Ten Precept Sayalay Anutara), an accomplished student of the renowned meditation master and scholar-practitioner Pa Auk Sayadaw.

• Caves of Spain: sanditthika.org

Upton shares her emphasis on serenity and insight meditation with the natural rhythms of the body and reveals how she deals with students who experience low motivation, psychological challenges, and even psychosis as a result of their meditation practice.

Upton also discusses her own relationship difficulties after disrobing as a "nun" (sayalay), why she embarked on special communication trainings to address them, and she explains why erotic feeling diminishes as one progresses through the stages of enlightenment in the historical Buddha's gradual training.

Rafa, Beth Upton, Gwen (Sanditthika)

• Previous episode with Beth Upton: guruviking.com/podcast/ep..
• This interview: guruviking.com/podcast/161...
• Interviews, videos, and more visit: guruviking.com
• PLAYLIST: Guru Viking Interview Series
• Also available on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify by searching "Guru Viking Podcast"

TOPICS

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:43 - Beth Upton’s Sanditthika meditation community in Spain
• 04:16 - Different modes of community
• 07:36 - Meditation with one’s natural rhythm
• 10:45 - The structure at Pa Auk Forest Monastery
• 12:04 - Resting on the first few days of retreat
• 14:35 - Working with low motivation to practice
• 17:30 - Facing challenging mental and emotional states during retreat
• 19:47 - Psychosis [fractures from consensus reality] on retreat
• 21:34 - Common teacher mistakes when dealing with emotional states and psychosis
• 23:12 - Fear of litigation and criticism
• 27:14 - Scandal, transparency, and patriarchal models
• 31:57 - Living in harmony with nature
• 33:12 - Relationships after leaving monasticism
• 40:12 - Does enlightenment eliminate erotic function?
• 41:58 - Begin in a relationship with an enlightened person
• 43:49 - Tantric and kundalini practices
• 47:05 - The value of relational and communication practices
• 48:14 - Meditation isn’t enough to heal relational patterns
• 52:04 - Upton’s training in relational practices
• 53:20 - Truth in relationship
• 55:32 - Balancing retreat practice and practice in life
• 58:51 - Off-cushion meditation toolkit
• 01:01:09 - Upton’s personal practice rhythm
• 01:03:48 - Sense restraint is a gift to oneself
• 01:06:00 - The consequences of indulgence…

Music "Deva Dasi" by Steve James

• To find out more about Beth Upton, visit: bethupton.com and sanditthika.org

Intro to Shinzen Young on Paths of Awakening

Introduction to Shinzen Young: A Conversation on Paths of Awakening

(Deep Mindfulness, 12/23/21) Register for the "Progress of Shinsight" course here: 🌱 DeepMindfulness.io/pos. In Part 1 of this wide-ranging discussion with American meditation master Shinzen Young, we discuss the relationship of his system and the Progress of Insight meditation map, The Mind Illuminated, and other views on awakening. We also discuss the philosophy behind the experiential path of awakening. Finally, we begin talking about the relationship between art and awakening.

Content: Timecodes:

• 0:00 - Intro
• 1:01 - The Progress of Shinsight class:
• 3:36 - Shared Lineage, Shinzen, Bill Hamilton, Daniel Ingram, and Kenneth Folk
• 6:40 - From pre-Buddhism to modern mindfulness. Good News/ Bad News
• 9:03 - Polarities in Art History and in Buddhism
• 10:13 - The Mind Illuminated - How do “Attention and Awareness” fit into your system?
• 16:18 - How is the Unified Mindfulness (UM) is a skeleton key of meditation practices?
• 21:07 - UM is system for awakening in any meditation system.
• 26:53 - Comparing Attention/ Awareness and Nama/Rupa
• 30:00 - Visiting Teacher from Burma - Ven. Taungpulu Sayadaw
• 33:24 - “There is Nothing but Nama/Rupa”
• 36:37 - The problem communicating great teachings.
• 39:12 - How Conceptual Art and Meditation are talking about the same thing (intro - cut for technical difficulties)

🌱 FREE: The 15 Foundation Guided Meditations (in my opinion)

Burmese recycling: don't abuse, reuse (video)

Thida Nathalie, ThaBarWaWEB, L.A./Rangoon; Burma VJ (HBO); Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

Don't Abuse, Reuse

What could be made out of bamboo?

(Episode 3, June 20, 2020) One of the initiatives at the Thabarwa Nature Center in Los Angeles is to collect used goods and other donated items and ship them to Burma (Myanmar) by sea. One shipping container returns, and another is sent. The last one arrived just before the Water Festival.

Then the coronavirus lockdown was announced in Burma. Sayadaw Ottamasara had to stay in Burma indefinitely. But no crisis is too large. He began giving Dharma talks to calm the locals and the foreign volunteers. Then he started a new initiative to come up with a better alms food container.

He begins collecting discarded plastic water bottles to reuse them, as well as to manage waste and keep food separated better. Fifteen of the 17 daily almsround routes are cut off. And group size is restricted to just five.

It's an incredible feat what is accomplished, watching the innovation and speed of the main Thabarwa Center in Thanlyin, Burma, in outer Rangoon (Yangon Division). Sayadaw is at the helm, and 4,000 residents with special needs are fed, protected, and cared for. Unique initiatives develop daily.

Pacifica Free Speech Radio Los Angeles (KPFK.org 90.7 FM) recycles.

How can I meditate if there's a pandemic?

Burmese Theravada Sayadaw U Tejaniya via Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Relax. Nothing is under control."

One sits with craving (ambition for success), and it doesn’t work. One sits for a pleasant abiding and nothing more, which itself is a kind of ambition, and if it’s not there, one stops. One doesn’t meditate. One says one can't meditate. What to do?

Burmese master Sayadaw Tejaniya explained it in this way in a recent interview:

Sayadaw U Tejaniya and a young monk

QUESTION: An interviewer said, "The most common question I’ve received from yogis [meditators] to ask you is, 'How can a person practice to maintain awareness and equanimity with all the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty that COVID-19 has unleashed?'"

ANSWER: Ven. Tejaniya explained, As far as the practice is concerned, I can only say, practice as usual. I only give instructions for practice, and the practice instructions are always the same.

Insight: Let's just observe things as they are.

There's almost a mantra in the way I teach, which is, We're not practicing to make things happen in the mind [heart], such as equanimity, or to make things go away, such as fear or uncertainty.

Rather, we practice in order to OBSERVE things as they are happening and to understand.

Irish U Dhammaloka in Burma

The most important thing is not to think about how to practice in order that something will go away, like our fears, so that we can then enjoy equanimity. That's not the way to approach the practice.

The way to approach practice is to remember first and foremost that the mind suffers whenever it either resists or craves having an experience.

The right attitude is instead accepting, observing, and learning from our experience just as it is.

The First Irish Buddhist (video)

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, Brian Bocking

The Irish Buddhist (twitter.com/ceesa_ma)

The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire is the biography of an extraordinary Irish emigrant, free-thinker (atheist), hobo, drinker, sailor, and migrant worker.

He became the first Westerner in the world to become a Buddhist monk. He was an anti-British colonial activist in Asia in the early 20th-century.

Born in Dublin in the 1850s, the man who took the Buddhist name Ven. U Dhammaloka at ordination in colonial Burma (birthplace of George "1984" Orwell) was:

• Lawrence Carroll
• Laurence O'Rourke
• "Captain Daylight" (nom de plume)
• William Colvin.

He energetically challenged the values and power of the Christian British Empire and scandalized the colonial establishment of the 1900s.

He rallied Buddhists across Asia, set up schools, and argued down Christian missionaries -- often using Western atheist ("free thinker") arguments. He was tried for sedition, tracked by police and intelligence services, and died at least twice.

.

The Dharma Bum (documentary)

His story illuminates the forgotten margins and interstices of imperial power, the complexities of class, ethnicity, and religious belonging in colonial Asia, and the fluidity of identity in the high Victorian period.

Too often, the story of the pan-Asian Buddhist revival movement and Buddhism's remaking as a world religion (along with the world's only two other "world religions" Catholic-Christianity and Islam) has been told "from above," highlighting scholarly writers, middle-class reformers, and ecclesiastical hierarchies.

By turns fraught, hilarious, pioneering, and improbable, Ven. Dhammaloka's adventures "from below" highlight the changing and contested meanings of Buddhism in colonial Asia. Through his story, authors Alicia Turner, Brian Bocking, and Laurence Cox offer a window into the worlds of ethnic minorities and diasporas, transnational networks, poor whites, and social movements.

Dhammaloka's dramatic life rewrites the previously accepted story of how Buddhism became a modern global religion -- and the mistaken story that British C. H. Allan Bennett (Ven. Ananda Metteyya) or another Westerner were the first to ordain as Buddhist monks. More

AUTHORS

Lead author Prof. Alicia Turner, York University

Together with colleagues around the world three co-authors have spent the past ten years tracking down Ven. Dhammaloka's life. They came together due to their fascination with this many-sided Irish Buddhist monastic.

Associate Professor Laurence Cox

• Associate Professor of Humanities and Religious Studies Alicia Turner, York University Toronto, a scholar specializing in modern Burmese Buddhism, nationalism, and secularism.
• Associate Professor of Sociology Laurence Cox, Nat'l University of Ireland Maynooth, specialist in social movements, historian of Buddhism in Europe, especially Ireland.
• Emeritus Professor of the Study of Religions Brian Bocking, University College Cork, and previously professor of the Study of Religions at SOAS, University of London, who has written widely on the academic study of religions and East Asian religions.
  

REVIEWS

The Awakening of the West (Stephen Batchelor)

"This groundbreaking study rewrites our understanding of the first Westerners to embrace Buddhism as a living [tradition]. The authors offer a vivid portrait of a working-class Irishman in colonial Burma for whom Buddhism was not just a personal spiritual quest but a radical social and political practice."

-Stephen Batchelor (author of Secular Buddhism and After Buddhism)

"This is an extraordinary book. The authors have painstakingly tracked down scraps of evidence of U Dhammaloka's life from across continents, often in the most unlikely of places, and have succeeded in piecing together a wealth of information to reveal an unlikely and likeable hero.

"The result is not simply a gripping story. It is an education into the lives, ingenuity, and resilience of the usually undocumented, ordinary people living precarious lives on the margins of society across the globe at the height of Empire.

"It retraces the extensive networks of cooperation they formed in common cause for survival and a dignified life against a backdrop of extraction, exploitation and misrepresentation. This is a history of those who usually have no voice in its writing, a history that dismantles the civilizing myths of colonialism."

-Kate Crosby, Professor of Buddhist Studies, King's College, London

"With notable tenacity and thoroughness, the authors trace the wandering career of the first European convert Buddhist monk, U Dhammaloka. Recounting the life of the fascinating twentieth-century working-class Irishman turned Burmese Buddhist monk, the authors bring into sharp relief the ways in which currents of intellectual, religious, and economic change made Buddhism a global tradition in an age of migration, colonization, and empire in Asia"

-Richard M. Jaffe, Director of the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute and Professor of Buddhist Studies, Duke University

"Among the early European converts to Buddhism, we think of Madame Blavatsky, Alexandra David-Neel, and Ananda Metteyya [Allan Bennett]. But there were many more, perhaps none more intriguing than the Irishman U Dhammaloka. Drawing on some impressive detective work, the authors here paint a fascinating picture -- more than a sketch, less than a portrait -- of this shape-shifting Buddhist monk. In the process, they provide many insights into fin-de-siècle [end of century] Buddhism."

-Dr. Donald Lopez, Ph.D., Arthur E. Link Distinguished Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Michigan

• BOOK: The Irish Buddhist
• Release date: April 17, 2020
• Hardcover (288 pages), $39.95 (pre-order price)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Language: English, ISBN-10: 019007308X
• ISBN-13: 978-0190073084

How Pa Auk Sayadaw became enlightened

Setti Wessels; Pa-Auk Center via Tusita Int'l; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Kalyani, Wisdom Quarterly

I verified the Path in the Pali canon works.

The most significant Theravada Buddhist teacher in the world today, certainly in Burma, is the most Venerable Bhaddanta Aciṇṇa.

He is commonly referred to as “Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw” or less formally as simply “Pa-Auk Sayadaw.” He is the abbot and principal teacher at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery. Sayadaw is a Burmese title that means “respected teacher.”

In 1934, Sayadaw was born in Leigh-Chaung Village, Hinthada Township, in the delta region about 100 miles north-west of the capital of Burma, Rangoon (now Yangon, Myanmar).

In 1944, at age 10, he ordained as a novice monk (samanera) to train at his village monastery. During the next decade, he pursued the life of a typical scholar-novice, studying the texts of the Pali canon (including the Monastic Disciplinary Code, the Buddha's discourses, and the ultimate teachings or vinaya, suttas, and Abhidhamma) under various teachers. He passed the three Pali language exams while still a novice.

Sayadaw-gyi is the greatest monk of our time! (wiki)

In 1954, at age 20, Sayadaw received higher ordination as a monk (bhikkhu). He continued his study of the Pali canon under the guidance of learned elder monks.

In 1956, he passed the prestigious Dhamma-acariya exam, the equivalent of earning a B.A. in Buddhist studies, which confers the title of “Dharma Teacher.”

For the next eight years, Sayadaw continued his personal investigation and verification of the Dharma, travelling throughout Burma to learn from various well known teachers.

In 1964, during his tenth “rains retreat” (vassa) as a fully ordained Buddhist monk, he turned his attention to intensifying his meditation practice and began the practice of “forest dwelling.” He continued his study of the Pali texts but in addition sought out practical instructions from the most revered meditation masters of those times.

When one knows-and-sees dependent origination with a cleansed mind, one awakens.

Burma is the large landmass on the right, renamed Myanmar by the military dictatorship.

.

High in the Himalayas on retreat with Sayadaw, India

For the next 16 years, he made forest dwelling his primary practice. He spent these years in Mon state in the southern part of Burma -- three years in Mudon Township (south of Mawlamyine) and 13 years in Ye Township (about 100 miles down the coast). During this time, he lived a very simple life, devoting his time to intensive meditation and the study of the Pali canon.

In 1981 Sayadaw received a message from the abbot of Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, Ven. Aggapañña. The abbot was dying and asked Ven. Acinna to look after the monastery. Five days later, Ven. Aggapañña passed away. As the new abbot of the monastery, Ven. Acinna became known as “Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw.”

Although he oversaw the running of the monastery, Sayadaw would spend most of his time in seclusion, meditating in a bamboo hut in the upper forested area, which covered a deserted range of hills running along the base of the Taung Nyo mountain range. This area later came to be known as the Upper Monastery.

Panoramic view of the Kullu Valley, India

Since 1983, both monastics and laypeople have been coming to study meditation with Sayadaw.

In the 1990s, foreign meditators began to arrive at the monastery. As Sayadaw’s reputation steadily grew, the Upper Monastery gradually expanded from a simple bamboo hut encampment and a handful of disciples to more than 250 meditation huts (kutis) in the thinning forest.



The area included a large two-story meditation hall for men, a library (with office, computer room, and men’s dormitory on the lower levels), a clinic, a hospital, an almsgiving hall, a two-story refectory, a reception hall, and Sayadaw's dwelling.

The Lower Monastery includes facilities of more than 180 meditator's huts, a large kitchen, a three-story meditation hall for women (with sleeping quarters on the ground floor), and a five-story dormitory.

In March of 2007, there were more than 130 foreign monks, nuns, and lay practitioners residing at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery. During the annual three-month rains retreat, the total monastic population averages between 600-700.

Together with laypeople, the monastery population sometimes tops 1,500 during festival times.

In 1997 Sayadaw published his magnum opus, an enormous five-volume tome entitled The Practice that Leads to Nibbana (Nirvana), explaining the entire course of teaching in detail and supported by copious quotations from the Pali texts. It is available only in Burmese and Sinhalese.

On January 4th, 1999, in public recognition of Sayadaw’s achievements, the government bestowed upon him the title Agga Maha Kammatthanacariya, which means “Greatly Respected Teacher of Meditation.”

Sayadaw attained in a time of great tumult.

Sayadaw now speaks fluent English and has lectured and led retreats outside of Burma since 1997. In December of 2006, he travelled to Sri Lanka to undertake a long-term personal retreat, staying in seclusion and suspending his teaching schedule throughout 2007.

His teaching schedule for 2008 included a four-month retreat in the U.S., which ran from July to October, at the Forest Refuge in Barre, Massachusetts (Insight Meditation Society).

.

Sayadaw personally conducted a six-month intensive retreat at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, Burma from January to June of 2010. After the retreat, Sayadaw joined the monks from Tusita Hermitage in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, India for the Rains Retreat. At that time Sayadaw entered his own personal retreat for that three-month period. Source

.

Sayadaw’s teachings have been published in English, and several are highly regarded internationally. For he is both a highly esteemed Dhammā-acariya ("Dharma Teacher") and a personally accomplished Kammaṭṭhānā-acariya ("Meditation Teacher"). He has lectured and led retreats in the USA, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Germany, and the UK.

In 2009, Sayadaw was bestowed the title of Shwekyin Nikāya Rattaññūmahānāyaka [a great elder in the second largest monastic order in Burma] at the 17th Shwekyin Nikaya Saṅgha Conferencce in Burma. Original source

• Biography year by year (paauktawyathailand.org)
  

He did. So can you. (PATM)

At that time when one arrived at the forest nunnery and monastery, the Pa Auk Tawya Meditation Center, one started down a long muddy road. It had become a town, attracting Burmese devotees, ardent spiritual seekers from the West and Far East. It was vegetarian, egalitarian, with many nuns from different countries. It was open to everyone with an open hand. The gem was the great teacher, who could instruct someone from being unable to meditate to the final attainment of nirvana, spiritual awakening, complete enlightenment. We would not believe it had we not visited and seen it with our own eyes. Not only do people attain here, it happens in the West because Sayadaw and his accomplished teachers teach retreats beyond Burma.