Woman reaches enlightenment, helps others

Amazon; Amy Schmidt; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Ven. Aloka (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Once upon a time there was a tiny Indian woman leading an inconspicuous life in Calcutta, India.

No one would have ever guessed how profoundly she would influence Buddhism in America, its evolution, teaching, and practice. How could that be?

The impoverished title Knee Deep in Grace is very misleading. It is actually the life story of Dipa Ma Barua, along with the essential spiritual teachings that make her a towering figure in contemporary Buddhism.

The Insight Meditation Society extended retreat facility behind IMS (dharma.org)

Life of a Buddhist master

She was a student of Anagarika Munindra and a teacher of American luminaries Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Sharon Salzberg, among others. She sent them back to the U.S. from India to teach, and they did as they were instructed, founding the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. 

While Dipa Ma (lit., "Dipa's mother" or figurately, "motherly light, island, or refuge") experienced fame in her lifetime. She had a following of many American, Indian, Burmese, and Bangladeshi students.

She was like the female saints of the Vedas, "remarkable women...from the dawn of history...who achieved realization while cleaning their homes and raising their children" (Daughters of the Goddess: Women Saints of India).

She was remarkable in her ordinariness, astounding in her natural grounding in the reality of the present moment.

Author Amy "Amita" Schmidt

Dipa Ma was a primary teacher of Salzberg, Kornfield, and Goldstein, who have been among the most influential "importers" of Theravada Buddhism to America.

Through the centers they founded -- Spirit Rock, IMS, and many related centers they encourage and support like Insight LA -- and the teachers trained in them (the author, Amy Schmidt, among them), Dipa Ma continue to touch countless lives.

Jack Kornfield described the power of Dipa Ma's influence: "Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a person so developed can be enough to change one's whole way of life."

Story of a Buddhist "saint"

Knee Deep in Grace is filled with intimate stories collected over a period of ten years, both from prominent Western meditation teachers and from Dipa Ma's enlightened daughter and grandson and her Calcutta students.

Dipa Ma addressed her teaching to ordinary people in her apartment complex and her extended family. Her iconoclastic style of daily-life "immersion" practice brought many of her students to awakening.

And as this small book testifies, her long time students as well as new ones find that she continues to guide and inspire their meditation practice. The book also goes into Dipa Ma's attainment of magical powers (iddhi). More

• AUTHOR: Amy "Amita" Schmidt is a LCSW who for six years was a resident teacher at Insight Meditation Society. She continues to offer spiritual support to meditators by phone and teaches insight meditation (vipassana) nationally. Info: amitaschmidt.com.

Dipa Ma: Buddhist Saint

WQ (This updates and replaces the article Knee Deep in Grace)

Dipa Ma literally means "Dipa's mother" (Dipa was her eldest daugther and also a prolific Buddhist meditator). But figuratively it means "Mother of Light." Dipa Ma was born Nani Bala Barua (1911-1989) in East Bengal (Bangladesh). From a young age she displayed an interest in Buddhist rituals, preferring study to play.

Unlike other local girls, she insisted on attending school. However, by the age of 12 she was married off to a man in Rangoon, Burma. After her husband's death in 1957, she took up vipassana meditation under her guru Anagarika Munindra and made swift progress. In 1963, under this same guide in Bodhgaya, India, Dipa Ma began to study and successfully attained the siddhis or "magical powers."

In 1967, she moved to Calcutta where she began teaching meditation to a wide range of Indian housewives and foreign students including the Americans Joseph Goldstein (photographed circa 1970 in India with Dipa Ma), Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg, who later became prominent teachers. In the early 1980s she was invited to America to teach at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

Her story was originally brought to light by author Amy Schmidt (mindfulmom.com) in the book Knee Deep in Grace. The book has subsequently been updated and republished as Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master.

• See the Zensite book review.
• Bilingual (Spanish/English) account of Dipa Ma's life

Dipa Ma's teacher Anagarika Munindra: Begin to See (teachings on DVD/CDs)