Pa-Auk Tawya Meditation Centre

Pa-Auk Tawya (Pa-Auk Forest Monastery) is the main monastery of the Pa-Auk group, in forest along the Taung Nyo range near Pa-Auk village, 15 km south-east of Mawlamyine in Mon State. Founded in 1926, it teaches samatha and vipassanā based on the Pāli Canon and its commentaries, under Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa, who became its abbot in 1981 and is its principal teacher. Foreign meditators began arriving in the early 1990s, and the monastery offers regular interviews with English-speaking teachers. Its website gives about 1,000 to 1,800 residents depending on the season, more than 300 of them foreign monks, nuns and lay practitioners from over 20 countries, and there are no fixed-length courses. The monastery is divided into Upper, Middle and Lower monasteries: foreign men register at the Upper Monastery and foreign women at the Lower Monastery office, and meditators live in kuṭis (huts). Lodging and the two daily meals are free. Everyone needs the monastery's approval before staying, and the site says anyone staying longer than a month needs a Pa-Auk sponsorship letter to apply for a Myanmar meditation visa. A 2006 information sheet linked from the site notes that buses from Yangon to Mudon pass the main gate. The Pa-Auk group has over 40 branch and associate centres, 29 of them in Myanmar.

How to apply

Get the monastery's approval before you travel: read its rules for foreign meditators and apply on its form. Stays of over a month need its sponsorship letter for a Myanmar meditation visa.

What is taught here

The Pa-Auk method from Myanmar trains deep concentration (jhāna) first, then detailed insight that follows the Visuddhimagga, in long stays at a monastery. Read about Pa-Auk.