Sayagyi U Ba Khin

Sayagyi U Ba Khin was a Burmese government accountant who learned Vipassana as a layman, taught it while holding high office, and designed the ten-day residential course. Two organisations trace their teaching to him: S. N. Goenka's worldwide network of courses, and the International Meditation Centres led after his death by Mother Sayamagyi. "Sayagyi" is a Burmese title for a respected lay teacher.

A civil servant in Rangoon

He was born in Rangoon (now Yangon) on 6 March 1899 and made his career in the government's accounts service. On 4 January 1948, the day Burma became independent, he became Accountant General (Vipassana Research Institute, VRI). He was a married householder with five daughters and one son.

Learning from Saya Thetgyi

On 1 January 1937 a student of the lay teacher Saya Thetgyi taught him mindfulness of breathing (ānāpāna). Within a week he travelled to Thetgyi's village, Pyawbwegyi, to sit a ten-day course (VRI). Thetgyi had learned from Ledi Sayadaw, which makes U Ba Khin the third teacher in the line that begins with Ledi.

Webu Sayadaw's encouragement

In July 1941 U Ba Khin's railway carriage was detached by mistake at Kyaukse, and he used the delay to visit a forest monk living nearby, Webu Sayadaw. The Sayadaw had been meditating alone in the jungle for years and was astonished at how far a householder had progressed. VRI records that he urged U Ba Khin to start teaching at once. U Ba Khin later spent ten days in robes under Webu Sayadaw at Shwebo, and in 1953 Webu Sayadaw came to stay at his centre in Rangoon for a week (VRI).

Teaching while in office

He began by teaching his colleagues. In 1950 he founded the Vipassana Association of the Accountant General's Office, and in 1952 he opened the International Meditation Centre (IMC), about two miles north of the Shwedagon Pagoda (Global Vipassana Pagoda). He designed and built its "Light of the Dhamma" pagoda for meditation (IMC).

He also served Buddhism in public life. VRI says he was an executive member of the Union of Burma Buddha Sāsana Council, chaired its committee for paṭipatti (practice), and was honorary auditor of the Sixth Buddhist Council of 1954–56. In 1956 he received the honorary title Thray Sithu. Because he held a full-time post, only the last four years of his life, after he retired in 1967, were given entirely to teaching (VRI).

The ten-day course

The International Meditation Centre's own account says: "He designed the Ten-Day Course and a technique to enable the diligent student to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha." IMC presents it as a course for busy lay people. In IMC's description, students first develop concentration on the breath and then turn to insight into the changing nature of body and mind. How the format works in Goenka's tradition today is described in The 10-day course, day by day.

Students who carried the teaching abroad

Travel restrictions meant he never taught outside Burma himself. His students did. S. N. Goenka, a businessman from Mandalay, studied with him for 14 years and in 1969 went to India as his "Dhamma-duta" (messenger of Dhamma) (VRI).

Mother Sayamagyi, Daw Mya Thwin, practised and taught with him from 1953 until his death. In 1978 she and her husband, U Chit Tin, left Burma to teach in the West, as IMC puts it "to fulfil Sayagyi's aspiration to teach meditation to the people of the west" (IMC). Spirit Rock Meditation Center calls Ruth Denison his "most prominent Western student".

Death

VRI says he fell ill suddenly on 18 January 1971; IMC gives the date of his death as 19 January 1971. After his death, VRI records, Webu Sayadaw said: "Your Sayagyi never died… his teaching lives on."

One teacher, two organisations

Both Vipassana as taught by S. N. Goenka and the International Meditation Centres present themselves as carrying on his teaching. They differ in how courses are run, and the two technique pages compare them. The centre he opened in 1952 is listed at International Meditation Centre (Yangon).