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Sunlun · 1878–1952
Burmese farmer and former office messenger who became a monk and founded the vigorous Sunlun method.
Sunlun Sayadaw, U Kawi (Kavi), was a Burmese farmer with almost no schooling who took up meditation in his forties, became a monk and taught a method of his own. The Sunlun method he left behind is known for its strong, fast breathing and for staying with painful sensation without moving. His tradition's own site calls him "a barely literate man".
According to the biography compiled at his monastery, he was born Maung Kyaw Din in 1878, on the 2nd waxing day of Tabaung, 1239 in the Burmese calendar, in Sunlun village south of Myingyan in Upper Burma. His parents were U Thant and Daw Toke.
He went to a monastery school in Myingyan but learned slowly, and left at fifteen to work as an office messenger at the District Deputy Commissioner's office. He married Ma Shwe Yi of his village; three of their four children died young. At about thirty, because the pay could not support his family, he left government service and farmed his parents' land.
The biography tells how he came to practise. In 1919, after a good sesame harvest, he offered a thousand lamps at the village pagoda and made a wish to become a monk. Soon afterwards a visitor, U Ba San, chief clerk at a weaving mill, spoke at his house about mindfulness of breathing (ānāpāna) as taught by Ledi Sayadaw. Told that no learning was needed, only faith and effort, U Kyaw Din began to practise that night. A neighbour, U Shwe Luk, told him to add awareness to it.
From then on, the biography says, he kept attention on touch in everything he did: the air at the tip of the nose as he breathed, the soles of his feet as he walked, and his hands as he ploughed, weeded and drew water. He practised day and night, at home, in the fields and at night in a forest ravine near the village. No formal meditation teacher is named.
On 1 November 1920, after about a year of this practice, he left his plough leaning against a tree, set his oxen free and went to the village monastery, where the abbot made him a novice with the name Shin Kawi. His friend U Shwe Luk followed him as a novice five days later (biography).
The biography states that on the eighth day after becoming a novice he reached the fourth and final stage of awakening and became an arahant. The Sunlun site gives the same claim as "he became an arahat in 1920". These are the tradition's own statements about him. He was later fully ordained at Ye Lei Monastery in Meiktila and, according to the biography, taught as a monk for thirty-one years.
In October 1923 he went to live alone beside the Sunlun brook, sleeping on a bamboo couch under a tree. A villager built him a two-room monastic dwelling. The place was first called Sunlun Chauk Kyaung, the ravine monastery, and later Sunlun Gu Kyaung, the cave monastery, as meditation caves were added (biography).
Senior scholar-monks came to question the unlettered monk, and the biography records their exchanges at length. In 1930 the Taung-thar Sayadaw U Aggavaṃsa asked him for a written account of his method, and he sent a short manual on 13 July 1930. In September 1948, on his first visit to Yangon, he answered questions from the statesman U Nu (biography).
The Sunlun site presents the method as suited to busy city people short on time. It describes a firm posture "designed for hard work and not relaxation", held without change for the whole session: "If cramped, don't move; if itchy, don't scratch; if fatigued, don't rest." The meditator breathes "strongly, firmly and rapidly" while staying keenly aware of the touch of breath at the nostril tip or upper lip. When strong sensation arises in the body, attention turns to the sensation itself, with no mental labels: the site's instruction is to "avoid name-calling; do not conceptualize reality".
The method is taught in person at the tradition's monasteries. People with health conditions should speak to a teacher, and to a doctor, before trying strong breathing. The method is described further in The Sunlun method and compared in Mental noting.
After returning from Yangon he stayed at Myingyan, where he died at 4:55 pm on 17 May 1952, the 9th waning day of Kason, 1314 in the Burmese calendar. At his wish his body was not cremated. It now lies in a pagoda at Sunlun Gu Kyaung, consecrated in March 1954 (biography).
His biography was compiled by U Sobhana, the monk who had looked after him and who then became head of Sunlun Gu Kyaung and carried on teaching the method. The Sunlun site also names later teachers, including Sunlun Shin Vinaya, who "has made the technique available to the city man". In Yangon the tradition continues at the Kaba Aye Sunlun Monastery.