Webu Sayadaw

Webu Sayadaw was a Burmese monk remembered above all for the intensity of his own practice. The Vipassana Research Institute (VRI) says he gave "all importance to diligent practice rather than to scholastic achievement". He was not part of the teacher-to-student line that runs from Ledi Sayadaw, but he urged Sayagyi U Ba Khin to start teaching, and both of the traditions that descend from U Ba Khin publish his biography and honour him.

Early life and training

He was born on 17 February 1896, in the Burmese calendar the sixth day of the waxing moon of Tabaung, 1257, in Ingyinpin, a small village near Shwebo in Upper Burma (International Meditation Centre, IMC; VRI). He became a novice at the age of nine and received full ordination at twenty. He studied the Pali scriptures, including at the Masoyein monastery in Mandalay, until he was twenty-seven (IMC; VRI).

Years of solitary practice

In 1923, seven years after his ordination, he left the monastery and spent four years in solitude (VRI). His practice was mindfulness of breathing (ānāpānasati). Access to Insight, which publishes his talks in English, puts it this way:

The vehicle he chose for his own practice was Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing, and he constantly called this the direct short cut to Nibbana.

IMC's biography adds that he kept, for the rest of his life, the ascetic practice of never lying down, one of the thirteen dhutaṅga practices. For the first fifty-seven years of his life he stayed in Upper Burma, moving between three meditation centres in a small area (VRI): at Kyaukse, at Shwebo and in his home village of Ingyinpin (VRI's biography of U Ba Khin).

Meeting U Ba Khin

In July 1941 U Ba Khin, then a government accountant, found himself at Kyaukse when his railway carriage was detached from the train by mistake. He went to visit the monk at the nearby monastery. VRI says Webu Sayadaw had been meditating alone in that jungle for years and was astonished at how far a householder had progressed. He urged U Ba Khin to start teaching at once.

U Ba Khin later took robes under Webu Sayadaw for ten days at Shwebo. He became a teacher, opened the International Meditation Centre in Rangoon in 1952, and designed the ten-day course from which both S. N. Goenka's and Mother Sayamagyi's courses descend.

Travels after 1953

In 1953 Webu Sayadaw made his first trip to Rangoon, at U Ba Khin's invitation, and stayed a week at his centre (VRI). From 1954 until his death he made yearly visits to teach in towns of southern Burma. He also went on pilgrimage to the Buddhist sites of India and Sri Lanka (VRI; IMC).

U Ba Khin died in January 1971. VRI records Webu Sayadaw's words afterwards: "Your Sayagyi never died… his teaching lives on."

Death

He died on 26 June 1977, aged eighty-one, at the meditation centre in Ingyinpin, the village where he was born (VRI; IMC).

His talks in English

Roger Bischoff, who teaches at IMC UK and was Mother Sayamagyi's leading disciple, translated several of his talks from Burmese. They appeared as The Essential Practice, in two parts, and To Light a Fire, and can be read on Access to Insight. Part II, for example, is a dialogue between the Sayadaw and his disciples.

The practice he taught is described in Anapana. The traditions that honour him are Vipassana as taught by S. N. Goenka and the International Meditation Centres.