About Erik Braun

Determined to save Buddhism in Burma during colonial rule, Ledi Sayadaw popularized the teachings of the Abhidharma and introduced thousands of laypeople to the practice of insight meditation. As Erik Braun tells us, he set in motion a revolution in Buddhist practice still being felt around the globe. More than a century ago, as the British were taking over his country, a Burmese monk named Ledi Sayadaw grew concerned about the impending threat to the nation’s precious and fragile Buddhist tradition. He believed the Burmese people were not doing enough to protect Buddhism in the face of colonialism, and that the discipline of monks, who were charged with upholding the teachings, was weakening. Ledi Sayadaw resolved to take action. And in doing so, he sparked a revolution no one could have anticipated: the widespread practice of vipassana, or insight meditation. Although little known in the West, Ledi Sayadaw was responsible for making the practice of insight meditation, based on the mindful observation of one’s experience, accessible to all kinds of people—not just monks or nuns, but fishermen, hunters, and farmers. As a result of his influence, today many more people have been introduced to insight meditation: business executives, software developers, teachers, and schoolchildren, to name a few. Such practice is now in deep dialogue with nearly all Buddhist traditions—including those of Tibet, China, and Japan—and it forms an integral part of research, experimentation, and reflection in the fields of psychology, neurology, and Western philosophy. The boy who would become Ledi Sayadaw was born in 1846 in a jungle village some eighty miles from Mandalay, which at that time was still the capital of an independent kingdom that covered the upper half of today’s modern Myanmar (the name the present government uses). British territory and influence, however, surrounded the realm. The king of Burma, Mindon (1853–1878), and his subjects were well aware of their precarious position. Ledi Sayadaw certainly was, too, and he shared with other Burmese a sense that time was not on their side. Indeed, from the Burmese Buddhist perspective the flow of history rarely is, because it is commonly understood by Theravadan Buddhists that Buddhism will inevitably disappear from this world, not to reappear for “incalculable eons.” Now, in the face of colonialism, they could see clearly how that end might come. Ledi Sayadaw meant to make the most of his time—“To spin cotton,” as the Burmese put it, “while the moon is bright.” Alone and just twenty years old, he set out from his village in order to try and win a place in Mandalay at Thanjaun, one of the most prestigious monasteries in the land. Any monk wishing to be admitted as a resident there had to sit at its entrance and perfectly recite, from memory, the rules of training for the ordained. For an unknown monk from a family of farmers, seeking admission was a bold move. Monks at Thanjaun were some of the most powerful in Burma. The abbot was one of the king’s closest advisors, and he and others in the monastery sat on the royal advisory council. To be at Thanjaun was to stand at the heart not just of religious power but very near the apex of political power as well. Ledi Sayadaw made it in. At first, he had to sleep on a rough mat in front of a water pot, getting out of the way every morning when the monks did their morning ablutions. But he quickly came to the attention of the abbot as a bright and ambitious young monk. It is said he got noticed because he sang out in a loud voice during every recitation and sought out extra teachings on the dharma. It was not long before he was studying under the abbot and other high-placed officials—and sleeping in a better (and drier) place. In the path proposed by Ledi Sayadaw, the layperson became a sort of lineage holder. Whether intentionally or not, this highly democratic move has had profound implication for Buddhism in the modern age. At Thanjaun, the route to recognition was not meditation but scholarly ability. How well do you know the canonical texts? The commentaries? The sub-commentaries? The sub-sub-commentaries? These were the questions that mattered. A promising scholar, Ledi Sayadaw came to prominence and was soon appointed a student teacher, and later a full teacher. During that time he did not have any achievements in meditation. In fact, there is no record that he seriously meditated at all during his years in Mandalay, from 1867 to 1883. Instead, Ledi Sayadaw focused on scholastic study (pariyatti in Pali), particularly on the difficult philosophical texts known as the Abhidhamma. Such texts describe reality from an “ultimate” (paramattha) perspective. In this system, all things are analyzed in terms of the continual arising and passing away of moments of mind and matter that cause the deluded person to see the conventional world as solid and real. It is, then, a deconstructive system that seeks to break down reality into its insubstantial and ever-changing parts, revealing, finally, the impermanent, essenceless, and suffering-infused nature of all beings’ experiences. Meditation was present in the curriculum but only as another topic of study, often presented in relation to Abhidhamma philosophy. Ledi Sayadaw saw how his teachers used such theoretical thinking about meditation—but not its practice—as a way to understand the world in Abhidhamma terms. Few monks meditated, and those who did typically lived far from the bustle of the royal capital. The lack of emphasis on meditation in the monasteries sometimes surprises people, especially when it comes to Burma, where insight meditation is so prominent it has, at times, seemed to be the country’s number one export. Ledi Sayadaw’s time ensconced in the rarefied scholastic atmosphere of a royally supported monastery in Mandalay would not last. His life was turned upside down with the collapse of law and order that accompanied the reign of the next and last Burmese king, Thibaw (1878–1885). During Thibaw’s rule, lawlessness increased and society became destabilized. A huge fire broke out in the capital in 1883, razing Thanjaun along with the entire northern quarter of the city. Ledi Sayadaw lost his home, and his teachers and students were scattered. He also lost the extensive notes to a book he’d been working on for years. Suddenly unencumbered by position or duty and perhaps shocked by such an event, he returned to his family village. But his return was not a retreat. Rather, in a short span of time, he founded a monastery in the nearby “Ledi forest” that would give him his name, the Ledi Sayadaw, or the “respected teacher of the Ledi forest.” It is at this time that he began to meditate in earnest, using the theory he had learned in Mandalay. The annexation of royal Burma by the British in 1885 only cemented his feeling that time was of the essence. The threat to Buddhism was now immediate. In the following years, Ledi Sayadaw made meditation central to his life. Eventually, in 1900, he even gave up control of his monastery and moved into mountain caves near the banks of the Chindwin River to focus more intently on his practice. One Burmese biography relates that his samadhi became so deep during this period that an attendant, checking in on him one day, found him floating two feet off the ground! Whether true or not, Ledi Sayadaw’s own accounts during this time also tell of profound achievements in stilling his mind. In the only document in which he refers to his own meditative accomplishments, he says: Near the end of the Buddhist tradition many people are born, but try finding a man like me in the world. Set up the flag of great diligence—proclaim me like no other! I practice all sorts of meditation. With lion-like intellectual powers, I have completed the path of jhana. I have mastered and control all five of the masteries [of the jhanas]. In all the realms under and above Brahma, I have set up the flag of power abundantly. I will reside in contentment. In the future I will be brave and unsurpassed during the victory of the next Buddha, Metteyya. Such a blunt statement of meditational accomplishment by a Theravada monk is extremely rare. But Ledi Sayadaw was an unusual man. He said that he had finished the jhanas, the deep and powerful absorptions that prepare the mind for insight, and that he had done so by controlling the five masteries: turning the mind to the absorptions, entering them, staying as long as one likes, and then leaving them easily and with an accurate knowledge of precisely what one has done. To have such mastery is considered in Burmese Buddhism a rare and heroic feat. And Ledi Sayadaw makes the point about his accomplishments even finer by proclaiming that he will be without equal in the future, during the time of the next Buddha, Metteyya (Maitreya in Sanskrit). Perhaps it was because of these accomplishments that he felt the time was ripe for another dramatic change in his life, especially since he believed the Buddhist era was nearing its end. It was shortly after writing his poetic proclamation, in 1903, that Ledi Sayadaw stepped onto the national stage. From this point on, he undertook a program of nearly ceaseless travel throughout the country, traveling thousands and thousands of miles, from the far north to the far south and to the borders on the east and west. He reached out to the masses by preaching Buddhism wherever he went, writing scores of Buddhist books, poems, and essays, and organizing laypeople into social groups for study and self-improvement. He became tremendously popular. A British official observed, “Wherever he went he was greeted by enraptured throngs. Men and women vied in adoration of the saintly personage, women loosing their hair and spreading it as a carpet for his holy feet.” Ledi Sayadaw did not neglect moral issues. He argued in his speeches and in print against drinking liquor, taking opium, and eating beef...

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