U Pandita


Sayadaw U Pandita was one of the foremost masters of Vipassanā. He trained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Myanmar. A successor to the late Mahāsi Sayādaw, he has taught many of the Western teachers and students of the Mahāsi style of Vipassanā meditation. He was the abbot of in Yangon, Myanmar.

Early life and education

U Pandita was born in 1921 in Insein in greater Rangoon during British colonial rule. He became a novice at age twelve, and ordained at age twenty. After decades of study, he passed the rigorous series of government examinations in the Theravāda Buddhist texts, gaining the Dhammācariya degree in 1952.
U Pandita began practicing Vipassana under the guidance of Mahāsi Sayādaw beginning in 1950.

Career

In 1955, he left his position as a teacher of scriptural studies to become a meditation teacher at the Mahāsi Meditation Center. Soon after Mahasi Sayādaw died in 1982, U Pandita became the guiding teacher of the Mahasi Meditation Center. In 1991, he left that position, founding Meditation Center in Yangon. There are now branch centers in Myanmar, Nepal, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.
U Pandita became well known in the West after conducting a retreat in the spring of 1984 at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts in the United States. Many of the senior Western meditation teachers in the Mahāsi tradition practiced with U Pandita at that and subsequent retreats. The talks he gave in 1984 at IMS were compiled as the book In This Very Life.
Until his death at age 94 in 2016, he continued to lead retreats and give dharma talks, but he rarely gave interviews.

Method and style of teaching

U Pandita was known for teaching a rigorous and precise method of self-examination. He taught Satipatthana| or Vipassanā, emphasizing Buddhist ethics as a requisite foundation. He was also an erudite scholar of the Pali Tripiṭaka|, the Theravāda canon.

Referred to by others

a meditation researcher, uses Pandita's quote to illustrate the difference between dopamine secretions and joy;"In their quest for happiness, people mistake excitement of the mind for real happiness."

Monasteries

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