THE SOUND OF THE BREATH: SUNLUN AND THEINNGU MEDITATION TRADITIONS OF MYANMAR

ABSTRACT

This article explores the popular Sunlun and Theinngu meditation traditions in Myanmar. The founders, Sunlun Sayadaw Ven. U Kavi (1878–1952) and Theinngu Sayadaw Ven. U Ukkaṭṭha (1913–1973), both led a lay life until in their mid-40s and only then took up meditation, going on to become highly respected meditation teachers. Their meditation techniques are similarly distinctive in employing rapid, strong and rhythmic breathing. They combined this with the contemplation of the intense, usually unpleasant, bodily sensations that are thus induced. I document their techniques and application in detail, highlighting their complexity and diversity. I draw contrasts between the use of sati, mindfulness, in their methods and the way it is used in the modern Mindfulness movement. Finally, I discuss the ways in which the practices and experiences of both masters had to be authorised to survive where other meditation traditions have been outlawed. Senior members of the Burmese Sangha catechised both masters separately, using Pāli canonical and post-canonical texts as a benchmark to verify the popular belief amongst Burmese people that they were arahants. I locate this testing within the context of the concerns, sense of duty and status experienced by Burmese lay people in relation to defending Buddhism from decline.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Kate Crosby, Gustaaf Houtman, Sarah Shaw, Andrew Skilton and David Wharton for comments on this article. This work was supported by Ji Xuegen Research Funding for Buddhist Studies at King's College London.

Notes

1. For exploration of different aspects of vedanā in meditation practice and psychology, see the special issue of Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal, volume 19, issue 1, which is called ‘“Knowing how it feels”: The Definition, Practice and Psychology’.

2. Sometimes the word Theinn is used, rather than Theinngu, within the Theinngu meditation tradition.

3. Here, I use the expressions ‘bodily sensations’ and ‘mental feelings’ to refer to the Pāli word vedanā, usually translated as ‘feeling’ or ‘sensation’, because the meditation techniques and processes in the Sunlun and Theinngu traditions deal with both bodily sensations such as pain, aches, etc. and mental feelings such as anger, joy, etc. The Visuddhimagga (XIV 127–128) classifies five types of vedanā in terms of its nature – bodily pleasant sensation, bodily unpleasant sensation, mentally pleasant feeling, mentally unpleasant feeling and mentally neutral feeling. The first two can be experienced ‘as direct responses to physical contact’, while the remaining three ‘can be in response to physical contact, but also to all our experiences in the world’ (Samatha Trust 1996, 12).

4. Although ‘catechise’ and ‘catechism’ have a more technical meaning in learning Christian church doctrine, I use these terms in this article, rather than using the term ‘interview’. This is because I suspect there is an element of ‘catechism’ in the interactions between the learned monks and Theinngu Sayadaw to the extent that Theinngu Sayadaw learned Theravada technical terms through such interactions.

5. For Burmese Buddhists, the Pāli word kusala, kútho in Burmese, ‘wholesome’ or ‘skilful’, refers to the concept of the benefits of good deeds, i.e. puñña, ‘merit’. P. D. Premasiri (1976) has differentiated the usage of kusala and puñña, arguing that in earlier Buddhist texts kusala encompassed a broader spectrum of meaning than that of puñña, and that the later tradition tended to use them interchangeably, even synonymously. The usage of these two terms in contemporary Myanmar supports Premasiri’s observation.

6. See Braun (2013) for how Ledi Sayadaw popularised insight meditation among Burmese laypeople in the late 19th century Myanmar.

7. Sobhana’s hagiography of Sunlun Sayadaw portrays his wife, Daw Shwe Yee, in a negative light despite her later donation of the monastery to him. During the period of his practice, she tried to disrupt his meditation, once by removing the floor of their house, and on another occasion by setting the cattle loose. She did these so that he would get up from his meditation (Sobhana 1995, 32). In contrast, Theinngu Sayadaw’s hagiography describes how his third wife became instrumental in encouraging him to pursue the path of meditation. See below for full details.

8. The honorary titles such as ‘Aggamahāpaṇḍita’, the ‘highest great scholar’, and ‘Abhidhajamahāraṭhaguru’, the ‘foremost teacher of the nation’, are conferred to scholar monks by the state.

9. Paññājota (2003, 27) writes that on the eve of World War II, prisoners across the country who were imprisoned for their involvement in various anti-British movements such as the Saya San Rebellion and Dobama Asiayone and for their criminal acts were moved to Mandalay prison.

10. Daw Si later practised meditation under the guidance of Theinngu Sayadaw and became a precept-nun (thilashin).

11. In Myanmar, laypeople and some precept-nuns staying at a monastery or a meditation centre observe the Nine Precepts, which are the set of Eight Precepts plus the practice of loving-kindness (mettā) as the ninth precept.

12. It should be noted that I have not come across other sources on the Theinngu tradition which mention such an experimentation with breathing by Theinngu Sayadaw.

13. Aung Tun was also accused of a robbery in 1959 and had to spend 45 days in Inn Sein prison. This was said to be after his attainment of the second stage of liberation (Ukkaṭṭha Undated 1, 57:24–1:08:12).

14. In Burmese, it is htí-mhú thí-mhú thatí-kyát-kyát-pyú. Htí tót thí mae. Thí-táe-apàw-thatí-htàyin-alote-kate-sa-À-hpyín-pè-pathi.

15. He used a Burmese loanword from Pāli, tha-mú-dá-yá, which is samudaya, ‘origin’, in Pāli. In Burmese, the term tha-mú-dá-yá-thít-sa, i.e. samudaya-sacca, refers to the truth of the origin of suffering, the second Noble Truth. However, tha-mú-dá-yá on its own has come to mean ‘attachment’.

16. The Vipallāsa-sutta (AN 4.49) describes four perversions of perception (saññā-vipallāsa), of thought (citta-vipallāsa) and of view (ditthi-vipallāsa), which distort how the mind works and misapprehends what is impermanent as permanent, what is painful as pleasant, what is without a self as a self, and what is impure as pure. The Visuddhimagga (XXII, 47, 53, and 68) describes a stream-enterer as someone who has discarded these three levels of perversion. Mahasi Sayadaw in A Discourse of the Sīlavanta-sutta points out that although a stream-enterer is incapable of being deflected from the view of impermanence, he or she is not free from self-conceit derived from the view of the existence of ‘I’ (Bhikkhu Pesala 2013, 78).

17. The stages of the vipassanāñāṇa found in the Pāli canonical and commentarial texts vary in numbers: (1) the Paṭisambhidāmagga lists eight stages of the vipassanāñāṇa, (2) the Visuddhimagga gives nine stages of the vipassanāñāṇa (Ñāṇamoli 1991, 662ff.) and (3) the Abhidhammaṭṭhāsaṅgaha lists 10 stages of the vipassanāñāṇa (Bodhi 2000, 345–347). The 10 stages of the vipassanāñāṇa are: (1) knowledge of comprehension (sammasanañāṇa); (2) knowledge of rise and fall (udayabbayañāṇa); (3) knowledge of dissolution (bhaṅgañāṇa); (4) knowledge of fearfulness (bhayañāṇa); (5) knowledge of danger (ādīnavañāṇa); (6) knowledge of disenchantment (nibbidāñāṇa); (7) knowledge of desire for deliverance (muñcitukamyatāñāṇa); (8) knowledge of reflection (paṭisankhāñāṇa); (9) knowledge of equanimity towards formation (sakhār’upekkhāñāṇa) and (10) knowledge of conformity (anulomañāṇa) (Bodhi 2000, 345).

18. The term rūpa-kalāpa, which is generally translated as ‘material group’ (Ñāṇamoli 1991, 836), is an Abhidhamma concept. It refers to a group of material dhammas that consists solely of the four great essentials – i.e. earth element, water element, fire element, air element, and four derivatives – i.e. colour, smell, taste, and nutritive essence. The material group made up of these eight material phenomena is known as ‘inseparable matter’ (avinibbhogarūpa) (Bodhi 2000, 246). Here, I use the phrase ‘atomic units of matter’ to refer to the rūpa-kalāpa because Theinngu Sayadaw sometimes used the term paramāṇu, which is translated as a ‘particle’ or ‘atom’, conveying the concept of subtle, minute nature of rūpa.

19. He used the Burmese expression nan-nyant-hta, which literally means ‘the mind is already inclined towards’. In the context of our discussion, it could mean that a noble person may often think about or contemplate the destination of their rebirth, and he/she may thus embody subtler states of consciousness.

20. The 121 varieties of consciousness (citta) in the classical Theravada Abhidhamma are subdivided into the four levels of planes of existence – i.e. the sensuous sphere, the form sphere, the formless sphere, and the supramundane level – seen in both cosmological and psychological terms (Gethin 1997; 192–193; Bodhi 2000; 28). Form-sphere consciousness (rūpāvacara-citta) belongs to the form sphere and beings exist in the form world (rūpa-loka).

21. Theinngu Sayadaw used the Burmese expression pyit-nyat, which refers to the Pāli word paññatti, ‘name’ or ‘concept’ or ‘designation’. As Karunadasa (2010, 52) observes, although the three characteristics are known as universal characteristics of all dhammas, i.e. elementary components that make up the experienced world, they turn out to be conceptual constructions with no objective reality.

22. A senior nun, Sayagyì Daw Eka, from the Vijjodaya Theinn Meditation Centre in Pyay normally demonstrates the Theinngu breathing technique during meditation sessions. See https://www.facebook.com/vizawdayatheinn/videos/1,680,647,638,856,622/ (accessed on 20/09/2018) for a video recording of the breathing demonstrated by her at a retreat in Singapore.

23. Personal communication with Aunglan Sayadaw Ven. Candimā on 05/09/2008.

24. See Skilton in this volume for how the rūpa-kammaṭṭhāna is understood within the meditation tradition at Wat Ratchasittharam in Bangkok.

25. Personal communication with Vijjodaya Sayadaw on 08/10/2011.

26. See Houtman (1990, 326–337) for a detailed analysis of the place of monk hagiography in the context of Burmese biography.

27. See Janaka and Crosby (2017, 217–219) for a summary of the vinicchaya case on Kyauk-thìn-bàw Sayadaw’s teachings.

28. See Ukkaṭṭha (1963) for an example of the recording between the monks from Kyauk-thìn-bàw meditation tradition and Theinngu Sayadaw. Based on the available sources on the catechism, we cannot be sure whether or not it was the first Kyauk-thìn-bàw Sayadaw Ven. Kesava (1902–1967) who tested Theinngu Sayadaw. Kyauk-thìn-bàw Sayadaw Ven. Visuddha (1930/31–2003) that Janaka and Crosby (2017, 217) mention in their article was the second abbot of the Kyauk-thìn-bàw Monastery in Kyaukse, which is now known as Nyeìn-chàn-yày (Peace) Monastery.

29. See Braun (2013, 46–76) for the detailed analysis of these debates. For examples of the burgeoning literature produced by such debate in other areas of Buddhist practice, see Nagasena Bhikkhu (2012, chapter 3).

30. The nature and frequency of monastic trial cases prior to the 1980s in Myanmar warrants further research.

31. See Carbine (2011), Braun (2013), Kyaw (2014) and Turner (2014) for detailed discussions of how multiple socio-political, religious and cultural factors have contributed to the Burmese Buddhist worldview of a continuous struggle to purify, preserve and propagate the Buddha’s sāsana.

32. My respondents use a Burmese loanword law-ka-dan-ta-ya, referring to the Pāli compound loka-dhamma, ‘worldly conditions’. The Paṭhamalokadhamma-sutta (AN. 8.5) and the Dutiyalokadhamma-sutta (AN. 8.6) deal with the eight worldly conditions, i.e. gain, loss, repute, disrepute, praise, blame, happiness and misery.

33. The notion of ‘doing the work of sāsana’ (Carbine 2011, 3), what is called tha-tha-na-pyú in Burmese, has long been an important aspect of the Burmese Buddhist worldview and their Buddhist practices.

34. See Brac de la Perrière, Rozenberg, and Turner (2014) on the wiekza practices and cults in contemporary Myanmar.

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Pyi Phyo Kyaw

Pyi Phyo Kyaw is Dean of Graduate Studies and Lecturer in Theravada Studies at Shan State Buddhist University, Taunggyi, Myanmar. She is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Abhidhamma Meditation at King’s College London. She specializes in Burmese Buddhism, Abhidhamma, Buddhist meditation, Buddhist business practices and traditional Buddhist pedagogy. She has extensive fieldwork experience in Myanmar, and has translated Burmese writings on meditation and biographies of Burmese meditation masters into English. She has undertaken monastic training as a precept-nun as well as intensive meditation practice within different meditation traditions in Myanmar. Since 2016, she has been teaching meditation in Budapest, Hungary. She obtained her PhD in Theravada analytical philosophy from King’s College London and also has an MA in Buddhist Studies from SOAS, University of London, and a BA in Economics and Management from Oxford University.