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ESSENTIAL
THEMES OF
BUDDHISTS LECTURES
Venerable Sayadaw Ashin U Thittila
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A BRIEF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR
(1896 -
1997)
(Written By Mrs. Claudine W. Iggleden in 1985)
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The Venerable Sayadaw U Thittila, Aggamahapandita,
author of the following talks on the Buddhist Teaching, was born in 1896
in the town of Pyawbwe, central Burma, the centre of a rice
growing district.
His father died when he was only three years old. When he was nine his
elder and only brother died, and when he was fourteen his elder and only
sister also died. His mother married again, a physician, but his
stepfather, too, died later. However, at the young age of seven or eight
years he was even then regularly frequenting the local monastery, the
Padigon Vihara, almost daily. where he and a friend were taught
certain scriptures by the much respected and learned incumbent there,
Sayadaw U Kavinda. By the age of ten he was learning to recite certain
suttas, and by the age of fifteen when he was ordained a
samanera he already knew by heart the primer to Abhidhamma
studies, the Abhidhammatthasangaha, also the Mahasatipatthana
Sutta and Kaccayana's Pali Grammar. It was, though, at the age
of twelve when his teacher, the Ven. U Kavinda, took him to Mandalay to
hear a sermon on Abhidhamma that he made the decision to become a
bhikkhu. His full ordination at the age of twenty eventually took
place much further south in lower Burma, at Moulmein in 1916, on which
occasion Sayadaw U Okkantha was his preceptor. Prior to that, when
he was still fifteen, he and three other young samaneras went with
their same first teacher to live in the forest for the practice of
meditation. They spent eight months there, and lived amongst wild
creatures of many kinds including large snakes.
It
was not long after that he entered the Masoyein Monastery College
at Mandalay. There, after intensive studies under the tuition of his
second teacher and hard task master, Sayadaw U Adiccavamsa, he was
selected from among an entry of five thousand candidates as the
Pathamakyaw Scholar of all Burma in 1918. This success merely aroused
in him the resolve to train and study for a further exceedingly strenuous
long period in order to enter for the highest of all monastic
examinations, th Panyattisasanahita (Mandalay). In 1923, of the one
hundred and fifty entrants for that examination only four passed, of which
he was one. Over the years since then the questions set for that
examination have gradually been modified so that the possibility of
attaining a pass is slightly greater than in those earlier days, and there
are fewer and fewer now who know of the extremely high qualifications
required in order to have been successful in those previous times. As a
result of his studies for that achievement he could memorize stanzas by
hearing them read once, and he had of necessity to memorize a total of
fifteen volumes from theTipitaka to enable entry for the oral
section alone. His success accorded him the right to appointment as the
head of a monastery of three hundred bhikkhus, even at that relatively
young age, as the result of which he became head of the education
department and school at a monastery specially founded in Rangoon for his
teacher, the Ven. Adiccavarnsa. and himself.
Some few years later, in 1933, he went to India where he spent a year at
Santiniketan studying English and Sanskrit, following which
period he journeyed to Ceylon with the aim of studying English.
Unfortunately, however, due to ill health because of wrong feeding,
coupled with the failure of his plans to come to fruit, he had to
reconsider this original idea and in due course returned to India to stay
atAdyar. It was at Adyar that he eventually had the opportunity to learn
English from English people, and at the same time acquire a basic
knowledge of some of the manners and customs with which he was not
acquainted.
During his time in India he was elected president of the South India
Buddhist Associations, and he also undertook the management of the
Buddhist Free Elementary School at Perambur. In an appreciation by
members of the South India Buddhist Associations, dated 7th May 1938 at
Madras, it records that since the founding of the Society in South India
in 1903 many bhikkhus and missionaries had visited them, ' ... but no one
has evinced such selfless and untiring interest in the cause of the
revival of Buddhism in South India as you have done in your short stay of
four years.' The appreciation continues by saying that he was well known
to Buddhists of Bangalore, Kolar, Wallajah, Wanniveda, Chakkra mallar,
Konjeevaram, etc.
To
further improve his knowledge of English, and in particular to study
English educational methods and family upbringing and training of English
children, he left Adyar for England in the summer of 1938. Having all his
life lived under British colonial rule he was interested to learn at
first-hand how the English lived and behaved in their own land, and to
observe whether any of the educational methods and training of children
might be of benefit to Burmese children at home. His knowledge of English
by the time of his arrival was fairly good, if limited, but sufficient for
him to accept an invitation by the then secretary of the Buddhist
Society in London to give a general talk on the Dhamma. This
very first talk in England was also the very first time he had ever
addressed an English audience. His second talk, however, entitled 'World
Fellowship Through Buddhism'. was given in France at the invitation of Sir
Francis Younghusband, president and founder of the World Congress of
Faiths, and took place at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Following
those two talks he decided that before accepting any further invitation to
speak in public he should improve his English, and so he took steps to
attend a course at the London Polytechnic until March 1939.
The conditions for any bhikkhu in the West in those days were
exceptionally hard, bhikkhu-life being unheard of and unknown to the
inhabitants of that part of the world. With the outbreak of war in that
year, apart from two most generous friends with whom he first became
acquainted in Adyar, Ven. U Thittila was left unsupported in any way and
quite penniless; he was in almost unheard of circumstances for any member
of the Sangha. Still undeterred, however, he did everything he
possibly could for the individuals suffering under wartime conditions,
eventually finding support for himself in various ways which included
broadcasting on the Burma Service of the B.B.C. and joining the Burmese /
English Dictionary committee of which Dr. Stewart was the founder. During
those war years, when the giving of public talks was impossible and his
quest for information regarding educational methods and family training of
children was at a standstill, he was friend and helper to very many, but
few indeed ever knew of the sometimes acute privations he had on occasions
to endure.
As
the war drew to a close he was gradually able to resume giving talks again
under various different auspices, including two separate series of
seventeen talks each to members of the Workers' Educational Association.
He visited people in hospital, inmates in prison, and through some helpful
contacts he was able to have at last the opportunity to visit certain
schools, at some of which he was invited to give talks. His wish to
observe how English children were brought up and trained by their parents
was then also made possible by the readiness of a few different families,
who upon introduction invited him to stay in their homes for that purpose.
Of the children with whom he was associated he was able to study in depth
their school life and home influence, and as he stayed with the families
of differing religious backgrounds he was able to augment his knowledge of
not only the Western way of life but the conditions to which many young
people were subjected from a very early age.
So
far as the Dhamma is concerned, perhaps the most outstanding
feature was his introduction of the Abhidhamma Pitaka (the
psycho-ethical analysis of things in their ultimate sense as against their
conceptual form) to the West by way of commencing to teach the small
manual, Abhidhammatthasangaha, to a class of students interested in
the Buddhist Teaching and who had specifically requested him to deal with
that section. For the very first time in the West, the primer to the third
Pitaka was systematically taught for a consecutive period of over
four years, and this instruction became the bedrock and yardstick for
those who sought to learn something of the fundamental teaching of the
Buddha. His patience and skill, also his great care of his students in
helping them to overcome their difficulties between the Western way of
considering religious and philosophical matters in comparison with the
Buddhist presentation of things, was evidence of the difference between a
real teacher and an academic instructor. He helped them, too, in any facet
of their lives, being frequently requested to give his advice which he
never failed in offering.
In
March 1949, the "Sasana Kari Vihara" in London was founded by a
group of nine Burmese kappiyas for the purpose of supporting the
work of Ven. U Thittila in England; thus for the first time since his
arrival in the West he experienced something nearer to the Eastern
traditional support of the Sangha, and became no longer dependent merely
upon his own efforts for survival. His personal achievement in teaching
continued unabated, and in the two years from March 1949 to March 1951
records show that he carried out in excess of two hundred and fifty
teaching engagements, quite apart from fulfilling all the other types of
duties which normally fall to a bhikkhu in the ordinary course of events.
Being then the only resident bhikkhu in England, those other duties
absorbed a very considerable proportion of his time.
Unfortunately, because of the unavoidable floating nature of the Burmese
community in England, constant support for the Sasana Kari Vihara
was never certain, and in 1952 when Ven. U Thittila was invited to lecture
on Abhidhamma at Rangoon University to M.A. and B.A. students he
decided to accept at a time when funds for the vihara had become virtually
insufficient to maintain even one bhikkhu. Thus his departure for Rangoon,
after fourteen years in what must almost at times have seemed like
wilderness conditions, left an irreplaceable gap in the lives of many of
his English students. However, they continued his Abhidhamma
classes, studying on a revisionary basis all that he had taught them since
the commencement.
Although originally he accepted the university appointment for one year
only, his work there continued in the end for eight successive years. His
very great learning and undoubted skills in teaching were acknowledged
during this period when, in 1956, he received the highest government award
in that field by the conferring upon him of the title Agga Maha
Pandita. It was an honour which originally carried with it some
small annual material benefits for the receiver.
In
1959 he accepted an invitation from the Association for Asian Studies at
the University of Michigan, U.S.A., to lecture in America. Travelling all
over the U.S.A., unattended by any dayaka or helper, encountering
climates ranging from extreme cold with deep snow to blazing sun with
extreme heat, he spent nearly six months delivering well over a total of
one hundred and sixty lectures at various universities and arranged
meetings. This was the planned programme, but as a result of his talks he
found himself constantly the guest of many of the hospitable American
people who heard him speak, and the additional inquiries and personal
questions arising from this extra dimension greatly extended what was
already a very demanding schedule. His itinerary included a flight from
Los Angeles to Hawaii, where at Honolulu University he was requested
particularly to give twelve talks, ten of them on Abhidhamma. And it was
while still in the American continent that he visited Toronto in Canada.
Over the years he has accepted three invitations at different times to go
to Australia, during which visits the practice of meditation and study of
the text of Dhammapada ranked high in interest. He has journeyed to
Japan where he had the opportunity to observe and discuss with Japanese
Zen masters their methods and training of Zen meditation students, and has
also visited both Singapore and Hongkong. On other occasions he has
travelled for specific purposes to Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, and more
than once to Thailand, quite apart from passing through that country many
times in the course of other longer travels.
In
Europe, prior to 1960, he had also upon invitation given talks in Belgium,
Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Holland. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and yet
again in France many years after his original first pre-war talk in 1938.
In
1964, at the instigation of two of his English Abhidhamma students,
he accepted an invitation to visit England again to continue teaching
Abhidhamma. The form of teaching on that occasion, however, took on a
dual purpose, and in the two years that followed, as well as teaching the
subject he translated into English from the Pali, for the very first time
that it had ever been done, the second of the seven books of the
Abhidhamma Pitaka, Vibhanga. It was published by the Pali Text Society
in 1969 under the title of 'The Book of Analysis.'
Upon his return to Burma in 1966 he did not again leave for abroad until
his two recent visits to England, one in 1982 and again in 1983. At the
very considerable age of eighty-seven years, he yet again upon invitation
conducted a course of weekly classes during the summer months of 1983,
dealing with the application of Abhidhamma knowledge to ordinary
everyday life.
During the years from 1966-1982 in Burma, due to his knowledge, evident
practice, practical experience and inevitable seniority in age, he became
invited and accepted the position of Ovadacariya (spiritual
adviser or instructor) to the central council of the Sangha
Mahanayaka of the whole country, Burma; to the trustees of the
Shwedagon Pagoda, Sule Pagoda, Kaba Aye Pagoda and to most other well
known pagodas in Rangoon. He is also examiner for the well known
Abhidhamma Propagation Society in Rangoon.
The sparse information given in this extremely brief sketch of some of the
main events in the Sayadaw's life, confirms a remark made one day by an
astrologer in Mandalay who once happened to see the Sayadaw there when he
was a young samanera. The astrologer commented that only one tenth
of anything that that particular young bhikkhu did would ever become
known.
The difficulty in collecting information is compounded by the fact that
the Sayadaw very seldom speaks of himself, or mentions his endless
achievements in the vast field of his experiences. Beneath his quiet and
retiring bearing lies a profound depth of knowledge of the Buddhist
Teaching, and to spread this knowledge has been his great endeavour
throughout his life. He has striven, often in the face of surprising
opposition, to carry out his aim. Even his original idea to learn English
and go to the West, met with an opposition that made his initial departure
a very difficult thing.
Over the years since the war he has taught and helped countless
Western-born people, although of his English pupils from the actual war
years and just after, so many are now no more. However, by those who still
remember him during his fourteen years presence in England, from
1938-1952, and who on subsequent visits have continued to receive teaching
and guidance from him, he is deeply regarded and with much gratitude.
As
a skilled teacher, in accordance with the order of pariyatti, patipatti
and pativedha (learning, practice and realization), he has always been
at pains to deal with first things first. He has always realized that
strangers, newcomers to the word Buddhism, having been brought up and
educated from childhood in a totally different religious environment,
would have absolutely no concept at all of the Buddhist Teaching. His
method, therefore, has been first to explain very simply and gradually
exactly what and who a Buddha is. Once such people have become acquainted
with some knowledge and a correct idea of the nature of a Buddha, he
later, still in very simple terms, gains the further interest of his
listeners by the very reasonableness and logic of what he has to say in
connection with right living in ordinary everyday life, and what in
accordance with Buddhist teaching is required if one is to improve oneself
morally, intellectually and spiritually. He always speaks to people at
their level of appreciation and interest, feeding them slowly with
information that will build their confidence. Like a wise farmer, he tills
the soil before sowing the seed. He prepares the ground; then, selecting
suitable seed for the varying soils he plants carefully at the proper
season, realizing that to use the same seed in all the differing soils
would be unsuitable and unproductive.
On
recognizing some people's almost total ignorance of the Dhamma, the
Sayadaw has never been dismayed; he has never ever considered abandoning
any mission on encountering such utter lack of comprehension, but actually
striven all the harder to offer to those individuals something which could
act as a next step for them, something which could serve as an aid to
movement in the right direction. Knowing that morality is the soil in
which development and understanding grow, he has sought, always, to
introduce, maintain and increase people's knowledge of, and tendency to
practise, at least the basic five precepts in their ordinary life.
And so, dealing with first things first, he will speak to the uninformed
of right thought, right speech and right action in their ordinary everyday
life. As he says, 'How we think, speak, behave and react when we have come
away from meditation centres and returned to everyday life, is the clue as
to how far, if at all, we have actually improved or advanced morally and
mentally. Is our annoyance at things, our anger, less; are we more kindly,
better behaved, more considerate towards others? Is our greed for the
things we like and try to get hold of in everyday existence, is that greed
really less?'
Approaching his ninetieth year the Sayadaw is still active and teaching,
at the same time making available to others his great knowledge and vast
experience of practice under conditions which none but the most highly
disciplined and principled could have ever emerged unscathed morally or
mentally. The inflexibility of his determination as a very young person to
learn every aspect of the Buddhist Teaching absolutely thoroughly, and his
inflexibility to live always appealing to the highest within himself, has
enabled the spreading of the true Dhamma to reach large numbers in the
world who otherwise may never have heard of it, nor had the chance to meet
one of its most genuinely humble, compassionate and dedicated exemplars,
one of its most profoundly learned exponents.
C. W. Iggleden
England, 1985
P.S.: The Most
Venerable Sayadaw passed away in Myanmar (Burma), on January the 3rd ,
1997, at the age of 100.
We are most grateful
to Mrs. Claudine W. Iggleden for allowing us to re-publish the Sayadaw's
book, which is a collection of expanded notes prepared for talks on
Buddhism given in the West over the period 1938-1983.
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Contents
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I
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II
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III
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IV
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V
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Source:
Nibbana.com
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See also:
Vietnamese translation
(Online)
See also:
Vietnamese translation
(CD-Rom)
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Layout: Linh Thoai Nhi Tuong
Update : 01-02-2003