The story of Mukyawann Sayadaw
Michal Snasel shares the photo and following information. More details about the life of this extraordinary monk can be found here.
Ahba ('Ahba' is Burmese for father) came out of the woods near Taunggyi in Myanmar sometime in the 1950s as a monk. Ahba speaks little about his own past. What we know is that during his participation in the sixth Buddhist council meeting in Myanmar in 1954, he enjoyed considerable respect for his deep experience in samatha meditation (concentration meditation).
When the council was speculating about meditation on buddho (the qualities of the Buddha), he took the floor and it became very quiet in the hall, because no one else could speak about it at the same level of experience. In 1961 he stayed in Mukyawann and soon became known in that region as the Mukyawann Sayadaw (Sayadaw is an honorable Burmese title for a high monk) because of his knowledge of all aspects of the Dhamma . In 1969, as a prominent meditation and Abhidhamma teacher, he became abbot of a large monastery in Yangon where thousands of followers managed to find him, including the first Dutch disciples Jaap and Maria Guijt.
The followers also included senior government officials and, through his influence, he increasingly threatened the (military) junta. One night in 1981, he had suddenly disappeared. Not a day early as it soon turned out, because the next morning the army knocked on his monastery doors to take him into custody. No one knew where he had gone until Herman found him in the mountains of northern Thailand in 1983, where he lived in a small, originally Burmese, wooden monastery without water or electricity.
His monastery has since grown into one of the largest monasteries in Northern Thailand where he is known as Luang Por Opart ('Luang Por' means Father). And once again thousands of visitors come to his monastery every year, including many disciples from Myanmar who could not find a teacher in their own country to match Ahba. As abbot, he heads about 25 monks and 200 novices.
The monastery is primarily a Buddhist school where Pali , the language in which the Buddha's teachings are written, is studied. Ahba's school has been in the top three of the best Pali schools in Thailand for years, and they admire how he built it from scratch. Because this performance is so special, Ahba has now received a royal award and his monastery has been appointed royal monastery. In addition, Ahba has received the unique permission to be an abbot of both monks from the Mahā Nikāya and the Dhammayuttika Nikaya movement, in other words, his monastery has now become an official meditation monastery in addition to a school.
Ahba teaches samatha meditation on 'buddho' to a small group of people, mainly from Myanmar and the Netherlands. He has explained that when it comes to understanding the workings of your own consciousness, the main obstacle is the lack or absence of samādhi (concentration).
People want too fast. They want insights without first developing a foundation of morality and concentration with which wisdom can arise naturally and automatically. Ahba emphasizes a patient practice , slowly but surely, step by step, without any desire. Then it goes easily and automatically.
