Breathless in Burma

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“During my first course, when the 10 days were over, Sayagyi U Ba Khin asked me to stay a few days more [At the International Meditation Center, so that I] would make significant progress in my meditation,” Friedgard Lottermoser shares. “I was there alone, and during these four days, I had this special experience, which was especially [part of] U Ba Khin's teaching. It is not taught by Goenka, but Goenka sometimes refers to it. It is a special procedure, and it is only for the people who are advanced in Vipassana meditation.”

This is our second interview with Friedgard Lottermoser, marking the third hour we’re releasing out of an extensive, 45-hour archive of recorded conversations. In her first interview, she shared that she was born in 1942 in wartime Berlin, and then moved to Burma as a teenager, where her stepfather’s work introduced her family to Sayagyi U Ba Khin. She took her first course at IMC in 1960 when she was just 17, an experience that profoundly shaped her life, and which guided her life’s spiritual journey.

However, Friedgard was always reticent to publicly share her recollections about her time with Sayagyi U Ba Khin, the IMC mission, and S. N. Goenka. She feared a negative reaction by the Goenka Vipassana Organization, jeopardizing her continued enrollment in the tradition’s long courses, and thus agreed to speak only on the condition that the recordings be published posthumously. All conversations with her were recorded in 2023 and 2024; she passed away on August 8th, 2024.

As her first interview finished with a brief overview of her initial course, she begins this discussion with a deep dive into that profound experience. She notes how, through observing bodily sensations, many meditators progress through increasingly refined experiences until they reach the third stage of Vipassana knowledge: a complete dissolution of the felt sense of the body, called bhaṅga, or a “free flow” in the vocabulary of this tradition. This is a significant milestone that provides the yogi with a deep experience of impermanence (anicca). However, this is not the culmination of the practice; U Ba Khin explained that deeper stages await those whose spiritual development, or pāramī, allows them to venture further.

At this point, the perception of change within the body becomes subtler. The process demands meticulous effort, repeatedly scanning the body to identify and dissolve any lingering sensations that might remain trapped in obscure corners. Gradually, the attentional focus narrows to the solar plexus, the center of the body. Here, meditators are instructed to sustain their awareness, repeatedly observing the natural impermanence of sensations that arise and disappear. This phase requires patience and precision, as the meditator works to ensure that no residues of craving or aversion to them remains.

At this important juncture, she describes how U Ba Khin would guide students through a unique and subtle practice. A very powerful teacher, he would create a supportive environment to facilitate the experience while sitting beside the meditator. Central to this process was invoking supportive vibrations, including mental forces, invisible beings, and other subtle energies, which contributed to a profound meditative depth. The instructions were simple, yet precise. When he felt the moment was ripe, he would say, “Take a breath,” and instruct the meditator to apply a gentle mental pressure to the sensation at the center of their body. Then, at his signal—“Time's up!”—they were to suddenly release it, fully letting go. Friedgard acknowledges that the experience that followed varied greatly according to the practitioner. For some, it lasted only a fleeting moment, while for others, it extended into what was felt as a timeless state of profound awareness. Regardless of its duration, the significance lies in what follows: a transformative lightness, a release from deeply ingrained patterns within the body and mind.

Another significant experience occurred at the end of her first course which made an impression on Friedgard. Mother Sayama, who was reputed to have supernatural powers, sensed the presence of a being visiting from another realm who she thought might be Friedgard’s father. But because Friedgard’s stepfather had been introduced in Burma as her real father, Mother Sayama was confused as to who this spectral person really was, and Friedgard had to clarify her relationship to these two men. “And it's not the only occasion that [kind of thing] has happened,” Friedgard explains. “I've heard about another occasion where a dead person who is closely related to a meditator, when sharing of merit is taking place, can come.”

Here Friedgard provides a fuller background portrait of Mother Sayama. Despite her humble beginnings as an orphan raised by her grandmother near Mawlamyine, with little formal education and only basic literacy, Sayama became a pivotal presence at the center. She was known for her gentle manners, soft-spoken demeanor, and a strikingly fair complexion, often adorned with traditional thanaka. “She didn't have a good education,” Friedgard recalls. “She learned how to cook and how to make herself pretty. But she only could write her name and she couldn't even read and write Burmese fluently.” She also made her own clothes, and Friedgard notes how her first Burmese garments were made especially for her by Mother Sayama.

Amazingly, despite the influential role Mother Sayama had at the meditation center, it almost never came to pass: when he first began teaching, U Ba Khin did not instruct female students! But at the age of 26, Mother Sayama grew curious—and suspicious—about why her husband, Chit Tin, was spending so much of his time at the meditation center, and what exactly he was doing there for all those hours. Chit Tin, a government employee working alongside U Ba Khin, eventually gave in to her persistence and offered a brief lesson in ānāpāna (meditation on the breath), which marked the beginning of her remarkable spiritual journey. Within just a minute or two, she experienced a vision of a yellow light, which she humorously described as resembling a bar of soap. Over time, she and another female disciple, Daw Su Su, convinced U Ba Khin to permit female yogis at the center; both sat many intensive courses there; and Mother Sayama became an important disciple, largely due to her psychic powers. However, her swift advancement in meditation came with challenges. As she reached higher stages of practice, she encountered physical and mental difficulties. “You pick up negative vibrations from the environment,” Friedgard explains. “So, there were stages when she was sick, and she was unconscious, and all that!”

In contrast to the Vipassana centers in the Goenka tradition, which encourage students of all backgrounds to attend courses, U Ba Khin was more selective in who he taught. Friedgard remembers how the wife of the American Ambassador to Thailand (who may have been Josie Stanton) was barred from attending further courses, based on “the mental forces that were associated with her.” U Ba Khin even tried to dissuade Friedgard herself from attending further courses, as he felt she couldn’t progress seriously while continuing to live with a family of non-meditators, and on a military compound, no less. But Friedgard stubbornly persisted, first demanding her mother give her written permission, and then moving out of the house entirely to live in the student dormitories of Rangoon University so she could continue meditating at IMC.

It was also around this time that Friedgard first met a Buddhist monk:  none other than the renowned Webu Sayadaw, who was reputed to be an Arahat, a fully enlightened being. He visited IMC in May 1960, just two months after Friedgard completed her initial meditation course there. She describes the deep respect that U Ba Khin had for Webu Sayadaw, and the latter’s significant role in encouraging U Ba Khin to teach meditation. Although unable to directly understand Webu Sayadaw's teachings due to the language barrier—it would be years before she became fluent in Burmese—Friedgard relied on summaries of his talks, and vividly remembers his strong emphasis that laypeople should observe the full eight precepts, and even then, not just during meditation courses, but throughout their life. She reflects on the deep reverence Burmese meditators had for Webu Sayadaw, and acknowledges his lasting influence on the IMC community.

From here, Friedgard discusses U Ba Khin’s perspective on another famous monk who was also held by some to have reached some stage of enlightenment, Mahasi Sayadaw. U Nu, the Prime Minister and a dedicated Mahasi student, saw governmental support of vipassana meditation as a key policy after achieving independence. As he was particularly enamored with Mahasi’s method, this meant a considerable fund could be earmarked to supporting his tradition. “He wanted to give them government money for the meditators,” she notes. “And U Ba Khin was the Accountant General and U Nu was spending money the country didn't have. The Accountant General has to see that the Prime Minister doesn't spend money the country doesn't have! So U Ba Khin argued that it was very difficult to measure the success of meditation. That means that U Ba Khin put an obstacle to Mahasi centers receiving financial support from the U Nu government.” Friedgard surmises this may have been one of the reasons that U Ba Khin did not have a close relationship with either Mahasi or U Nu.

Another important figure Friedgard encountered at IMC was S.N. Goenka. However, her interactions with him were limited, based on the gender separation that was observed. She does recall a large blue and gray carpet from Rajasthan that Goenka donated to be placed in the Dhamma Hall before one of Webu’s visits, noting that yogis would otherwise sit on the bare floor. She also recalls how the Center changed as more members of Goenka’s family and from the Hindu community began attending courses. “In the end, when all the family members of Goenka came and they were in their saris, there were so many of them that the Burmese woman started to grumble, ‘We have no place to come to the meditation center because it's full of Indians!’ And that increased after U Ba Khin decided to train Goenka to teach meditation.”

Friedgard provides further context for this. She explains that U Ba Khin had been planning for years to travel to India to teach meditation in the Buddha’s homeland. But once it became clear that Ne Win’s regime would not permit him to leave, he realized that he needed to appoint teachers in his stead. Up to that point, Mother Sayama was the only one with any authority at the Center aside from him, but U Ba Khin realized he needed to look to outside IMC’s Burmese meditator community for teachers who he could trust to carry on his teachings. Goenka was one among several who seemed suited for this monumental task.

At this point, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi enters the story. This Indian spiritual leader was the founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement, which became popular worldwide in the mid-20th century—famously, the Beatles visited his Rishikesh center in 1968 at the height of their fame. Friedgard relays a conversation she overheard between Goenka and John Hislop, a former Maharishi student who began practicing with U Ba Khin. They were comparing the two teachers, “and they more or less agreed that they were teaching the same thing.” This was a view that Friedgard did not share, and she also recalls U Ba Khin’s skepticism about the Mahesh Yogi’s teachings. Nonetheless, when the Maharishi had scheduled a trip to Rangoon, and would be staying in Goenka’s home, U Ba Khin permitted Goenka’s family to study under him. Friedgard was shocked that U Ba Khin allowed it, “even though it was a Hindu meditation! … It amazes me because if anyone else had done it, [U Ba Khin] would not have accepted them! He did that because he realized that Goenka couldn't fully develop his capacity [as a meditation teacher] if he was surrounded by a family who drained his strengths because they didn't cooperate.”

When contrasted with Friedgard’s own experiences, this anecdote provides a fascinating insight into U Ba Khin’s strategic thinking in plotting the spread of his teachings: While Friedgard was initially welcomed partly as a means to encourage her stepfather to meditate, U Ba Khin later discouraged her from coming to IMC when it became clear the rest of the family would never join a course. At the same time, he made unusual concessions for Goenka’s family in allowing them to practice a different technique—one which he did not support, no less— as he realized that he would need to rely heavily on Goenka to realize his goal to spread the practice abroad.

And in the end, it appears that U Ba Khin’s careful plans bore fruit, as Friedgard recalls the extraordinary success that Goenka achieved when his mission began in earnest. “When Goenka was successful in India, U Ba Khin has said, ‘Oh, I will go to India!’ That was shortly before his death. If he didn't die, he would probably try and get to India,” she says. “He thought he should be very encouraging of Goenka, so he used to say [to him], ‘You are not doing this on your own. I'm behind you. You are doing it on my behalf. Don't worry, you will be successful!’”

Shwe Lan Ga LayComment