The Fragile Light of Vipassanā
Coming Soon…
Friedgard Lottermoser first arrived in Burma in 1959 at the age of seventeen, becoming one of the very few non-Burmese to study closely under Sayagyi U Ba Khin at the International Meditation Center (IMC) in Rangoon. Also one of the very few foreigners allowed to remain in the country after the 1962 coup, she stayed until 1971, immersing herself in Burmese language and culture, and attaining undergraduate and graduate degrees at universities in Rangoon and Mandalay. During her remarkable time in Burma, besides meditating closely with U Ba Khin, she was fortunate to be able to study with two notable monastics, Mahagandayon Sayadaw and Webu Sayadaw. Later in life, she ordained as a Buddhist nun.
Friedgard agreed to share her story only under strict conditions: the interviews— forty-five hours recorded between 2023 and 2024— could not be released until after her passing. This was because she feared that openly recounting her memories of U Ba Khin, particularly where they diverged from the Goenka tradition’s narrative, might jeopardize her ability to attend long courses at Goenka vipassana centers in her final years.
This is the fourth episode in our series. In the first interview, Twelve Years in Burma, she recounted her early life in wartime Germany, and how her stepfather, an engineer working for the German firm Fritz Werner, was sent to Burma on a contract with the Burmese government. She described her arrival in Burma, her first encounters with Sayagyi U Ba Khin, and how meditation practice transformed her from a typical expatriate student into someone deeply immersed in Burmese society. In Breathless in Burma, she described her early longing for spiritual direction, the advanced meditation instructions she received from U Ba Khin, and the profound influence of teachers like Mother Sayama. Finally, in Protected by the Dhamma, Friedgard talks about how she narrowly avoided the July 7 student massacre at Rangoon University, as well as her stepfather’s ties to the G3 rifle project, and recounts how vipassanā provided her both a refuge and compass for navigating the upheavals of life.
Friedgard begins this discussion by describing her early explorations across the country, when she would tag along with her stepfather on his work assignments. Travel was certainly not easy at that time—between the poor roads, conflict, and no hotels outside Rangoon, it was certainly an adventure! She recalls visiting factories that Fritz Werner ran for the Burmese Army in Pyay, staying with a schoolmate in Ye, the unbearable heat in Thazi, the mining expeditions around Taunggyi, the beauty of Mawlamyine and its surrounding islands, and the hill pagodas around Loikaw, among other memories of the countryside. Due to the battles being waged at that time in Karenni State between the military and Karenni fighters, they had to travel under army escort there; Friedgard notes wryly that so many years later, the junta was losing ground every day to Karenni fighters. “They told us about their independence and prowess in the fighting field, even though their guns were made of bamboo,” she says, adding, “and they did work!”
Friedgard also remembers her first trip to Mandalay. Her Pāḷi teacher at the Buddha Sasana Council, who was also a student of U Ba Khin, had arranged for her to stay at a university hostel for female students. It was very cramped, holding 300 girls— “We stayed three people in a room that had only place for two beds!” she recalls— but Friedgard will never forget what happened the following morning, when for the first time in her life she saw the alms rounds progression. “It was wonderful!” she recalls, still remembering the eggplant curry she dished into the monks’ bowls.
Pausing to reflect on one of her roommates in the hostel, she notes how the girl’s father was a soldier who was also a student of U Ba Khin, which was quite rare at the time, as very few from the military attended IMC. She explains why the fact of him being a soldier did not concern her teacher. “U Ba Khin's view of life was quite different,” she says. “He has written in his book on what Buddhism is. There are three kinds of universes: the physical universe, the universe of beings, and the universe of saṅkhāras. And they are the one and same universe, it is only how you look at it. U Ba Khin said to me very often, that all he wanted to do is to understand the universe of mental forces, or saṅkhāras. The saṅkhāra doesn't distinguish between a layperson and the military, or a monk and a layperson. The saṅkhāras look straight at the mental attitude of the person— that was U Ba Khin's approach. He didn't say ‘he is a bad person because of the uniform,’ this kind of thing.”
This tangent launches Friedgard into yet another reflection on her teacher, as she recalls her stepfather having hosted U Ba Khin during his visit to Europe. He told her that when he would visit U Ba Khin’s hotel room at the Hilton, he always found her teacher quietly seated cross-legged on the bed while Burmese officials were gathered on the floor around him, as though his silent presence offered them a spiritual anchor amid the bustle of their duties.
This recollection prompts Friedegard to speak about U Ba Khin’s extraordinary career in the Account General’s office. She explains that he started work in there soon after he graduated high school: he had been accepted at the University of Calcutta, but was unable to attend because he was taking care of his ailing father. This happenstance proved to be fortuitous as it led him to discovering Saya Thet Gyi’s meditation center in 1937. Although he was denied permission from his superiors to attend a course there, he did so anyway… but rather than being fired for insubordination, he was promoted! It turns out that Burma was also undergoing a historic transition that same year: the British formally separated Burma from India, forming a separate colonial administration. Thus, new opportunities opened for Burmese officials, and U Ba Khin’s skills were needed more than ever. His diligence and perseverance— qualities that deepened through meditation— helped him become one of the first Burmese to hold senior posts in the Accountant General’s office.
After Burma’s independence, U Ba Khin was entrusted with responsibilities far beyond the Accountant General’s office. Friedgard tells how at one point, he was asked to take charge of the State Agricultural Marketing Board (SAMB), the body that oversaw Burma’s rice exports, which were the backbone of the national economy. By the time he arrived, the office was notorious for inefficiency and corruption, hemorrhaging money at every step. U Ba Khin agreed to take the assignment only if Prime Minister U Nu granted him ministerial-level authority, knowing that without it, his reforms would be ignored. Once in place, he approached the task in his own unique way— combining rigorous financial oversight with meditation and mettā, bringing both discipline and moral force to an institution that had been floundering. Friedgard tells how his presence not only stabilized the Board but also inspired many employees, some of whom went on to become devoted meditators.
Friedegard also mentions an employee at SAMB who had a serious case of tuberculosis, to the point that she was coughing up blood. However, once she came to take courses at IMC, she was fully healed… and Friedgard adds that this was not the only case, either! She references several other stories of her teacher’s formidable healing powers: “There was once a boy was bitten by a [poisonous] snake, … U Ba Khin took his hand and meditated and the poison became harmless!” she exclaims. Her friend, Daw Su Su, told Friedgard that in the years before she came to the center, no meditator took any prescription medication for their ailments, relying almost exclusively on meditation as the cure. If “medication” became absolutely necessary, bottles of sesame oil, turmeric, and saffron were kept at the center for that purpose. “These they kept in the shrine room, and they distributed to meditators who had medical problems,” she says. “But only a small amount. They said put it on the place that hurts when you meditate.” She herself once fell ill at the center with fever and diarrhea, and responded by stubbornly locking her cell door and refusing to see a doctor, a choice she later realized had been misguided. At the same time, it shows how deeply she had absorbed the IMC ethos of relying on meditation alone.
She describes how U Ba Khin once suffered from a severe eye infection. The eye was swollen, painful, and becoming serious. But instead of relying on doctors, he sat in meditation and directed his awareness into the pain. He told his students that he deliberately bore down on the sensations in the eye, watching them with calm concentration until, layer by layer, the pain dissolved. By the following day, the swelling had gone down and the eye was healed.
(To add context to Friedgard’s description: U Ba Khin’s eyes had become so acutely sensitive to light that he could not even be present at his teacher Saya Thet Gyi’s side during the latter’s final days in 1945. After trying various treatments for over a year without success, U Ba Khin decided to approach his illness in the same way he approached all of life’s challenges— through the framework of Dhamma practice. He undertook a strict adhiṭṭhāna (resolution of strong determination), limiting himself to a diet of only rice with salt and sesame oil, eaten before noon, while maintaining intensive meditation. Instead of resisting the pain and sensitivity, he directed his attention to the anicca (impermanence) he could feel in the sensations on his face. This disciplined practice reportedly coincided with a rapid recovery, allowing him to return to his duties.)
On rare occasions, U Ba Khin visited his students’ homes. Friedgard remembers him visiting her own home in addition to the families of Goenka and Mother Sayama. She also recalls a time when Daw Su Su’s father was quite ill, and he went to visit in an attempt to heal him, but was rebuffed by her brother, who did not meditate— Friedgard adds that they did not speak for many years after as a result!
But it was Mother Sayama who required special— and in Friedegard’s words, “delicate”— handling. Friedegard explains that Sayama reached such intensive states of absorption that it would “exhaust” her, particularly when she left the protective sphere of the center, and was beyond U Ba Khin’s own spiritual support. “There were periods when she used to swoon. She would feel sick just because she left the compound and stood on the road… [U Ba Khin] didn't know what happened to her.” Friedgard adds that, amazingly, U Ba Khin’s healing prowess did not seem to be limited by distance. She describes a time when Ruth Dennison was ill, and U Ba Khin instructed her to meditate at an appointed time while he sent her mettā. Friedgard notes that after Goenka began his mission, some students who went to Burma heard these stories, leading them to believe “that all the female teachers have to be protected, but that is not actually so.”
The center was, indeed, a very intensive environment to be around, and as a result, even advanced Burmese disciples were not permitted to take more than one ten-day course per year. “If the development of the meditator was very positive, then [U Ba Khin] would invite him to spend this time on the weekends,” she notes. In other words, access was given based on ability and spiritual potential. Foreigners were the exception to this rule, given their limited access to the teachings. Friedgard proudly shares that she stayed at the center off and on for five years, during which time she took 13 courses, some much longer than ten days (including one 100-day period when the university was shut down, as she described in the previous episode). Interestingly, as her family lived in a military compound, she was often scolded for bringing in negative “foreign forces, army forces” to IMC, and describes that after adjusting back to home life after a course, her “meditation was being sucked out by the environment.”
Concerning how U Ba Khin would view the Goenka tradition today, Friedgard acknowledges she is unsure on this point. She points out that, unlike IMC, the Goenka tradition asks students to step outside their role as meditators and take on service duties. “If your service is little and you only sit courses, they will suggest that you do more service, because the whole system can't function if they don't have enough servers.” IMC, by contrast, had very little maintenance needs, and so yogis were never asked to step outside of their role as students.
Friedgard notes that the difference between how U Ba Khin and Goenka conducted courses also reflects a difference in pāramīs: U Ba Khin had made a vow that only students with strong pāramīs would be drawn to him, and indeed in every course he conducted there was always at least one or two who could touch the unconditioned state. His teaching was thus more selective, centered on depth rather than breadth. Goenka, however, was told that his pāramī was different—that he would attract “many foolish people,” meaning that his role was to make the practice accessible to anyone who was willing, regardless of their spiritual maturity. She adds that Goenka was also instructed not to provide instructions that led students to the unconditioned state.
Providing further context surrounding Goenka’s mission, Friedgard recalls how U Ba Khin had greatly wished to spread the teachings himself, and had even received a welcome from the Maha Bodhi Society in India. However, as he was unable to secure a passport under Ne Win’s military regime, and as his health began to falter, he realized he needed to look instead to Goenka and some of his European and American disciples to carry on in his place. She says she learned this from U Ba Khin’s own diary, which was mentioned in a book published by his son, U Thein Zan. Friedgard adds that this diary, written in English and recording all the developments at IMC from the earliest days, among many other pertinent details, remains in the possession of U Ba Khin’s family, and no one outside the family has ever seen it in full.
“I share the merits of our talk with all beings,” she says in closing. “I want all beings to know that and I want all beings to know the Dhamma. But still, the talk about mediation is not meant for everybody. Because understanding is left to the wisdom of the listener.”