Aniccā with Feeling
Coming Soon
Friedgard Lottermoser was born in Berlin in 1942 and moved to Burma in 1959 at the age of seventeen, when her stepfather—an engineer with the German firm Fritz Werner—took up a contract with the Burmese government. Settling in Rangoon, she soon became one of the very few foreigners to study directly under Sayagyi U Ba Khin at the International Meditation Center (IMC). Her years in Burma were marked by deep immersion in local language, culture, and meditation practice; she ordained as a Buddhist nun and completed undergraduate and graduate studies at universities in Rangoon and Mandalay. Able to stay in the country until 1971, including the turbulent years after Ne Win’s 1962 coup, she developed close ties not only with U Ba Khin but also with other prominent monastic figures such as Mahagandayon Sayadaw and Webu Sayadaw.
In her later years, Friedgard agreed to recount her story under carefully defined terms. In 2023–2024, she recorded forty-five hours of interviews, but requested that they not be made public until after her passing. She worried that speaking openly about her memories of U Ba Khin—particularly in ways that complicated or diverged from the Goenka tradition’s established narrative— might jeopardize her ability to attend long courses at Goenka vipassana centers in her final years. Listeners who are interested in this story may wish to hear the previous interviews:
· Episode #1, Twelve Years in Burma: Friedgard shares her earliest impressions of Burma, her first encounters with Sayagyi U Ba Khin, and how she was introduced to meditation and Burmese life.
· Episode #2, Breathless in Burma: The discussion centers on advanced Vipassana instructions, Mother Sayama’s unusually fast progress in meditation, and memorable stories of meditators who came through IMC.
· Episode #3, Protected by the Dhamma: Life in Rangoon unfolds through descriptions of the family’s residence, connections to military industries, university experiences, and the upheaval of the 1962 coup.
· Episode #4, The Fragile Light of Vipassanā: Travel stories, hostel life, and visits with Burmese families are woven together with reflections on U Ba Khin’s government career and reputation as a healer.
In this conversation, Friedgard describes how meditation courses at IMC were structured, how foreigners were taught differently from Burmese students, and how the 1962 coup, visa restrictions, and cultural adaptations shaped the later spread of Vipassana through Goenka and other appointed teachers.
She begins by noting that IMC only ran one course a month, which began on the first Friday and were not widely attended. The standard format was ten-day courses, although Friedgard is not sure whether that was innovated by U Ba Khin or derived from Saya Thet Gyi. However, foreigners were allowed longer courses given their generally limited stay in the country. “He would not accept the same disciple for more than one ten day course year,” she says, regarding Burmese students. “If they were doing very well, and if they were very close, they came for just one or two hours on weekdays.” For Burmese Buddhist students, the course structure was quite set and would involve a regular evening Dhamma discourse given by U Ba Khin. But Friedgard illustrates how flexibility marked his teaching style, as U Ba Khin would take down Buddha images when Muslim students enrolled, and the rare foreign student who attended was treated to customized question and answer sessions. She notes how U Ba Khin understood that “the success of the meditator depends on their past pāramī and the preparations from past lives that the meditator has done. It's not that the teacher puts the meditation in him, like you put coffee in a cup.” In other words, U Ba Khin saw the teacher’s role as creating the conditions for each meditator’s own accumulated potential to unfold and supporting them along that journey.
The fact that U Ba Khin taught relatively few students and very few courses each year, all of them at IMC, enabled him to give more direct, tailored guidance that emphasized adaptability according to the student’s abilities and readiness. For example, with the help of Mother Sayama, they could divine when a student was ready for higher attainment, and if so, how to support them. Often U Ba Khin wouldn’t even have to ask questions, as Friedgard says “he went by feeling, feeling the change of the vibrations.” Amazingly, he could do this even from a distance; for example, she recalls that merely reading a letter that a student had sent from overseas allowed him to sense their current mental state and support them accordingly.
This connects to what Friedgard believes is the major difference between Goenka’s and U Ba Khin’s teaching. Although the course structure and initial instructions at IMC were similar to how Goenka would later present them, Goenka chose to standardize his courses. She attributes this decision to both his pāramī to draw large numbers of students around the world, and the need to then create an organizational structure that enabled him to meet that demand. So towards that end, he appointed assistant teachers to carry out his teachings through standardized instruction using tape recordings, so students everywhere could get the same basic experience. Friedgard exclaims, “I never expected Goenka to train his assistants [that] way… I was very surprised!” This is because Friedgard assumed that Goenka would model his teaching structure after U Ba Khin, who encouraged improvisation based on local context over uniformity.
1965 was a watershed year. After ordaining as a monk, U Ba Khin developed a strong desire to teach vipassana outside Burma. However, Ne Win’s military regime was not issuing passports to Burmese nationals. But Goenka, being Indian, was able to procure one, and U Ba Khin decided to train Goenka to teach in his stead so he could help fulfill his guru’s mission. And although it was unclear that Goenka would be allowed to leave even up to the last minute, he eventually he was allowed to depart in 1969, marking the start of his teaching career.
Friedgard still remembers the feeling at IMC. “Goenka was so successful in India, they were very joyful! U Ba Khin was enthusiastic, [along with] all the closest disciples. ‘Oh, they have already have 100 people coming!’ and so on.” Two years later, she remembers being back at IMC shortly after her teacher passed away, and the momentum of Goenka’s mission was only building. She remembers U Chit Tin commenting, “Oh, such a wonderful thing happening,” and pointing out the similar work being undertaken by other students in the West, such as Ruth Denison, John Coleman, Jan van Amersfoort, and Jocelyn King. Amersfoort, while keeping up his practice, declined to teach, and invited Goenka to lead courses in Holland. However, Goenka was unable to obtain the requisite visa.
This brings up an important point, and a very sensitive one regarding the narrative Goenka established within his meditation community. Friedgard delicately pushes back on the notion that U Ba Khin’s original plan was for Goenka “to go to India, and from India, spread to the whole world!’ I don't say that U Ba Khin didn't say that, but well, that was not his complete image… He didn't expect Goenka to teach the whole world! Otherwise, he wouldn't have appointed these others.” Friedgard also explains that U Ba Khin’s thinking at the time was to try and reach his country’s two largest neighbors, both with Buddhist pasts and large populations. But one possibility was far more attractive than the other: “In China, the chance of teaching Vipassana meditation is very slim, for political reasons, because Mao Zedong was governing it,” she says. Goenka’s Indian heritage, and the fact that he was going there anyway to look after his ailing mother, also made India the obvious choice.
Friedgard stresses that this endeavor was an entirely new way of teaching the Dhamma, and she devotes much time on future episodes in discussing the adjustments and innovations that Goenka would make besides standardization, including those that were instructed by U Ba Khin or encouraged by the IMC staff. In this talk, she mentions how Goenka’s wife, Mata-ji, would sit beside him on courses, a move that was supported by the senior disciples at IMC. “She’s good in mettā,” she recalls them saying. “She should sit near to him and send mettā while he is teaching.” (It is important here to note that while male and female teachers— and husband and wife teams— are quite common at meditation centers today, this set-up had likely never happened prior.)
That Goenka’s mission became a worldwide phenomenon was the confluence of a number of factors. Besides U Ba Khin’s inability to travel aboard, Friedgard notes his demise soon after Goenka started teaching, and the eventual split that occurred with IMC (a topic she treats in depth in future episodes). She also emphasizes Goenka’s personal charisma and skill with language, which captivated large number of young Westerners, as well as the lack—at that time— of any developed Western teachers who could organize courses and mobilize students on the scale that Goenka was able to manage. She adds that ultimately, Goenka was successful in his endeavor in reaching scores of people that neither the Western students of U Ba Khin nor the Burmese disciples could achieve. But where she acknowledges the very successful “quantity” of Goenka’s teaching, she adds that Mother Sayama and U Chit Tin, while reaching far fewer numbers, were able to maintain “quality” in their teaching.
Regarding the actual teachings that U Ba Khin delivered, Friedgard recalls discovering a slim pamphlet he produced called The Essentials of Buddha Dharma in Meditative Practice, originally a recorded talk later transcribed and published in Sri Lanka. As she notes, it opened with the words: “I’m recording this for my disciples abroad who cannot come to Burma easily.” For her, this was a rare chance to see in U Ba Khin’s own words what he considered the essentials of his teaching. The 18-page booklet outlined material that she later came to feel was missing from standard Goenka courses. In particular, she highlighted U Ba Khin’s emphasis on the “ten dangers to vipassana” (upakkilesa, like, tranquility, piti, lights, etc.), which he explained in every ten-day course: “This is positive, but it’s not vipassana. If you have it, you are off the road.” The pamphlet also outlined ten progressive stages of vipassana knowledge, beginning with samasana, a theoretical understanding of impermanence, suffering, and non-self. The second stage, udayabbaya (“rise and fall”), involves direct observation of phenomena, while the third, bhaṅga (“breakup”), refers to “knowledge of the rapidly changing nature of nama and rupa as a swift current of energy, in particular clear awareness of the phase of dissolution.” She contrasts this with Goenka’s courses, where this stage is also called a “free flow” and presented as highly desirable, although it is just the third of the ten vipassana stages. According to her, the higher stages beyond bhaṅga are “very rarely heard of in Goenka circles,” even though U Ba Khin regularly spoke of them.
Friedgard goes on to explain that for beginners, the more advanced stages can seem discouraging or even frightening: baya, the fear that arises when confronting change; adinava, recognizing the disadvantages of existence; and nibbida, a deep weariness toward samsaric life. These stages, she explains, are “all meditative attitudes, while you still observe rise and fall in your body,” and often come with intense physical experiences such as heat or pain, which in turn help erode negative sankharas. Further along comes muncitukamayata, the urge to escape suffering, and then patisankha, the deliberate effort to work toward deliverance. Friedgard notes that around this eighth stage, U Ba Khin would begin to consider whether a meditator might be capable of reaching the unconditioned state. The final two stages—sankharupekha, a balanced detachment from conditioned phenomena, and anuloma, the immediate precursor to realization—were associated with the special ceremonies he conducted for advanced disciples. She emphasizes that Mother Sayama played a key supporting role: “She would mostly watch… she could also see things and then she would be more exact in the fine aspects, while U Ba Khin had very great power.” Yet even he, she adds, sometimes faced resistance from Mara, the negative forces that obstruct liberation.
Friedgard observes that U Ba Khin placed less emphasis on equanimity than Goenka, but far more on continuity of awareness during meditation courses. As she puts it, “He more emphasized on continuity of awareness of nature… That means you didn’t sing a song about that nature, you felt it.” When students would develop adequately in the courses, he would then say, “Now you are developed enough. So you do meditation throughout the day— only when you’re sleeping you don’t need to do it.” This meant carrying awareness of bodily sensations into every activity throughout the course—eating, going to the toilet, brushing one’s teeth. Those who were sufficiently developed could direct their attention anywhere in the body and immediately feel subtle vibrations. But for many beginners, especially Westerners, this level of sensitivity was difficult. Some, she recalls, “struggled for years and they can’t get it…[or] even develop the bhaṅga state, and they are blocked. And they try very hard. And the harder they try, the less they get.”
This analysis feeds into Friedgard’s view as to how culture plays into, and ultimately impacts, the meditation practice itself. She notes that the Burmese come to courses with a strong theoretical and ethical understanding; Indians, in contrast, were typically seen as needing to be encouraged to work more strenuously, while Westerners needed to be reminded to relax. She believes this played out in how the various teachers carried on the mission, as well: for example, Ruth Denison leaned towards softness in her teaching whereas Goenka demanded strong effort.
Friedgard takes some time here to elaborate on Denison as a teacher and friend, She describes how it was Denison’s husband who was initially interested in meditation and that Ruth had merely tagged along. U Ba Khin later lamented that her husband didn’t progress because he was more interested in theory than practice, while Ruth made significant gains, to the point that she was authorized to teach—though only to women. “The reason is that they thought that the male is superior and that a woman cannot instruct a man,” Friedgard explains.
She describes Denison as having an “artistic temperament” and intuitive sense that was a positive contrast to the male teachers. “She had a lighter approach, a little bit like Mother Sayama, and she was interpretive, like she senses the state of mind of the person.” She notes how a small percentage of Goenka students would encounter serious psychological problems and even complete nervous breakdowns, which Goenka’s assistant teachers were wholly unequipped to deal with. Many of those students were informally sent to Denison. Friedgard speaks about one case where a woman was completely unable to concentrate, and was so restless that even sitting to watch her breath didn’t work. Ruth first asked her to do simple, physical mindfulness, such as merely washing her hands and noticing wetness. After she had calmed down slightly, Denison instructed her to put a green ribbon on her big toe and contemplate it. This unconventional instruction provided the student with a concrete object of focus, and surprisingly, it worked. Friedgard herself made use of this kind of teaching. Many years later, while struggling to maintain her meditation practice during her PhD studies in Germany, she sometimes grew stiff during ānāpāna and experienced involuntary twitching in her face. Instead of forcing herself through it, she shifted her attention to her feet and did walking meditation. This gave her a practical way to stay grounded. “I profited a lot from Ruth’s approach just because it was so different,” she says.
Friedgard recalls Denison exclaiming to her how stressed some Westerners found Goenka’s course discipline and instructions, noting that she once told her, “These people come to me and they have done courses in India, and then they come with clenched fists…. they are so stiff!” Friedgard echoes these sentiments. “The people who are just starting and particularly if they are Westerners, in ten day courses, they can't [sit without moving for one hour],” Friedgard says. “They will try and they break their neck while they're doing it! Then their attention is not on the meditation, it's on their bodily discomfort, and that is what Ruth tried to change.”
Instead of strong-determination sittings, Denison began to teach mindful walking, including long walks in nature, as a way to help students loosen up their relationship to practice. Yet Friedgard notes how many early Goenka students rejected Denison’s teachings because they diverged from what their teacher promoted. And to some degree, Friedgard understood that reticence. “I didn't feel a difficulty because I'd been with Webu Sayadaw,” she says, adding that his way of approaching the teaching of dhamma—being with ānāpāna all day even while working around his monastery—was already somewhat different from U Ba Khin’s more formalized approach that separated intensive meditation from life outside of courses. So having benefited from both kinds of experiences, she did not approach the practice so rigidly. Friedgard adds that the differences between Webu’s and U Ba Khin’s approaches to teaching may have been due at least in part to environmental factors: at Webu’s rural monastery, the slower pace of life and abundance of manual labor made it natural to integrate mindfulness into daily activity; by contrast, in urban Rangoon, U Ba Khin’s students held busy jobs and could only practice intensively during retreats.
Denison later moved to the US, and settled in the Hollywood area, where there was a growing community of LGBT women. She told Friedgard that she was unable to have a course with just females unless she welcomed LGBT students. As the Burmese disciples at IMC, who had all been raised in a very conservative, Burmese Buddhist environment, began to hear that not only was Denison experimenting wildly with the practice but also welcoming such a nonconventional group, criticism began to spread. And Friedgard adds that the controversy about welcoming LGBT students into courses was not confined just to Burma, or just during those years: it was such a fraught topic that even more recently, she engaged in online Facebook “fights” with conservative, Indian meditators who felt uncomfortable with gays attending Goenka courses.
By that point, U Ba Khin had passed away. But Friedgard thinks that had he still been alive, he would have been more understanding of Denison’s choices. She says that U Ba Khin understood that his appointed foreign teachers would carry on the teachings different from himself and how his Burmese Buddhist disciples would. “He said, ‘Well, you know your country better, you will have to make changes, and say it in such a way that your countrymen will take an interest. You know where the blocks are better than I know.’ He was more open… He would have been more flexible in that than Mother Sayama and U Chit Tin.”
Indeed, for the teachers then overseeing IMC, Denison’s approach was completely beyond their understanding. “But they were in no position to understand what she was talking about, because they did not know anything outside Burma,” Friedgard adds, noting that while Goenka did not take action one way or another, neither did he support Denison’s initiatives. As for Denison, Friedgard recalls her saying, “‘I did a good service for the Dhamma work in the West, and [the Burmese at IMC] didn't like that, because they didn't like me.’” To Friedgard, Denison’s travails show the high degree of skepticism at IMC of non-Burmese, and particularly any Westerner, who attempted to take the teachings out of Burma.
In the end, while Friedgard respects Denison and her approach to dhamma teaching, she does not condone everything her dhamma sister did as a teacher. While she agrees with encouraging more movement and some other skillful means as needed, she also felt Denison “went to other things that I don't think any Burmese teacher could approve. I also wouldn't approve it! I think my point of disagreement started was when she started to use African drums in the meditation home!” She stresses that this goes for U Ba Khin as well. “I don't think that U Ba Khin would have approved of all [of Dennison’s] changes,” but adds that “in the end, he would have had discussed with Ruth and listened and he might have been more flexible then.”
After leaving Burma, Friedgard took on the role of assisting Western teachers in continuing U Ba Khin’s mission, helping find suitable locations for holding courses. Besides Denison, this included Robert Hover. It was now the early 1970s, before the explosion of the mindfulness movement in the West, and she describes how difficult it was to teach Westerners at that time. For one, meditation was a new idea, something quite foreign. As an aside, she notes that when U Ba Khin started teaching, he felt that the Westerners that came to him didn’t really believe in meditation, they felt it was like fantasy, or just using one’s imagination. To show that it was not at all that way, U Ba Khin used to poke his advanced students with needles when they were in deep samādhi “to show that they didn't bleed!”
In those early 1970’s, it was also a time of free love and psychedelic experimentation in the West, and few seemed to understand the ethical standards required for spiritual development. “I've [had] arguments, whether you as a Buddhist, you should take drugs,” she says. “but so many Westerners went to India for the cheap drugs and they ended up doing meditation and not having any drugs anymore.”
This episode is a turning point in Friedgard’s story: from recollections of IMC’s early days and the differing temperaments of its teachers to the larger question of how the teachings evolved outside Burma. The next discussion continues along that line, exploring the rise of the Goenka organization, more about the standardization of its methods, and how questions of lineage, adaptation, and authority shaped the global Vipassana movement that followed.