The Meditation Industrial Complex
Coming Soon…
“It wasn’t the emphasis on intensive meditation [so much] as it was the process of awakening to wisdom and freedom as a human being in this life,” says Alan Clements, one of the earlier Western students of Burmese Buddhist masters.
In this conversation, Clements offers a deeply personal and informative account of his immersion in Myanmar’s Dhamma culture, going back to his first visit in 1980. He acknowledges how the Dhamma pulled him from a path of self-destruction toward one of integrity and purpose. “It got me off of acid,” he acknowledges. He reflects on his unique relationships with two great teaching masters, Mahasi Sayadaw and Sayadaw U Pandita, and speaks critically about how Burmese meditative wisdom has been transmitted—and distorted—in Western contexts.
Clements describes Mahasi as a towering intellect and spiritual figure. He recounts that his initial draw to Mahasi's teaching was the latter’s direct, structured approach to meditation, which emphasizes sustained mindfulness and insight. Mahasi’s explication of the Satipatthāna Sutta and its associated 16 stages of insight struck Clements as a powerful response to personal suffering: “My heart was on fire, and his appeal [was that] you can address that pain in yourself, that dukkha.” Mahasi’s combination of theoretical clarity, teaching support and a strong ethical framework appealed to Clements’ existential need for transformative meaning.
Clements’ relationship with Sayadaw U Pandita was even closer and deeper. U Pandita was more than just a teacher for him—he describes him as his Dhamma father, spiritual ally, and lifelong mentor. U Pandita’s approach to teaching was marked by profound interpersonal depth. He nurtured many individual yogis over years, integrating meditation with emotional development, moral discipline and cultural context. “He was a real caregiver,” says Clements, “I saw him as a living experience of mettā (loving kindness) and karuna (compassion).”
According to Clements, U Pandita was committed to fostering not just insight but a “lived Dhamma”: a way of being marked by generosity, discipline, and wisdom in all areas of life. He describes how U Pandita was especially skilled in the subtleties of consciousness, supporting students through the complicated terrain of joy, attachment, pride, and insight. U Pandita also emphasized the importance of rigorous training for those who would guide others. Contrary to many claims made by Western meditation teachers, Clements insists U Pandita never sanctioned lay Westerners to teach in his lineage.
Clements draws a sharp line between Burmese models of lifelong apprenticeship and the rise of the Western mindfulness movement. In his view, many Western “mindfulness teachers” have received minimal training—sometimes just a retreat or two—and lack the deep experience necessary to truly guide others. Furthermore, he believes the mindfulness movement has often commodified and misrepresented the tradition, and particularly its Burmese roots. While Clements facilitated the introduction of a number of students to U Pandita, who then went on to become prominent Western teachers, he now feels that many of them misunderstood or distorted the depth of these teachings. Clements is concerned that the emphasis on credentials, teacher certifications, and silent retreats misses the heart of the Dhamma: namely, the integration of wisdom and ethical living into every aspect of daily life.
In fact, much of Clements’ critique stems from his view of Dhamma as an existential, ethical, and social revolution, as opposed to a cushion-centric formulated technique practiced mainly in seclusion. He calls the fixation on retreats and formal practice as a form of “spiritual materialism,” where even meditation becomes a way to build up ego rather than dissolve it. Without rigorous, years-long training and constant feedback from skilled mentors, he warns that practitioners are prone to delusion and overestimation of their own attainments. This concern even extends to some prominent Western teachers, who Clements suggests have misrepresented their credentials or falsely claimed stages of enlightenment.
Referring to the experience of “interactive pāramī evolution,” or the cultivation of virtues like patience, truthfulness, and generosity in social and political engagement, Clements calls attention to the real potential of how practice can be brought to the real world. He asserts that the most powerful moments of Dhamma are not found in silent halls but in human connection: in a quiet act of kindness at a market, in a small conversation conducted with humility, in bearing witness to suffering without turning away.
Expanding on this theme, Clements describes a “panoramic Dhamma,” where wisdom is cultivated in family, society, work, and politics—not just in silence. He calls for the de-centering of retreat culture, and urges people to return to community and integrate wisdom into daily life, resisting the “institutionalization” of awakening. He believes authentic practice can—and must—happen in the messy, beautiful, and painful fabric of human life.
Continuing his critique of Dhamma practice in the West, Clements expresses concern with how it has been extracted from its cultural and historical context. Myanmar’s monastic and lay traditions arose out of a complex tapestry of religious diversity, colonial trauma, war, and dictatorship. In that crucible, Buddhist practice took on not just a meditative dimension but also a political and psychological urgency, the lived survival strategy of an entire people. Clements observes that many Westerners overlook or misunderstand this background context.
Clements praises Myanmar’s unique contributions to global Buddhist practice—not only the rigorous satipatthāna training taught by Mahasi Sayadaw and refined by U Pandita, but also the social and political application of Dhamma in movements for democracy and human rights. For example, he highlights the 1988 uprising, where lay leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues’ embodied principles of mindfulness and nonviolence in their resistance to dictatorship. He claims that U Pandita was one of the architects of the nonviolent movement.
This capacity to apply Dhamma under extreme duress—such as torture, imprisonment, or political persecution—is, in his view, the highest expression of the practice. Clements speaks movingly of his interviews with hundreds of former political prisoners and dissidents, many of whom turned to Dhamma not in the quiet of monasteries, but amid profound suffering. These individuals, he says, exemplify the highest integration of wisdom, ethical integrity, and mental training. “What does it mean to live as a non-victim when you’re being forced into hard labor with chains on your arms and legs, working 20 hours a day and being beaten?”
Clements maintains a deep reverence for the Burmese monastic tradition. He praises its scholarship, ethical discipline, and lived integration of values. He recounts witnessing elderly monks and laywomen practicing with grace, presence, and compassion—interactions that have left a more lasting impression than any technique or title. These are the “ordinary saints,” he says, whose lives exemplify a walking, talking Dhamma.
In closing, he addresses the Burmese nation’s struggle against the junta. Overall, he is optimistic. “I think it’s inevitable that the people of Burma will win their freedom. We just have to make sure the international community does as much as it can to… help the people bring that about sooner rather than later.”