Episode #221: Ciao, Enlightenment
“We can call him the first Italian Buddhist monk,” Lorenzo Colombo says of Salvatore Cioffi, who ordained as U Lokānatha. This is the second episode about that legendary monastic; the first one featured an interview with Lorenzo’s colleague, Antonio Costanza.
Born near Naples in 1897, an economic crisis relocated the Cioffi family to New York for a time. There, Salvatore studied chemistry and medicine, at Colombia University. Although Salvatore came from a staunch Roman Catholic family, he began searching for other spiritual answers early in life, initially landing on positivism. He moved to Cincinnati for work, where he came across Aśvaghoṣa’s biography of the Buddha, along with the Dhammapada, which he likened to a glass of water offered to a man who is dying of thirst in the desert. Yet in the early 20th century, it was all but impossible to find other reading material about the Buddha’s teachings. “So, one day, he abandoned completely his family, his work; he gave up everything and when forth to [Asia].”
Lorenzo describes Salvatore’s reason for this abrupt decision through the Pāḷi term, saṃvega, which can be translated as “a sense of urgency” to break free from worldly entanglements. While this is an inner spiritual state, Lorenzo describes how that era— from the carnage of World War I to the hedonism of the Roaring 20s— had sharpened the future monk’s feelings of emptiness. “There is nothing in this for me, there is no true satisfaction in the sensual pleasures of the world,” Lorenzo describes him as thinking. So he took a ship first to India, but finding no trace of Buddhism left there, he went on to Bangladesh, where he only found small pockets of Buddhist communities. He then went to Sri Lanka, but still wasn’t satisfied, as Lorenzo notes that there, “Buddhism was very influenced by Western theosophy, Madame Blavatsky and all these occultists.” Salvatore reached Burma in 1925 and immediately ordained as a monk and took the name U Lokānatha, after which he trekked to the north of the country, where undertook a period of extended meditation in the foothills of the Himalayas.
That experience had a profound effect on U Lokānatha; he developed supernatural powers such as the ability to read minds and tame wild animals. Lorenzo tells a story of a man who tried to beat U Lokānatha while he was meditating, and the stick was simply unable to make contact, which Lorenzo attributes to the strength of the great monk’s concentration practice. U Lokānatha also began sleeping in cemeteries as a way of contemplating death, and committed to following the austerity of never lying down to sleep. And while not much is known about his meditation practice, Lorenzo believes he might have learned from Sun Lun Sayadaw as well as Mahasi Sayadaw. U Lokānatha also studied Abhidhamma, and became highly proficient at memorizing and reciting many pages. He certainly developed some degree of notoriety during this time: General Aung San is reputed to have once said that he considered leaving behind the nationalist struggle to ordain under U Lokānatha.
U Lokānatha eventually became sick, and had to go back to Italy, which was by then turning into a fascist state. Undeterred, U Lokānatha tried to arrange a meeting with Mussolini in hopes of converting him to Buddhism, and then sought to meet the Pope with the same intention, but neither attempt was successful. After he recovered, U Lokānatha arranged to go back to Burma, but his family hid his passport to prevent him from leaving, trying to persuade him to instead become a Franciscan monk. After a prolonged hunger strike, they relented, and he took off… this time making the entire journey on foot!
In India, he met B.R. Ambedkar, a social reformer who would lead the conversion of millions of Dalits from Hinduism to Buddhism to escape the extreme limitations and degradations of the caste system. Interestingly, Lorenzo found some speeches in which, years in advance, it sounds very much like U Lokānatha had spoken in cryptic language about that very meeting and its resulting implications. It is also suspected that U Lokānatha may have had a role in the Buddhist conversion of Ambedkar, himself; he also converted Dr. R.L. Soni, who went on to write several important books on Buddhism. U Lokānatha undertook another important initiative while in India, visiting Bodhgaya, the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment and what Lorenzo notes is the axis mundi for the Buddhist world. There, U Lokānatha had the volition to bring other Buddhists to this special site. Through his connections with the Thai Royal Family, he was able to get funding for his plan, which involved leading hundreds of Burmese and Thai monks on foot to those sacred grounds. So exhausting was the pilgrimage that many had to be hospitalized along the way, and only ten monks aside from U Lokānatha reached the destination.
By the time World War II hit, the British learned that a monk was wandering around with an Italian passport, and so imprisoned him in a POW camp. His arguments that a Buddhist monk was by definition not political did not convince his captors, so instead, U Lokānatha settled in and began converting the fellow prisoners. Alarmed, the British ordered him to stop and then took away his monastic robes, but U Lokānatha launched another hunger strike until they were returned. In his confinement, he also sent letters to Hitler, Hirohito, Churchill, and again to Mussolini; educating them about the Buddha’s teachings and imploring them to stop the war.
After the war, U Lokānatha began to tour the US and Europe. Lorenzo suggests he might have been among the very first to bring Buddhism to the West not as a non-academic pursuit, but as a spiritual endeavor that the common person could practice. By that point, the world had moved into the Cold War era, and fears about nuclear annihilation were a predominant concern; U Lokānatha framed Buddhism as the one teaching would could bring about world peace, promising it would deliver an “Atomic Bomb of Love!” And yet, he also indicated that even total disarmament wasn’t enough to bring peace. Lorenzo tells how U Lokānatha said that to prevent violence, it would not be sufficient to destroy all the weapons in the world, because most humans do not have inner peace. U Lokānatha also spoke about the psychological benefits of the Buddha’s teachings in addition to their scientific and political applications, all of which set him apart from others at the time who mainly focused on the more religious and ritualistic aspects of the faith. In this regard, Lorenzo finds some similarity between U Lokānatha and S.N. Goenka, and wonders if the great meditation teacher might have been inspired by him. And although it’s not confirmed, there are indications that U Lokānatha gave Dhamma talks in the Accountant’s General office of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, prior to the founding of IMC. Lorenzo adds that U Lokānatha was also a lifelong vegetarian, who even showed remarkable compassion to animals as a young child and encouraged others to also abstain from all meat.
Another luminary U Lokānatha met was Webu Sayadaw, a recluse who many suspected to be fully enlightened, yet who rarely ventured out of his meditation hut. While in the company of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, there was a discussion as to whether there were any living Arahants. Lorenzo explains how the question was more than just idle curiosity, as the answer would indicate the strength of the Dhamma alive in the world at the time, and whether or not the Buddha’s teachings of liberation could still be accessed. When U Lokānatha mentioned Webu as proof that enlightenment was still possible, they immediately requested that Webu to come to Colombo in a state-sponsored visit. Webu was somehow convinced to attend. He was formally presented with relics from Mogallana and Sariputtra, the two chief disciples of the Buddha; these remain as prized possession of Webu’s rural, Ingyinbin monastery today. Lorenzo also recounts how on one occasion, upon parting, U Lokānatha told Webu they would meet again, to which Webu replied emphatically that they would not. He apparently saw that U Lokānatha was seeking to become a Buddha (ie, a Bodhisattva), and so would be reborn many more times, which was not the case for Webu, who was seeking full liberation in this very life. “[U Lokānatha] was not a monk who stayed in an inner cave, or only on a retreat to meditate and reach some sort of personal realization,” Lorenzo explains. “He had this tendency to be with the people, to make a difference, not only for himself, but for the whole world as well. And so I'm not much not surprised that he would be recognized as a bodhisattva, because this is actually a bodhisattva does.
In the 1950s, U Lokanatha’s unlikely journey took a new turn when he ventured to Southern California, and became quite a sensation in Hollywood—but not exactly in the positive sense of the term. He was invited to the home of Rudolph Valentino and asked to hold a séance, and commune with him in the afterworld. Incredibly, while he was unable to reach the famed, Italian actor, he was able to conjure up the ghost of his dog! For his part, U Lokānatha was really trying to bring the Buddha’s teachings into mainstream America in much the same way as D.T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac and others were also doing around that time, but his years in Hollywood were not at all successful; he was perceived alternatively as a con-artist, or a wacky mystic, and was subjected to ridicule in the tabloids. He didn’t have much better luck in Europe, although for different reasons. He was arrested in France, and Italian authorities were after him following his public Dhamma exhortations, as Lorenzo explains that as a nation just emerging from its catastrophic, fascist period, the government was extremely sensitive about any public exhortations that might disturb the fragile state of nation.
So he went back to Burma, where he was by then a household name, and a much beloved figure. On learning he had skin cancer, U Lokānatha made plans to return to America for treatment, but ultimately never made the trip. Lorenzo suspects he had a premonition that it was inoperable, and that his fate was to pass away in his adoptive country. He died in Burma in 1966.
There is a twist of irony that this great ambassador of Dhamma, who tried to bring the teachings to Western countries, passed away just before hippies began making their way to Asia looking for teachers and guides; one can only imagine the role U Lokānatha might have played! After his cremation, his relics were split between various Burmese pagodas, and some were sent to a Buddhist monastery in Rome, as well.
Lorenzo brings in his own story into here. He says he spoke about U Lokānatha while visiting a Buddhist monastery in Italy, and they implored him to write down U Lokānatha’s story. Lorenzo has been doing just that for years now along with several colleagues, and their research findings have had a deep personal impact on him; the project has changed the way he looks at his own practice. For starters, given the immense challenges that U Lokānatha faced in his own quest to find the Dhamma, his story gives further motivation to overcome whatever difficulties may present themselves in one’s own practice. “He had a purpose in his life, and he tried everything that you can possibly imagine to reach that purpose,” he notes. “And I think not only for Buddhists, but for all humanity, this be is the way to live a life that has meaning!” Secondly, Lorenzo now understands that with meditation, “You're doing something that has the potential to change your life, and also the life of other people around you.”
He's also deeply appreciative of how much U Lokānatha tried to engage the world around him. “Venerable U Lokānatha tried his best to bring Buddhism in a form that was compatible with the mindset of Westerners, but never by diluting it in a kind of New Age way. It was a form of Buddhism, and not the traditional Buddhism of course, but it was also not Western Buddhism that became mixed with theosophy or Spiritism or some other thing. The core of the Buddhist teaching that U Lokānatha gave to the world is the same teaching that the Buddha gave 2500 years ago.”