TEACHING & TRAINING

Pa-Auk Forest Monastery
by BHIKKHU MONEYYA

ISBN 983-3512-72-0
IJ171/10
Size: 5.5” x 8.25”
Pages: 112 pages

Teaching & Training was written by
one of my disciples here at
Pa-Auk Forest Monastery.
I believe that newcomers will find
this book especially helpful.

~ Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw
(Abbot of Pa-Auk Forest Monastery)

This book began with a general discussion of the Four Noble Truths, the threefold training and the seven stages of purification. It then touched on some of the primary teaching methods employed at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, as described in Knowing and Seeing. Topics covered include:
training in morality;
mindfulness of breathing;
four-elements meditation;
the analysis of ultimate materiality and ultimate mentality;
dependent origination;
the practice of vipassanā;
the sixteen insight-knowledges;
and the four stages of enlightenment.

This current edition of Teaching & Training contains a number of important updates and revisions that were made after the printing of the second and third editions. These include: more detailed and accurate information on dependent origination, stream-entry, Right View and wrong view, the sixteen insight-knowledges, the thirty-one realms and the practice of ānāpānasati; an update to the biography of the Sayadaw; updated listings in the Resource Guide; additional footnotes; revised translations; a new daily schedule, and more. It is the author hope that these many small improvements will help to make Teaching & Training a more useful and informative handbook.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Venerable Acinna, commonly referred to as the “Venerable Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw” (and, in less formal circumstances, as “Pa-Auk Sayadaw”), is the current abbot and principal teacher at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery. “Sayadaw” is a Burmese honorific title meaning “respected teacher.”

The Sayadaw was born in 1934, in Leigh-Chaung Village, Hinthada Township, in the delta region about one hundred miles northwest of the capital, Yangon. In 1944, at age ten, he ordained as a novice monk (samanera) at a monastery in his village. During the next decade, he pursued the life of a typical scholar-novice, studying the Pāli Texts (including Vinaya, Suttas and Abhidhamma) under various teachers. He passed the three Pāli language examinations while still a novice.

In 1954, at age twenty, the Sayadaw received the higher ordination as a bhikkhu. He continued his studies of the Pāli Texts under the guidance of learned elder monks. In 1956 he passed the prestigious Dhammācariya examination. This is equivalent to a BA in Buddhist Pāli Studies and confers the title of “Dhamma Teacher.”

During the next eight years, the Sayadaw continued his investigation into the Dhamma, travelling throughout Myanmar to learn from various well-known teachers. In 1964, during his tenth “rains retreat” (vassa), he turned his attention to intensifying his meditation practice and began to practise “forest dwelling.” Although he continued with his study of the Pāli Texts, he now sought out and gained instruction from the revered meditation teachers of those times.

For the next sixteen years, he made forest dwelling his primary practice. He spent these years in the southern part of Myanmar, in Mon State: three years in Mudon Township (just south of Mawlamyine) and thirteen years in Ye Township (approximately one hundred miles down the coast). During this period, he lived a very simple life, devoting his time to meditation and study of the Pāli Texts.

In 1981 the Sayadaw received a message from the abbot of Pa-Auk Forest Monastery, the Venerable Aggapannā. The abbot was dying and asked the Venerable Acinna to look after his monastery. Five days later, the Venerable Aggapannā passed away. As the new abbot of the monastery, the Venerable Acinna became known as the “Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw.” Although he oversaw the running of the monastery, the Sayadaw would spend most of his time in seclusion, meditating in a bamboo hut in the upper forested area, which covered a deserted range of hills running along the base of the Taung Nyo Mountain Range. This area later came to be known as the Upper Monastery.

Since 1983, both monastics and laity have been coming to study meditation with the Sayadaw. Foreign meditators began to arrive at the monastery in the early 1990’s. As the Sayadaw’s reputation steadily grew, the Upper Monastery gradually expanded from a simple bamboo hut and a handful of disciples to more than two hundred and fifty kutis (meditators’ huts) in the forest; a large two-storey meditation hall for the men; a library (with office, computer room and men’s dormitory on the lower levels); a clinic; a hospital; an almsgiving hall; a two-storey refectory; and a reception hall and dwelling for the Sayadaw. In the Lower Monastery, facilities include more than one hundred and eighty kutis, a new kitchen and, for the women, a large three-storey meditation hall (with sleeping quarters on the ground floor) and a five-storey dormitory (still under construction).

Currently, there are more than one hundred and thirty foreign monks, nuns and lay practitioners residing at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery. During our three-month rains retreat, the total monastic population averages between six and seven hundred. Together with laypeople, the monastery population sometimes tops fifteen hundred during festival times. In 1997 the Sayadaw published his magnum opus, a massive five-volume work titled The Practice that Leads to Nibbāna, explaining the entire course of teaching in detail and supported by copious quotations from the Pāli Texts – it is currently available only in Burmese and Sinhalese. On January 4, 1999, in public recognition of the Sayadaw’s achievements, the government bestowed upon him the title Agga Mahā Kammatthānācariya, which means “Highly Respected Meditation Teacher.”

The Sayadaw speaks fluent English and has lectured and led retreats outside of Myanmar since 1997. In December of 2006, he travelled to Sri Lanka to undertake a long-term personal retreat, staying in seclusion and suspending his teaching schedule throughout 2007. As of this printing, his teaching schedule for 2008 includes a four-month retreat in the United States, July – October, to be held at the Forest Refuge in Barre, Massachusetts, USA.