Anagarika Munindra: A Guide for Readers

Anāgārika Munindra was a key force in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. He, like Thomas Merton or Alan Watts, was active in the twentieth century as a teacher who linked the traditions of the East and the West, forming bridges between these two complex cultural areas. While Thomas Merton and Alan Watts were Western contemplatives who explored the religious traditions of Buddhism, Anāgārika Munindra was born a Buddhist in India and became a meditation master who was able to convey his teachings in a way that deeply transformed his students in Asia and the West.

Speaking in English, he was able to create a link between the vipassanā tradition of Burma, where he trained with Ven. Mahāsi Sayādaw, and the inquisitive European, North American, Australian, and other Western students whom he inspired and guided in meditation. While Merton and Watts were Westerners who wrote widely about their spiritual experiments, Munindra was an Easterner whose impact on the world has been felt primarily through the work of his many outstanding students.

Because Munindra taught in a traditional style, person-to-person, rather than through writing, we have been largely in ignorance of the profound effect that he has had and continues to have on the transmission of Dharma to the West. This book brings his message and skillful intuitive style to life for a wider public who did not have the opportunity to practice meditation with him in person during his years of teaching in India and the West.

Munindra’s participation was a defining moment for Goenka because his presence in Bodh Gaya brought to the surface questions about Goenka’s identity as the single true revivor in India of the Buddha’s pure teachings preserved in Burma. Munindra was a Bengali Buddhist who had spent nine years in Burma, from 1957 to 1966, studying ancient Pali Buddhist texts and learning meditation from a number of monastic teachers, most notably the Mahasi Sayadaw. Goenka was Munindra’s sponsor during that time, and the two knew each other well. But Goenka was not yet a teacher then. He had introduced Munindra to U Ba Khin, and Munindra had hoped to learn meditation from the latter. But U Ba Khin declined to teach him, since Munindra was already the student of a monastic teacher, and it was U Ba Khin’s policy not to teach those who were already students of other teachers. Apparently, U Ba Khin wanted to avoid the controversy that could arise from the comparison of practice lineages.

Munindra’s participation was a defining moment for Goenka because his presence in Bodh Gaya brought to the surface questions about Goenka’s identity as the single true revivor in India of the Buddha’s pure teachings preserved in Burma. Munindra was a Bengali Buddhist who had spent nine years in Burma, from 1957 to 1966, studying ancient Pali Buddhist texts and learning meditation from a number of monastic teachers, most notably the Mahasi Sayadaw. Goenka was Munindra’s sponsor during that time, and the two knew each other well. But Goenka was not yet a teacher then. He had introduced Munindra to U Ba Khin, and Munindra had hoped to learn meditation from the latter. But U Ba Khin declined to teach him, since Munindra was already the student of a monastic teacher, and it was U Ba Khin’s policy not to teach those who were already students of other teachers. Apparently, U Ba Khin wanted to avoid the controversy that could arise from the comparison of practice lineages.

During my studies in India, one of the teachers who most perfectly embodied his teaching was Anagarika Munindra. The ephemeral nature of phenomena, including self, was no better demonstrated than in his absent presence. Originally a Krishnabhakta with Ananda Mayi Ma, he was drawn to Burma to pursue a Theravadin Buddhist sadhana. For many years Munindra so successfully absorbed the Pali Canon of Buddhism, an exact and complex no-nonsense blueprint of the mind, and the manner in which illusion is created and dispelled, that when I met him in Bodhgaya I found it difficult to differentiate him from the doctrine.

Despite the fact that Munindra-ji held a number of responsible administrative positions in the sacred city where Buddha had attained enlightenment, he commenced teaching. Among the students of this physically diminutive teacher was Joseph, a very tall young westerner who impressed me immediately by his power, simplicity, and quiet dignity. Like me, Joseph retained his western acculturation and yet was drinking deeply from the well of another culture’s insight into liberation, fully aware of the universality of the spirit.

In my early years of practice in India, I studied with Munindra-ji, one of my teachers, in Bodh Gaya, the place where the Buddha awakened. Bodh Gaya is a small village with many beautiful temples, and as Munindra-ji and I would walk together through the village, he would often point out very simple village people who had been his students. Many of them had attained different stages of enlightenment.