Burma is caught between two stools. On the one hand, the country has been trampled under the boots of the generals for decades. Yet, on the other hand, the Buddhist Dhamma has offered the Burmese and a few lucky foreigners a path to salvation.
One foreigner who entrusted himself to the Buddhist path is American Steve Smith.
Steve’s first meditation teacher was Mahasi Sayadaw. He visited the Sayadaw’s rural Seikkhun monastery back in 1977. Steve was moved by how the great teacher embodied centuries of monastic wisdom and discipline, while at the same time making great strides to spread the teachings beyond the monastic order—an unprecedented act at that time.
“The feeling around him was vastness and void. This radiating presence and emptiness at the same time. It was indescribable, but very powerful, kind of a goosebump energy.”
Several years later, the country started allowing longer stays for foreign meditators, and Steve went to Bodghaya to undertake lower ordination under the renowned teacher, Taungpulu Sayadaw, before becoming a full bhikkhu under Mahasi Sayadaw.
“He was just as I remembered him, this incredible presence, sense of vastness and yet transparent personality, like no sense of self-centeredness or self-importance or anything but this pure transmission of these liberating teachings.” After a brief trip home, Steve returned to ordain under Sayadaw U Pandita, whom he had been drawn to from their first meeting. Although U Pandita didn’t teach many foreigners at that time, he dedicated himself to Steve’s training, and the results were profound.
“I felt like there was nothing he couldn't see about me.... I trusted this person quite quickly, more than I had ever trusted anyone in my life.” Beyond U Pandita’s powerful meditation guidance, Steve also gained inspiration by observing the Sayadaw’s interactions in society. Steve relates such an example, when U Pandita turned his back to Khin Nyunt, the dreaded chief of military intelligence, when the latter was trying to offer him requisites.
U Pandita was also Aung San Suu Kyi’s primary meditation guide. Since they shared the same teacher, Steve developed a close friendship with her and her family. But because of this friendship, the
military had blacklisted Steve from returning to the country for many years. However, when Sayadaw U Pandita passed away in 2016, Steve was allowed to join a small handful of foreign disciples who traveled to Yangon for the ceremony.
The gifts of Myanmar have filled Steve’s life in ways he never would have anticipated. “I think Burma's great gift to the world has been the Dhamma, either directly through these ordained monastics, or in the way it's influenced nearby Southeast Asian countries. It's inspired this Western surge of interest in Dhamma practice and training.”
In the first of a series of interviews, Steve Smith talks to Insight Myanmar about his spiritual journey and the gift of Dhamma that Burma has for the world:
https://insightmyanmar.org/complete-shows/2023/5/19/steve-smith-part-1
