Farewell my Brother

We were five brothers. The eldest was Bal Krishna Goenka, who passed away at the age of 92. When our father saw that his elder brother Rameshwar Goenka had no children, he gave his eldest son Bal Krishna to him to adopt. We all lived at Mandalay but my uncle Rameshwar Goenka lived at Machina, 300 miles north of Mandalay.

 

Bal Krishna got so much affection from his adoptive parents that he never missed his own parents. He studied in a school at Machina and rarely came to Mandalay. Babulal and I were very fond of him. We would go to Machina during our summer vacations. All three of us had a good time there.

 

My uncle’s shop was in the market, a short distance away from his house. Bal Krishna would take both of us there on his bicycle in the morning and bring us back in the evening. Every morning he would take us to the Irrawady river. We greatly enjoyed bathing in the river. Since then I developed a great love for the river which I still have.

 

I studied in the Khalsa school at Mandalay from class three to ten. Most of my friends were Sikh. One of them started calling me ‘Phaau’ which means elder brother. I liked this word and began to call my elder brother ‘Phaau’. He liked it. Even though I was born and brought up in an orthodox Hindu family I used to sing the bhajans sung by my Sikh friends. The office of the Arya Samaj was also nearby. So I could not help being influenced by its views. Bal Krishna studied in a school at Machina run by the Arya Samaja. When he saw me inclined towards Arya Samaj he was very happy.

 

Thus we grew up, married and started our businesses. When Japan attacked Burma, we lost everything and returned to India. Bal Krishna, Babulal and I set up our business together and achieved phenomenal success. When the Japanese were defeated and British rule was re-established in Burma, Babulal and I returned to Burma. Bal Krishna stayed back in India with his family. Although we lived apart, our commercial and familial relations were strong.

 

I learned Vipassana in Burma and derived great benefits. When Bal Krishna heard of the benefits I received from Vipassana, he was very happy. He also came to Burma and sat a course with venerable Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Unfortunately, he could not continue his practice of Vipassana and adopted a different path of meditation.

 

I came to India from Burma in 1969 with the express purpose of reviving the lost words of the Buddha along with the technique of Vipassana. Bal Krishna and his family members were so involved in the meditation path he had adopted that he could not actively help me in fulfilling my purpose. However, out of regard of me, he arranged a course in Chennai immediately after the first course was held in Mumbai. He made all arrangements for this course and asked his wife to join the course. I was pleasantly surprised to see him help me even though he was deeply engrossed in his own meditation path. I realized what a great love he had for me. Although he didn’t join a course, he helped me in my mission to spread Vipassana throughout India. He asked one of his assistants to help me who has been with me since then.

 

Time passed and Vipassana came to be known not only in India but also in the world. I wanted him to sit a course but he had great hesitation. Finally, he joined a course to please me. After this, he practiced Vipassana till the last days of his life. He made great progress in his practice and understood in depth its principles based on the laws of nature. As a result, he was appointed not only a Vipassana teacher but also in charge of Vipassana activities in all the four states of South India. He discharged his responsibility competently, in spite of his numerous responsibilities relating to his family and business. The person who will be responsible for these states will get guidance from what he had done so ably.

 

His propensity for giving dana was incomparable. When I was in Chennai I used to see him give food to the poor on the beach of Marine Drive every morning. Because of his loving conduct, many poor children and adults used to sit in a queue in a disciplined manner to receive the food given by him. There was no commotion. I was very happy to see my brother giving the gift of food to the poor. He constructed the Agrawal Bhavan in Chennai, which still serves people as a dharmasala. He also built a school in Churu in memory of his father.

 

I was overjoyed to see the great success of my elder brother’s business because of his generosity.

 

Then I was reminded of the following verse:

 

The spring season became a pauper, All the trees parted with their leaves,

As a result, they gained new leaves, What is given never goes waste.

My brother’s family made much progress in business because of his generosity. In the same way, he progressed in Vipassana by practicing it ardently. Although he had got rid of many old unwholesome sankharas, one deep sankhara raised its head some time before his death. As a result, he had to suffer. But even in a state of coma, he was able to receive metta from me. This was a good sign. My son Sri Prakash told me that he looked peaceful when he died. I am sure he has been reborn in the Tusita loka.

 

Let us gain inspiration by his infinite love for his brothers and his exemplary Dhamma life.

 

Bhavatu sabba mangalaṃ!

 

Wayfarer on the Path, S. N. Goenka 

 

Kay Wain: The stubbornness of humility

(Dr. Kay Wain, Vipassana Teacher, passed away peacefully in Australia on August 17, 2011.)

 

Kay Wain was born in 1925 in upper Myanmar, the child of two doctors. She attended university in Yangon and earned a medical degree in 1951. In 1953 she won a scholarship to study child health in England, where she spent two years.

 

After returning to Yangon, she worked in public and then private practice. She also volunteered two days a week at local hospitals. On her way to work every day, she passed by the center of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. But it was not until later that she did a course.

 

Most of the patients who came to Kay’s private clinic were poor. She often dispensed to them samples of medicine that she had received from pharmaceutical salesmen, or else she would give them money to buy the medicine they needed. Sometimes she even paid their cab fare to return home. But as a divorced mother with three sons, she needed a steady income; and this came from treating the staff of foreign embassies.

 

In 1972 Kay emigrated to Australia, where one of her sons was already living. She ended up working in Sydney for the New South Wales Child Health services. At the time of her retirement in 1986, she held the position of senior medical officer.

 

Kay began practicing Vipassana in 1975. After the first Australian center, Dhamma Bhūmi, was established near Sydney, she often went there to sit or serve. On one early course she was assigned a tent for her accommodation; she looked so young and energetic that at first the managers did not realize she was considerably older than most of the students. When they did, they found a place for her indoors. After the course she said that she was grateful to have been given a mattress on the floor.

 

It quickly became part of Kay’s yearly routine to go to India for a long course. Goenkaji soon asked for her to help translate Burmese materials, starting with discourses of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. After he started appointing assistant teachers in the 1980s, Kay was an obvious choice. Initially she said that she was not ready but eventually she agreed. She accompanied Goenkaji in 1991 when he first returned to teach courses in Myanmar, and again in 1993 for the inaugural courses at Dhamma Joti in Yangon. She soon was given responsibility for Vipassana activities in Myanmar. Spending long periods there, she conducted courses and oversaw the establishment of many centers in different parts of the country.

 

At the same time, she began devoting her time to a task that would occupy her for the rest of her life: translating course materials into Burmese and recording them. At first she had to do this under pressure and in very makeshift conditions. On Goenkaji’s early courses in Myanmar, she was busy in her room translating and recording. Each segment had to be ready in time for the next group sitting, when it would be played for students in the hall. Kay worked sitting on the floor in a bare room without any furniture, using a handheld microphone or a lapel mike. For some of the sessions, it was not possible to prepare a recording in advance; instead Kay did live interpretation into Burmese, alternating sentence by sentence with Goenkaji. Each day involved a major effort, and it took three courses to assemble a full set of English-Burmese teaching tapes. To this day it is Kay’s voice that Burmese students hear on every Vipassana course.

 

In August 1997, Kay collapsed while conducting a course at the center in Yangon. The diagnosis was lymphoma. Her son Adrian met her in Singapore and brought her back to Sydney. He recalls, “Mum loved traveling and had seen most parts of the world. When she said ‘My traveling days are over,’ I almost cried.”

 

Despite her fragile health, Kay did manage to continue traveling and serving. When the first Burmese-language course in Australia was organized at Dhamma Bhumi in 1999, her lymphoma was flaring up and her son begged her to hand over responsibility to someone else. But Kay would not hear of missing the occasion. On Day 2, though, she had to be replaced and taken to the hospital.

 

Kay accepted all of this philosophically. When asked about her health, she would say that some days were better than others. Yet despite her frail appearance, she always had plenty of energy and was excited to hear about Vipassana happenings in Asia. To the teachers serving in her place, she offered excellent advice and inspiration.

 

In her later years, Kay’s eyesight deteriorated but she would still spend long hours translating course materials into Burmese. Often she would use a magnifying glass for help in deciphering the text. She also insisted on cooking for herself and being as self-sufficient as possible.

 

As her granddaughter remarked, “This was stubbornness—not in the conventional sense but a stubbornness to do the right thing, to serve others, to seek happiness through adversity, and to live life with optimism and faith in the good will of the people around her.”

 

Kay was looking forward to November 2011, when she planned to attend the official opening of the newest Vipassana center in Myanmar, Dhamma Nidhi, near Pegu. Her family did not want her to go because of health concerns, but Kay dismissed those worries. She went ahead and bought her plane tickets, saying, “I have been living on borrowed time. I am prepared for anything.”

 

Meanwhile, in her last months Kay carried on with her work of translating course material into Burmese and recording it. She completed the instructions and discourses from a one-day course, and revised the material for a 10-day course. There was a sense of urgency to bring all the recordings up to date while she was still able to do it. She was busy with this task until she had to be hospitalized in August, when she had literally days left to live. Only then did she stop. Even in the hospital, she was concerned about the work that remained pending. She kept serving right up to the end.

 

The plane tickets to Myanmar went unused; Kay had a different journey to make. Just weeks before her planned departure, her always fragile health started deteriorating rapidly. But her mind remained unshaken. In her last hours in the hospital, Kay was fully aware and seated on her bed, meditating. She died as she had lived, with humility, equanimity, determination and metta. 

 

One-Day Course at Global Vipassana Pagoda

A mega one-day Vipassana course will be conducted at the Global Vipassana Pagoda in presence of Goenkaji on Sunday, 22 January 2012 (Sayagyi Day).

Registration for the course is compulsory.

Contact for registration:

Mobile: 98928-55692, 98928-55945;

Tel: (022) 2845-1170, 3374-7543, 3374-7544

Email registration: oneday@globalpagoda.org

Online registration: www.vridhamma.org

(For online donations to Global Vipassana Pagoda using Indian as well as International Debit and Credit Cards, visit:

http://www.globalpagoda.org/donate-online)

 

A ten-day Vipassana course has been planned from 8 to 19January 2012 at Atma Darshan, Andheri, Mumbai for Christian priests and nuns.

For more details, contact: 1. Jayantilal Shah, 098196-60625;
Email: jsshah@molygraph.com;
2. Fr. Tony Menzes Tel.(022) 2824 2491, 2836 3120,
Email: tonysvd@yahoo.com;
3. Fr.Jose Vaghail  Tel. (022) 2824 2491, 2836 3120,
Email: josvsvd@yahoo.co.in

Pilgrimage to the Buddha Sacred Sites

The IRCTC (Indian Railways) plans to run 14 special trains (Mahaparinirvan Express) during the winter of 2011-12. The Mahaparinirvan Express from 25.02.2012 to 04.03.2012 will be called Vipassana Special and will be reserved primarily for Vipassana meditators. Furthermore, IRCTC has agreed to discount the fare by 15% for meditators, not only for this special trip but for the other 13 trips as well.

 

To avail this special discount, please send your application to Mr. Hemant Sharma, Email: hemant.sharma@irctc.com, buddhisttrain@irctc.com. Your application must include a certificate from an assistant teacher confirming that you are a Vipassana meditator. Please send copy to Dhamma Giri (info@giri.dhamma.org).

 

For more information:

 

1. Visit www.railtourismindia.com/buddha

2. Call Hemant Sharma, Tel: (011) 2370-1100, 2370-1174; Mobile: 97176-44798.

 

Pune Vipassana Samiti offers the facility of online purchase and delivery of Vipassana books, CDs, and DVDs. For online purchase, visit www.ananda.dhamma.org and click on “Book services” and follow the instruction. Alternatively, you can visit the Vipassana bookstore at Dhamma Punna centre.

Timing: 10 am to 8 pm (lunch break: 12 to 1.30 pm)

Closed on 11th, 24th and on third Tuesday every month.

Tel: (020) 2446-8903, 2443-6250

 

Vipassana Newsletter in Sinhala

The Puwat Hasuna will be published on behalf of Dhamma Sobha VMC in Sinhala using Adobe Page Maker and MS Word. You can request the Word document, the same document in PageMaker format and the Sinhala fonts to be mailed to you. If you wish to obtain a printed version, annual subscription is Rs.120. Donations to support the publication are also welcome. For more details, contact: Center Manager, Dhamma Sobha Vipassana Centre, 47 km. Post, Balika Vidyala  Road, Pahala Kosgama, Kosgama, Sri Lanka. Tel :[94] (36) 2253955; [94] (60) 2866715;
Email: dhammasobhavmc@gmail.com

 

First 30-day Vipassana Course in Indonesia

This past August saw the first 30-day Vipassana course in one of the world’s most populous countries. Dhamma Java opened its doors to 27 students. About half of them were Indonesian, while others came from the neighbouring countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, and there were three Europeans as well. All the instructions and discourses were played in four languages: English, Indonesian, Mandarin and Thai.

During the course, the students experienced some disturbances that were a little out of the ordinary: A mild earthquake occurred on Day 12 but fortunately caused no damage. A week later was the start of the Muslim fasting season, marked with calls to prayer, drumming and fireworks in the evening. The meditators took these in stride and continued working well. As usual, there were many smiling faces on Metta Day.

Located about one hour from Jakarta, Dhamma Java started in 2003 with a large hall, a teacher’s residence and various temporary buildings made of bamboo and thatch. Over the years it has gradually been upgraded, and special attention has gone to preventing a recurrence of the landslides that caused damage in 2007. Today the center can accommodate 82 students in wet season and 96 in dry season, about half of them in single rooms. It has 34 meditation cells.

For more information, visit www.java.dhamma.org/area.htm.

 

First 45-day Course at the European Long Course Centre

On September 14, the first 45-day course came to a happy ending at the European Long Course Centre, Dhamma Padhāna, located in Hereford, UK. A total of 15 students and six servers participated, representing 13 different countries and three continents. A concurrent 30-day course had 35 students.

The atmosphere of quiet joy on metta day was proof that even after only the first phase of construction, Dhamma Padhāna—foremost in Dhamma, energetic in Dhamma, striving in Dhamma—is fulfilling Goenkaji’s vision of a center providing ideal facilities for deeper meditation.

Dhamma Padhāna offers an ongoing program of serious, intensive courses (www.padhana.dhamma.org).

 

Pali Workshop in Germany

In August 2011, 40 old students from about 20 countries gathered in the Bavarian Alps for a two-week Pali workshop. Supporting them was a team of dedicated servers, just as in a meditation course.

The workshop started with an introduction to Pali pronunciation and grammar. Participants then went on to study texts and suttas referring directly to the practice of meditation and the challenges of ordinary life. They also examined the morning chanting of Goenkaji and listened to recordings in which he explains it. More generally, they learned about subjects such as the Tipitaka, the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path and the commentaries.

The workshop ended with suttas offering detailed explanations about how to practice dana and metta.

The participants found it inspiring to read and understand the original words of the Buddha. Many saw that the study of the texts (pariyatti) was a tool for deepening their practice.

An online Pali workshop is now available for interested meditators. For more information, visit learning.pariyatti.org.

 

Baira baira se nā miṭe, baḍhe dveṣa duṣkarma;

Baira miṭe maitrī kiye, yahi sanātana dharma.

Hatred does not cease by hatred;
it breeds anger and antagonism;

By love alone hatred ceases; this is the eternal truth.

 

Maitrī karuṇā pyāra se, tana mana pulakita hoya;

Mānava jīvana safala ho, saba vidhi maṅgala hoya.

Let the body and mind be suffused with love,
goodwill and compassion;

Let this human life become happy and fruitful in every way.

 

 

With much mettā,

A Vipassana meditator

 

Jyota jage phira dharma kī, dūra hoya aṅdhiyāra;

Bahujana kā hita sukha sadhe, ho bahujana upakāra.

May the light of Dhamma arise again dispelling the darkness;

For the good and happiness of many, for the benefit of many.

 

Kareṅ mitra se pyāra saba, yahī jagata vyavahāra;

Lekina sajjana to kareṅ, bairī se bhī pyāra.

Everyone treats friends with affection; this is the way of the world;

But the saintly person treats even his enemies with love.