It is sometimes asked: is U Ba Khin a bodhisatta?
A bodhisatta (a future sammāsambuddha) never seeks Nibbana until his final lifetime. When the teaching of pure Vipassana exists, his goal is to serve all beings towards them experiencing Nibbana - not aspiring to attain Nibbana himself.
Sayagyi U Ba Khin's aspiration was made clear in his first meeting with Webu Sayadaw:
"My aspiration is to attain Nibbana, sir," U Ba Khin replied.
A bodhisatta aspires to and experiences Nibbana only in his final lifetime, when he has to serve as a Sammāsambuddha - after countless kappas and asenkheyas of Dhamma Service.
Until then, there is the automatic turning away - at that anuloma moment of indescribable stillness and one-pointedness of mind when the next moment is Nibbana. An unforgettable experience, but those in very long term Dhamma Service don't give it much importance.
This turning away from Nibbana happens without conscious thinking at that moment. The conscious choice had already been made earlier, in this and perhaps previous lifetimes: "How can I even think of my own liberation when millions of people have not even heard the word Vipassana".
Other qualities can show the volition, such as the readiness to sacrifice his life for others and unshakable, infinite faith in Dhamma (Vipassana).
His work is to serve for the liberation of all beings, in any way possible. Whatever suffering may occur later in life due to bhava saṅkhāras, past or present unwholesome kammas, there is never the slightest regret of having turned away from the doorway to end all suffering. On the contrary, there is almost an aversion to crossing over the threshold. During Vipassana practice when the mind reaches deeper levels of concentration, he immediately starts practicing Metta to share with all beings the merits of purity of those moments, and to ensure not again reaching the pre-nibbanic moment.
He will keep practicing Vipassana - until the final lifetime when the Dhamma time ripens for him to rediscover the lost path of Vipassana. And he can only re-discover the Practice/Path that is within him, just as the five-year-old prince Siddhattha started practicing Anapana on his own sitting under a tree.
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Sayagyi U Ba Khin's letter to Goenkaji
(Text):
11th October 1969
My dear Goenka,
I came back to Centre from R.G.H. last month on 30-9-69 and am getting on well. You are doing a very great and unprecedented service to Buddha Sasana in India. You are under our cover always. As you represent me for this great work in India, it is my duty to see at all costs that you succeed in your endeavours to give True Buddha Dhamma to those who are in need of it. Your success means my success and I shall see to it that you get reinforcement of Nibbana Dhatu from us and all the great powers who guide us in this most noble work.
With sincerest and kindest regards,
Ba Khin
11/10/69
"He (U Ba Khin) was engaged in government responsibilities until the age of sixty-seven and had very little time to spare for the teaching of Vipassana. Therefore, he took a vow: 'May only ripened people with very good pāramīs (virtues) from the past come to me to take Dhamma [which was also why many of U Ba Khin's students reached the Nibbanic stage], and may these people later take the torch of Dhamma, and spread it 'round the world.' He could not work with the masses; he was working to serve a few individuals for whom he could spare more time.
He used to recite a Pāli gāthā (verse):
Imīna puñña-kammena
mā me bāla samāgamā;
sataṃ samāgamo hotu
yāva nibbāna pattiyo.
By virtue of this meritorious action,
may I not come into contact with the ignorant.
May I encounter only wise, saintly people
until I attain nibbāna.
One time when he came to my home, I was chanting and at the end recited this gāthā. Sayagyi smilingly admonished me, saying, "This gāthā is not for you! You are to give seeds of Dhamma to a very large number of people. If you take this vow, how will Dhamma spread? This vow is for me because I have little time, and I am just on the border of 2,500 years after Buddha when Dhamma has to start spreading. You are getting Dhamma at the time when the new era has started. So you have to work vigorously. You have to spread the seeds of Dhamma [Vipassana] to large numbers of people. So don't recite this!" Of course, I bowed to him and to his wishes."
- from the article 'Sayagyi U Ba Khin, A Shining Star of Dhamma' by S.N. Goenka
11th October 1969
My dear Goenka,
I came back to Centre from R.G.H. last month on 30-9-69 and am getting on well. You are doing a very great and unprecedented service to Buddha Sasana in India. You are under our cover always. As you represent me for this great work in India, it is my duty to see at all costs that you succeed in your endeavours to give True Buddha Dhamma to those who are in need of it. Your success means my success and I shall see to it that you get reinforcement of Nibbana Dhatu from us and all the great powers who guide us in this most noble work.
With sincerest and kindest regards,
Ba Khin
11/10/69
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Sayagyi U Goenka's aspiration was not Nibbana. U Ba Khin too realized the Vipassana work his Dhamma son had to do:
He used to recite a Pāli gāthā (verse):
Imīna puñña-kammena
mā me bāla samāgamā;
sataṃ samāgamo hotu
yāva nibbāna pattiyo.
By virtue of this meritorious action,
may I not come into contact with the ignorant.
May I encounter only wise, saintly people
until I attain nibbāna.
One time when he came to my home, I was chanting and at the end recited this gāthā. Sayagyi smilingly admonished me, saying, "This gāthā is not for you! You are to give seeds of Dhamma to a very large number of people. If you take this vow, how will Dhamma spread? This vow is for me because I have little time, and I am just on the border of 2,500 years after Buddha when Dhamma has to start spreading. You are getting Dhamma at the time when the new era has started. So you have to work vigorously. You have to spread the seeds of Dhamma [Vipassana] to large numbers of people. So don't recite this!" Of course, I bowed to him and to his wishes."
- from the article 'Sayagyi U Ba Khin, A Shining Star of Dhamma' by S.N. Goenka
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No need to ponder too much about whether Mr A was an arahant or Mr B has longer-term Dhamma destiny. Intellectual knowledge of another individual's Dhamma destiny is irrelevant in one's Vipassana journey. Each traveler on the path of Vipassana has his or her particular responsibility to fulfill in each lifetime.
Vipassana is being with the reality of impermanence this moment with equanimity, at the level of arising, passing bodily sensations.
No need to ponder too much about whether Mr A was an arahant or Mr B has longer-term Dhamma destiny. Intellectual knowledge of another individual's Dhamma destiny is irrelevant in one's Vipassana journey. Each traveler on the path of Vipassana has his or her particular responsibility to fulfill in each lifetime.
Vipassana is being with the reality of impermanence this moment with equanimity, at the level of arising, passing bodily sensations.
For the record, for posterity, this can be said of the Most Compassionate Dhamma being Sayagyi U Goenka - observations after having had the rare privilege of serving under his direct guidance for many years, and having taken certain steps on the Vipassana path. This led to realizing/experiencing some unique realities regarding him: his Vipassana attainments, his Dhamma volition, his super-normal faculties (*) of the mind. One such faculty he clearly made evident to this meditator during work - often all day and evening - of assisting him with his English correspondence and related Dhamma work at the Principal Teacher's residence in Dhamma Giri and Juhu, Mumbai. There is absolutely no doubt of his "aversion" to being liberated - whether to wait for liberation until a future Sammāsambuddha arises, or the Dhamma destiny and Vipassana work of serving as a future Sammāsambuddha.
No doubt at all of his infinite compassion of Vipassana service to all beings, towards their liberation and experiencing the highest happiness.
"The entire mind should be filled with only one volition: the liberation of all beings".
- Sayagyi U Goenka, in 'Transmission of Dhamma' (the training manual for Vipassana teachers).
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(*) These super-normal faculties get opened up when the mind reaches very high levels of concentration and certain level of purity. This will happen naturally to more meditators and Vipassana teachers of future generations with their stronger base of sila and with the practice of Anapana from childhood. More meditators will also be (re)born with greater paramis in the inevitable evolution of Vipassana for the next few centuries or millennia. Here it must be carefully noted that such powers of the mind should not be given any importance and should rarely be consciously used. For a serious Vipassana practitioner, these super-normal powers should be considered as just another experience of impermanence and dealt with equanimity, at the level of sensations arising and passing away.
It can be seen that some meditators show undue interest in jhanas (to reach very high levels of concentration) which may indicate craving to attain such super-normal powers. Such unwholesome inclinations will lead a meditator to the wrong path and far away from the Dhamma purpose of Vipassana: total purification of the mind. The obvious dangerous example is Siddhatha Gotama's evil cousin Devdatta who grossly misused such powers of the mind.
It must be further strongly cautioned that such powers of the mind are meant to be used and can only be correctly used by Sammāsambuddhas, since only they have the ability to go to the root of another person's mind. Only a Sammāsambuddha has the penetrating wisdom to know how and when to use such powers of the mind. For all others, including very advanced Vipassana teachers and very senior monks, even consciously using such powers for Dhamma Service decisions is fraught with risk - such as the ability to read the thoughts of others. This is because only a Sammāsambuddha has the ability to know the true depth and strength of volition of a thought arising in another person's mind. Making a decision solely based on reading the thoughts arising on the upper surface levels of another person's mind can lead to incorrect decisions.
The Buddha did not teach any specific technique to develop supernormal powers of the mind, as some incorrectly believe. These faculties of the mind (abhiññā) such as the ability to clearly read the thoughts of others (ceto-pariya-ñāṇa), and see celestial and other less visible beings, happens naturally as awareness increases with a sharpened, very concentrated mind. It's innately developed - like tonnes of dust and grime removed from the impure mind - and the relatively advanced meditator is more clearly able to see, experience subtler realities of nature.
More Vipassana teachers of future generations will have super-normal powers of the mind naturally opened up - as was the case with the Principal Teacher of Vipassana Sayagyi U Goenka. But the clear caution/warning is there, similar to the warning against developing attachment to pleasant sensations: such powers (such as being able to read the thoughts of others as clearly as words on a page, or to know of events far away) should be used only for protecting others from impending danger and for mettā. Mettā is Dhamma Service and Dhamma Service is Mettā.
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