I found this channel a year ago, just thought I’d share.
https://www.youtube.com/@livingdhammausa
It is a Sri Lankan teacher living in India now who trained under Most Ven. Pa Auk for 7 years (is my understanding), anyway, in the playlists, he covers for example the whole (I believe) samatha portion of vissudhimagga, hopefully they continue with the insight portion (not sure), there is the whole Mahasatipatthana sutta covered as well etc., might be interesting for someone.
I used to follow the Vism playlist but it was kind of hard to follow because his English is sometimes hard to understand plus he was reading from pali directly so it was a bit hard to follow because of that too, and the Mahasatipatthana sutta, on screen it is hindi so it was very hard for me to follow but now I am using the amazing https://tipitaka.paauksociety.org/ so now it’s easy.
The Venerable is very meticulous, I recommend giving the channel a visit.
2 Likes
I asked my teacher in Myanmar about the monk. He can remember faces and names very well. He also knows and does not forget his student’s meditation progress.
The one you speak about was once a medical doctor which is a sign of very high intelligence in Sri Lanka. He was living in Pyin Oo Lwin when I was there and also helped me with a medical issue too.
He is intelligent, familiar with the Pa-Auk “general instructions”, but he is not one they wanted to allow to teach under the official pa-auk name. They are very selective even though there is a shortage of English Speaking Pa-Auk method monks. Does that mean he can’t help anyone, especially with basics to get started? No. He can probably help people very well. I’m just stating the facts that he is not “official”.
There are many unofficial pa-auk teachers.
My mother could be an unofficial teacher, or skilled people can be unofficial teachers.
To put it in perspective, Ven Ariyananda of Na-Uyana is an unofficial teacher, yet very successful in helping people learn the pa-auk method.
The website says he lives in the usa.
I’ll probably send him an email and invite him to the group here as well as re-establish contact with him.
2 Likes
Thanks for this insight Bhante, and you are right in stating it, from what I understood, they invited him to come to live in India (I believe he lives in India), now whether he has official permission to teach I do not know, but it sure would be weird if he didn’t, though he does seem very knowledgeable and knows pali too.
There are many independent teachers. Nobody owns the teachings.
He simply recommends the same books on his website.
He simply teaches any of the various techniques in the VSM which happens to be the same that Ven. Pā-Auk Sayadawgyi based his teaching on.
He says he lived at Pā-Auk.
I don’t see anything wrong about it. I’m just clarifying that your words put him as a Pā-Auk teacher. He is independent. There is nothing wrong with that.
3 Likes