Ba Khin - Life and Works

Life and Works

Ba Khin was born in Yangon during the British colonial rule. In March 1917, he passed the final high school examination, winning a gold medal as well as a college scholarship. Family pressures forced him to discontinue his formal education to start earning money. His first job was with a Burmese newspaper called The Sun, but after some time he began working as an accounts clerk in the office of the Accountant General of Burma. In 1926 he passed the Accounts Service examination, given by the provincial government of India. In 1937, when Burma was separated from India, he was appointed the first Special Office Superintendent.

In that same year, in January 1937, Ba Khin met a student of Saya Thet Gyi (who now has a separate lineage of monk-teachers in Norway). Thet Gyi was a wealthy farmer and disciple of the renowned master Ledi Sayadaw, who taught him anapana-sati, a form of meditation taught by the Buddha. When Ba Khin tried it, he experienced good concentration, which impressed him so much that he resolved to complete a full course in Vipassana meditation that Thet Gyi offered at a center he had established for that purpose. Accordingly, Ba Khin applied for a ten-day leave of absence and set out for Thet Gyi's teaching center. Ba Khin progressed well during this first ten-day course, and continued his practise during frequent visits to his teacher's center and meetings with Thet Gyi whenever he came to Rangoon.

In 1941, a seemingly happenstance incident occurred which was to be important in his life. While on government business in upper Burma, he met by chance Webu Sayadaw, a monk who was widely recognized as an arahant. Webu Sayadaw was impressed with Ba Khin's proficiency in meditation, and urged him to teach. The monk was the first person to exhort Ba Khin to start teaching.

On 4 January 1948, the day Burma gained independence, Ba Khin was appointed first Accountant General of the Union of Burma.

In 1950 he founded the Vipassana Association of the Accountant General's Office where lay people, mainly employees of that office, could learn Vipassana meditation. In 1952, the International Meditation Centre (I.M.C.) was opened in Rangoon, two miles north of the Shwedagon Pagoda. Here many Burmese and foreign students received instruction in the Dhamma from Ba Khin. He was also active in the planning for the Sixth Buddhist Council known as Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana (Sixth Recitation) which was held in 1954–56 in Yangon.

Ba Khin finally retired from his outstanding career in government service in 1967. From that time, until his premature death in 1971 stemming from complications of surgery, he stayed at I.M.C. in Burma, teaching Vipassana.