Dipa Ma

Kenneth has mentioned a couple times a story about how Dipa Ma guided her mentally retarded niece toward stream-entry. I've searched around, but I haven't been able to find confirmation of it. Has anyone else?

I really want it to be true. It somehow reveals in one take how much less this process is than it seems to be but also how much greater and more profound it is.

I haven't heard that story, but I would be interested to learn more about it. I sometimes wonder if the emphasis on intellectual rigor in the pragmatic dharma culture is really itself dharma or just our culture.

Is it intellectual? My impression is that it's minimalistic, but I'm not that involved.

It was mentioned in Bill Hamilton's book "Saints and psychopaths", too. Bill was Kenneth's teacher.

I haven't seen it elsewhere.

"Is it intellectual? My impression is that it's minimalistic, but I'm not that involved."

I guess it's relative. When I think of imparting the teachings here to certain people, I wish there were a more boiled down presentation. I learned by wading through the forums and MCTB. A lot of people won't be bothered with that, although they may be willing to meditate. Also, there's an emphasis on phenomenological reporting, as well as linguistic precision that is interesting to me and may be crucial for professional teachers, but not necessarily intrinsic to Vipassana. So, people without an interest in those things, or without a certain level of education, may gravitate to the more mass-marketed forms of Buddhist practice despite an interest in serious practice. I'm just speculating.

"Kenneth has mentioned a couple times a story about how Dipa Ma guided her mentally retarded niece toward stream-entry. I've searched around, but I haven't been able to find confirmation of it. Has anyone else?

I really want it to be true. It somehow reveals in one take how much less this process is than it seems to be but also how much greater and more profound it is."

Part I
You can read it here: groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mitbuddhism/KFxO92xlrBs

The most precious thing
When I was doing my research in Calcutta, Dipa Ma brought her
neighbor to me, a sixty-five year-old woman whose name was Madhuri
Lata. She had raised her family, her children were gone, and, unlike
most Indian families, she was alone with her husband, with no extended
family living in the same household. Her husband had said to her, "You
have nothing to do now. Thus 'aunt' of yours, Dipa Ma, teaches this
meditation practice. Why don't you talk with her? It'll give you
something to do."

Madhuri, who had mild developmental delays, went to Dipa Ma, and
Dipa Ma gave her the basic instructions [to place her attention on the
rise and fall of the abdomen with each inhalation and exhalation and]
to note to oneself "rising, failing, rising, falling." Madhuri said,
"Okay," and started to go home, down four flights of stairs and across
the alley to her apartment. She didn't get halfway down the stairs
before she forgot the instructions. So, back she came.

"What was I supposed to do?" she asked.

"Rising, falling, rising, falling," said Dipa Ma.

"Oh, yes, that's right."

Part II



Four times, Madhuri forgot the instructions and had to come back.
Dipa Ma was very patient with her. It took Madhuri almost a year to
understand the basic instructions, but once she got them, she was like
a tiger. Before she practiced, Madhuri was bent over at a ninety-
degree angle with arthritis, rheumatism, and intestinal problems. When
I met her, after her enlightenment experience, she walked with a
straight back. No more intestinal problems. She was the simplest,
sweetest, gentlest woman.

After she told me her enlightenment story, she said, "All the time,
I've wanted to tell someone about this wonderful thing that happened
to me, and I've never been able to share this before, this most
precious thing in my life." - Jack Engler

Wonderful! Thank you for that!

Agreed. That's a beautiful story. Thank you.

Thank you, KalyanMitraG! I heard the story from Bill Hamilton, but did not know the source. Much appreciated.

Thank you very much for posting this.

Yes, she is an inspiration to us all. So are the stories about her students and family members.

Some more inspiring stories from that book for aspiring yogis: If they can do it, so can I, Get R Done.

Inspired by Dipa Ma's example, her friends and family came to practice at the center. The first to arrive were her sister, Hema, and a close
friend, Khuki Ma. Although Hema was the mother of eight children, five of whom still lived at home, she made time to practice with her sister
for almost a year. Later, Dipa Ma's daughter, Dipa, and several of Hema's daughters joined them. They were a sight to behold: two middle-
aged mothers an their teenage daughters meditating among the austere, saffron-clad monks. Meditation centers did not normally accommodate
female retreatants, and their living quarters were rustic, hovel-like rooms in a remote corner of the property.

During school holidays, Dipa Ma and Hema might have as many as six children between them. Despite the close family atmosphere, the rules
were strict. "We would eat in silence together as a family," remembered Daw Than Myint, "and we would not look up at each other. It
was very different!" During this phenomenal year of practice, all six children of the Barua clan, four girls and two boys, achieved at least
the first stage of enlightenment.

The young Dipa's commitment to meditation practice was especially gratifying to her mother, who wanted to give her daughter something of enduring value, the
"priceless gift." Again and again she should tell Dipa that mediation offered the only way to peace.

Dipa Ma's first formal student was her neighbor Malati Barua, a widow trying to raise six young children alone. Malati presented an
interesting challenge: she was eager to meditate, but unable to leave her house. Dipa Ma, believing that enlightenment was possible in any
environment, devised practices that her new student could carry out at home. In one such practice, she taught Malati to steadfastly notice
the sucking sensation of the infant at her breast, with complete presence of mind, for the duration of each nursing period. This
amounted to hours each day and, as Dipa Ma had hoped, Malati attained the first stage of enlightenment without ever leaving her home.