S.N. Goenka was the most influential lay Theravada teacher of the twentieth century and the founder of the global non-sectarian 10-day Vipassana course system. A Burmese-Indian businessman trained for fourteen years under U Ba Khin, he returned to India in 1969 and built a worldwide network of nearly 200 centres offering free, donation-supported Vipassana retreats in the Ledi Sayadaw → U Ba Khin lineage.
His 10-Day Course Discourses are among the most widely consumed dharma teachings in history. He addressed the United Nations Millennium World Peace Summit in 2000 and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2012.