Sayadaw U Pandita (junior) is one of the senior holders of the Mahasi vipassana lineage of Burma. He trained directly under the original Sayadaw U Pandita (1921–2016), who was himself one of the principal disciples of the Mahasi Sayadaw (1904–1982), the master who codified the contemporary Burmese vipassana method that has shaped lay meditation worldwide.
He was ordained at twenty-two and underwent the traditional intensive vipassana training at Mahasi Sasana Yeiktha in Yangon, the central training monastery of the Mahasi tradition. He served for over two decades under the senior Sayadaw U Pandita and was authorised as a meditation master in his own right in the early 1990s. Following the senior Sayadaw's passing, he assumed leadership of Panditarama Forest Meditation Centre at Hse Main Gon, the rural intensive retreat centre established by his predecessor north of Yangon, where students undertake retreats ranging from ten days to six months in the traditional Mahasi noting method.
The Mahasi method — moment-to-moment noting of mental and physical phenomena as they arise — is regarded by its practitioners as one of the most direct paths to the experiential insight stages described in the Visuddhimagga. The lineage has produced an extraordinary number of contemporary Western teachers, including Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and many others — all of whom undertook intensive training under the original U Pandita.
Sayadaw U Pandita (junior) teaches in Burmese, with translation, in a style that is uncompromising about the discipline of the noting practice and patient about the conditions under which insight matures. He teaches occasional retreats in the United States, Europe, and South Asia, and welcomes serious students at Panditarama for retreats of two weeks or longer.
