The birth of insight : meditation, modern Buddhism, and the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw

Description

Subject: Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha's most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant-and relatively recent-role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism. Ledi Sayadaw and the gifts of the Buddha -- The best of times and the worst: Ledi Sayadaw's formative period -- The great war of the commentaries: Ledi Sayadaw's Abhidhamma controversy -- "In the hands of all the people": Ledi empowers the laity -- "In this very life": lay study of the Abhidhamma -- The birth of insight -- Conclusion: the death of Ledi and the life of insight