Mirka Knaster - Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra

Knaster skillfully weaves teachings and personal stories. This is a wonderful introduction to a teacher whose students are now household names: Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Goleman, Jack Kornfield. This deeply felt, loving portrait of a modern Buddhist master will also inspire those on their own journeys.

Tricycle Magazine

ABOUT THE BOOK

Anagarika Munindra (19152003) was a Bengali Buddhist master and scholar who was teacher to an entire generation of practitionersincluding some of the most prominent Insight Meditation teachers in America. His students include Daniel Goleman (author of Emotional Intelligence), Sharon Salzberg (author of Lovingkindness), Jack Kornfield (author of A Path with Heart), and Joseph Goldstein (author of Insight Meditation). As the teacher of a whole generation of American teachers, he was thus himself a pivotal figure in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. This is the first book available about Munindras life and teaching, and it features:

• A brief biography of Munindra
• Never-before-published excerpts of his teachings
• Stories and remembrances from Western students including Daniel Goleman, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield
• Rare photographs

MIRKA KNASTER is an independent scholar and freelance writer and editor who holds a PhD in Asian and Comparative Studies. She has studied Vipassana meditation since 1981. For more information, visit mirkaknaster.com.

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Living This Life Fully

Stories and Teachings of Munindra

Mirka Knaster

In collaboration with Robert Pryor

Foreword by Joseph Goldstein

SHAMBHALA

BOSTON & LONDON

2011

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2010 by Mirka Knaster

Front cover photo: Munindra in Bodh Gaya, late 1960s.

The authors proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to establish a scholarship fund at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies to honor Munindras memory.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Knaster, Mirka.

Living this life fully: stories and teachings of Munindra/Mirka Knaster in collaboration with C. Robert Pryor; foreword by Joseph Goldstein.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2254-2

ISBN 978-1-59030-674-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Munindra, Anagarika, 19152003Teachings.

2. Dharma (Buddhism) I. Pryor, C. Robert. II. Title.

BQ972.U64K63 2010

294.35dc22

2010022447

Joseph Goldstein

I first met Munindra in 1967. I had been introduced to Buddhism as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand two years earlier, but when I returned home and tried to practice meditation on my own, it didnt take long to realize that I needed a teacher to help cut through the confusion in my mind. In those years, the Buddhas teachings were relatively unknown in the West, and I decided to return to Asia in search of someone who could guide me on the path.

Through what Tibetan meditation master Trungpa Rinpoche so aptly called the pretense of accident, I ended up in Bodh Gaya, the extraordinary place of the Buddhas enlightenment. While sitting in one of the tea shops across from the great Mahabodhi Temple, I heard about a teacher who had just returned from nine years in Burma and who had begun teaching vipassan meditation. I soon went to meet him, beginning what would become a lifelong relationship with Angrika Sri Munindra, a classical meditation master and scholar and a uniquely iconoclastic kalyamitta, a spiritual friend.

One of the first things that Munindra said to me when we met was that if I wanted to understand the mind, I should sit down and observe it. The great simplicity and pragmatism of this advice struck a very resonant chord within me. There was no dogma to believe, no rituals to observe; rather, there was the understanding that liberating wisdom can grow from ones own systematic and sustained investigation.

This, indeed, was the outstanding quality of Munindras life. He always wanted to test the truth of things for himself, to see things firsthand and not simply believe what others had said. And it was this very quality that he encouraged in all of his students. Given the great diversity of Buddhist lineages and traditions, methods and techniques, Munindras openness of mind became a powerful influence in all of our own unfolding dharma journeys.

Living This Life Fully: Stories and Teachings of Munindra is both an insightful introduction to and a wonderful remembrance of this unusual teacher. Mirka Knaster has woven together recollections from many of Munindras students, highlighting his great warmth and curiosity, his incisive wisdom and compassion. These stories are a dharma teaching in themselves, revealing how a great teacher takes every circumstance of life as a vehicle for deepening understanding. This book is a testament to a life fully lived.

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Robert Pryor

Angrika Munindra was a Bengali Buddhist master and scholar who became one of the most inspiring and influential vipassan teachers of the twentieth century. For many who met Munindra, even if only briefly, the encounter could resonate years or decades later as a pivotal point in their spiritual life. The power of his presence resided in his single-minded focus on Dharma as a path to realization and awakening. He fully embodied the principles of Dharma and was, for his students, a powerful example of living the life fully, as Munindra himself would put it. Munindra invited his students to let their practice and life unfold in a natural way. He delivered this advice in an urgent, simple, and very personal way that was the hallmark of his teaching style.

Angrika Munindra was a key force in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. He, like Thomas Merton or Alan Watts, was active in the twentieth century as a teacher who linked the traditions of the East and the West, forming bridges between these two complex cultural areas. While Thomas Merton and Alan Watts were Western contemplatives who explored the religious traditions of Buddhism, Angrika Munindra was born a Buddhist in India and became a meditation master who was able to convey his teachings in a way that deeply transformed his students in Asia and the West.

Speaking in English, he was able to create a link between the vipassan tradition of Burma, where he trained with Ven. Mahsi Saydaw, and the inquisitive European, North American, Australian, and other Western students whom he inspired and guided in meditation. While Merton and Watts were Westerners who wrote widely about their spiritual experiments, Munindra was an Easterner whose impact on the world has been felt primarily through the work of his many outstanding students.