Webu Sayadaw: walking or flying?

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khaaan
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Webu Sayadaw: walking or flying?

Post by khaaan »

I heard this story many years ago. I don't know if it's true, but I when I related it to Roger Bischoff (translator & compiler of The Way to Ultimate Calm: Selected Discourses of Webu Sayadaw), he said it sounded like the kind of thing the Sayadaw would say.

The son of a meditation teacher had heard that Webu Sayadaw's feet didn't touch the ground when he walked. So one rainy day, he crouched down with his head close to the ground, so he could watch the Sayadaw's feet. The Sayadaw walked over a wet area, and when he reached a dry area, the young man noticed that his feet left no wet footprints. "Sir," he asked, "are you walking or flying?" The Sayadaw stopped and replied, "If you pay as much attention to this spot [between the nose and the upper lip] as you did to my feet just now, perhaps some good may come of it."
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bodom
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Re: Webu Sayadaw: walking or flying?

Post by bodom »

khaaan wrote:I heard this story many years ago. I don't know if it's true, but I when I related it to Roger Bischoff (translator & compiler of The Way to Ultimate Calm: Selected Discourses of Webu Sayadaw), he said it sounded like the kind of thing the Sayadaw would say.

The son of a meditation teacher had heard that Webu Sayadaw's feet didn't touch the ground when he walked. So one rainy day, he crouched down with his head close to the ground, so he could watch the Sayadaw's feet. The Sayadaw walked over a wet area, and when he reached a dry area, the young man noticed that his feet left no wet footprints. "Sir," he asked, "are you walking or flying?" The Sayadaw stopped and replied, "If you pay as much attention to this spot [between the nose and the upper lip] as you did to my feet just now, perhaps some good may come of it."
:thumbsup:

The Way to Ultimate Calm is an excellent collection if the Sayadaw's teachings and can be read in full online here:

The way to ultimate calm: selected discourses of Webu Sayadaw
http://books.google.com/books?id=B8gwRy ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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manas
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Re: Webu Sayadaw: walking or flying?

Post by manas »

Personally, I would find it irritating if my feet didn't touch the ground as I walked...I quite like the touch of my feet on the ground as I pace up and down my walking track.
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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Ben
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Re: Webu Sayadaw: walking or flying?

Post by Ben »

bodom wrote:
khaaan wrote:I heard this story many years ago. I don't know if it's true, but I when I related it to Roger Bischoff (translator & compiler of The Way to Ultimate Calm: Selected Discourses of Webu Sayadaw), he said it sounded like the kind of thing the Sayadaw would say.

The son of a meditation teacher had heard that Webu Sayadaw's feet didn't touch the ground when he walked. So one rainy day, he crouched down with his head close to the ground, so he could watch the Sayadaw's feet. The Sayadaw walked over a wet area, and when he reached a dry area, the young man noticed that his feet left no wet footprints. "Sir," he asked, "are you walking or flying?" The Sayadaw stopped and replied, "If you pay as much attention to this spot [between the nose and the upper lip] as you did to my feet just now, perhaps some good may come of it."
:thumbsup:

The Way to Ultimate Calm is an excellent collection if the Sayadaw's teachings and can be read in full online here:

The way to ultimate calm: selected discourses of Webu Sayadaw
http://books.google.com/books?id=B8gwRy ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Seconded!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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