The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw, Braun Erik

Braun focuses on the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw, a pivotal architect of modern insight meditation, and explores Ledis popularization of the study of crucial Buddhist philosophical texts in the early twentieth century. By promoting the study of such abstruse texts, Braun shows, Ledi was able to standardize and simplify meditation methods and make them widely accessible--in part to protect Buddhism in Burma after the British takeover in 1885. Braun also addresses the question of what really constitutes the modern in colonial and postcolonial forms of Buddhism, arguing that the emergence of this type of meditation was caused by precolonial factors in Burmese culture as well as the disruptive forces of the colonial era. Offering a readable narrative of the life and legacy of one of modern Buddhisms most important figures, The Birth of Insight provides an original account of the development of mass meditation.