Their story
Nani Bala Barua was born in 1911 in Chittagong, in the Barua Buddhist community of Bengal, and married at twelve. She moved with her husband to Burma, where she lost two of her three children and, in 1957, her husband.
Grief-stricken and ill, she turned to meditation, practising at the Mahasi centre in Yangon with the encouragement of the teacher Anagārika Munindra. Her progress was remarkable, and she became a teacher herself.
In 1967 she moved to Calcutta with her daughter, Dipa, whose name gave her own ('Mother of Dipa'). There, in a small apartment, she taught local women and visiting Westerners, and in 1980 and 1984 she taught in the United States. She died in 1989.
The world they lived in
The Burmese meditation movement welcomed lay people, including women, into intensive practice. From the late 1960s, young Westerners travelled to India and Burma to learn meditation.
Their contribution
She taught that meditation can be practised in every moment of ordinary life, including housework and child-rearing, and embodied loving-kindness and calm in a way her students never forgot.
Their legacy
Her students included Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield, founders of the Insight Meditation Society in the United States, who have spoken often of her influence.
History and tradition
What history can establish
Her life is documented by her family and students, above all in Amy Schmidt's biography.
