Jatila Sayadaw: How Certain Names Remain With Us in Stillness

I have been searching for the moment the exact instance I first encountered the title of Jatila Sayadaw, but my memory is proving elusive. It’s not like there was a specific moment or any significant introduction. It is akin to realizing a tree in your garden has become unexpectedly large, without ever having observed the incremental steps of its development? It is simply a part of the landscape. The name Jatila Sayadaw was simply present, possessing a familiarity that required no explanation.

I find myself seated at this early hour— though not "sunrise" early, just that weird, grey in-between time when the morning light remains undecided. I can detect the faint, rhythmic sound of a broom outside. This rhythmic sound emphasizes my stillness as I remain half-asleep, reflecting on a monastic with whom I had no direct contact. Just fragments. Impressions.

The term "revered" is frequently applied when people discuss him. It is a descriptor that carries considerable gravity. But when they say it about Jatila Sayadaw, it doesn’t sound loud or formal. It conveys a sense of... meticulous attention. It is as though people choose their vocabulary more carefully when discussing him. One perceives a distinct sense of moderation in that space. I keep thinking about that—restraint. It appears remarkably inconsistent with today's trends, wouldn't you say? Current trends are all about reaction, speed, and visibility. He seems to belong to a completely different rhythm. A temporal sense where time is not for optimization or control. You merely exist within its flow. While that idea is appealing on paper, I imagine it is much more difficult to realize in practice.

There is a particular mental picture of him that I carry, although it may be an assembly of old narratives and various impressions. I more info see him walking; merely treading a path in the monastery, eyes cast down, his steps rhythmic. It is devoid of any sense of theatricality. He’s not doing it for an audience, even if people happened to be watching. I am likely romanticizing the scene, but that is how he remains in my thoughts.

Curiously, there is a lack of anecdotal lore about his specific personality. No one passes around clever anecdotes or humorous sayings as mementos of him. People only speak of his discipline and his continuity. As if his individual self... withdrew to provide a space for the tradition to manifest. I think about that on occasion. If the disappearance of the "self" is perceived as an expansive freedom or a narrowing of experience. I lack the conclusion; perhaps I am not even posing the right question.

The daylight has begun to transition at last, growing more luminous. I’ve been looking over what I’ve written and I almost deleted it. It feels a bit messy, maybe even a little pointless. But perhaps that is the actual point. Thinking of him brings to light how much mental and verbal noise I usually create. How often I feel the need to fill the silence with something considered useful. He seems to personify the reverse of that tendency. He wasn't silent just for the sake of quiet; he simply didn't seem to need anything superfluous.

I shall conclude my thoughts here. This writing is not a biography in any formal sense. It is merely an observation of how certain names persist, even without an effort to retain them. They just stay there, steady.