Editing Ashin Nyana (section)

== Biography ==

Ashin Nyāna was born in 1938 in Khaung Kwe village in Pakokku District, Magway Division. He entered the Buddhist monastic order as a novice in 1952, at the age of fourteen, and began studying Buddhist scriptures. He received full ordination as a monk in 1958 and continued his scriptural studies until 1963. He subsequently practiced meditation in forest monasteries in Upper Burma and studied traditional Theravāda Buddhism, including Buddhaghosa's ''Visuddhimagga''. He later left the forest monasteries and visited prominent monks in order to hear their teachings. 

Nyāna eventually became dissatisfied with the traditional Buddhist path as it was taught to him. He concluded that the conventional teachings did not provide a satisfactory means of liberation and began searching the Buddhist scriptures for what he regarded as the Buddha's authentic teaching. According to accounts of his life, this search became particularly important around 1967, when he concluded that the canonical corpus contained evidence of two incompatible representations of the Buddha and two incompatible bodies of teaching.<ref>Foxeus (2024), "The Doctrine of the Sky-Blue One". Kawanami, Hiroko (2022). "The Making of an 'Inside Enemy': A Study of the Sky-Blue Sect in Myanmar." ''Journal of Buddhism, Law & Society'' 6 (2020–2021): 1–40.</ref> Nyāna's method was strongly text-critical. He examined the Tipiṭaka and commentarial literature and attempted to distinguish earlier Buddhist teachings from later developments. In particular, he rejected teachings concerning previous and future lives as incompatible with what he considered the Buddha's original teaching. The Four Noble Truths consequently became the center of his reconstruction of Buddhism. 

During the 1970s Nyāna began disseminating his ideas through sermons, books, and cassette recordings. Many of his books were not formally published but were printed in small numbers and circulated among followers. His writings were characteristically associated with the light-blue color that subsequently became the identifying mark of his movement. On April 22, 1981, Nyāna submitted a 38-page proposal for Buddhist doctrinal reform to the State Mahā Nāyaka Committee (''Ma Ha Na''), the body responsible for regulating the Sangha. He argued that poor Buddhist morality and ignorance of the Four Noble Truths and karma had contributed to conflict and disorder in society, and he criticized the established monastic authorities. He was arrested in September 1981. 

Nyāna was defrocked in 1983 after being accused of claiming to have attained arahantship. On February 10, 1983, he abandoned the conventional saffron robes and adopted the blue clothing that became characteristic of the movement. His followers commemorate this date as Dhamma Wihārī Day. Although he was no longer recognized as a member of the Theravāda Sangha, his followers continued to regard him as a monk and commonly addressed him as ''hsayādaw''. Members of the movement who took on the role of religious teachers were known as dhamma-wihārī, "abodes of Dhamma." The movement became known as ''Mou-pyā-wāda'', "Doctrine of the Sky-Blue [One]," and also as ''Pyissouppān-kamma-wāda-bouddha-bhāthā'', "Buddhism of the Doctrine of Present Karma." The latter name reflects one of Nyāna's central doctrinal innovations: his insistence that karma should be understood entirely in terms of actions and consequences occurring in the present life.

Nyāna's movement continued to grow despite repeated repression. He was imprisoned from 1983 to 1986, sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in 1991 and released in 1998, and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment in 2010. He was released in a general amnesty in January 2016. The charges varied, but a major factor in the state's treatment of him was the dissemination of teachings considered heretical by the state-backed Sangha authorities. The movement became increasingly popular from the late 1990s onward. By the 2000s, courses in Nyāna's teachings were being offered at centers in Yangon, Mandalay, and elsewhere. His followers came from diverse social backgrounds, including farmers, teachers, students, businesspeople, workers, professionals, and political activists. On November 15, 2011, the State Sangha Mahā Nāyaka Committee formally declared Nyāna's teachings to constitute heresy (adhamma) and prohibited their dissemination. The official rejection of his movement was not simply a dispute over individual doctrines: Nyāna's teachings challenged the authority of the established Sangha, rejected major components of the doctrinal framework taught by monastic institutions, and questioned established relationships between monks and laypeople. Following his release in 2016, Nyāna remained an influential figure among his followers, although the movement was no longer as cohesive as it had been before his imprisonment.