Twelve Years in Burma

Episode #283: Friedgard Lottermoser, who passed away in August 2024 at 82, lived an extraordinary life. Her story, comparable to Heinrich Harrer’s in “Seven Years in Tibet,” has never been fully told—until now. 

Born in Nazi Germany, she grew up in the difficult post-war, reconstruction years. In 1959, when she was 17, her stepfather moved the family to Rangoon, Burma, for his new job.

Friedegard knew nothing about meditation, though she was interested in spirituality, and she attended her first meditation course with Sayagyi U Ba Khin almost by happenstance. Following ten days of practice, U Ba Khin encouraged her to stay longer for additional instruction, leading to a brief but profound meditative experience that shaped her journey—she reached the “third stage” of Vipassana, bhanga, where she felt sensations pass rapidly through her body, her first embodied understanding of impermanence.

Friedgard explains how U Ba Khin guided meditators to experience the unconditioned state. She explains how U Ba Khin advised Goenka to not to teach this practice, as the environment in India wasn’t suitable for this deeper practice, and Goenka's role was to teach larger numbers of students at beginning levels, while U Ba Khin’s was to take a small number of students to more advanced stages. Friedgard highlights other differences between the two approaches, such as Goenka's requirement of "full surrender" from his students—something she would never have accepted at IMC.

Friedgard admits that U Ba Khin’s initial hope in teaching her was to encourage her stepfather, a close friend of his, to join a meditation course. When it became clear this would not happen, U Ba Khin's interest waned, and he even suggested Friedgard quit meditation, believing her family environment and military surroundings weren’t conducive to progress: her response to leave home and move into Thiri Hall at the University of Rangoon! 

She was still living there in 1962 when General Ne Win staged a military coup, which drastically altered life in Burma. Although almost all foreigners—including her family—had to leave the country, Friedgard was able to stay in Burma thanks to a government scholarship to study Pali. Through twists of fate, Friedgard managed to do what almost no other foreigner at that time could: to remain in the increasingly closed country for nine more years, deeply immersed in meditation, education, and Burmese life.