Making of the documentary and D I S T R I B U T I O N

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For the last fifteen years I spent my life searching for "something", from Europe at meditation centres, via India and the Himalaya mountains, and eventually Myanmar. This search brought what I personally consider to be the ultimate destination where they teach subtle knowledge that deeply explains mind and matter: Pa Auk Forest Monastery, Myanmar.

With "an open hand" they teach all the 40 meditation techniques that the Buddha taught in his lifetime, unchanged; followed by discernment of mind and matter, Dependent Origination and finally Vipassanā: insight meditation based on observing Ultimate Realities. 

I shall meditate in Pa Auk for the next years, if I am lucky enough to have the strong concentration needed to explore the deeper "mental development techniques" or Kammathānas, as described in the 1,500-year old book, the Visuddhi Magga.

What was lucky in this personal history as that I traveled with paper and watercolour to make sketches, an old habit left from my study as an architect in the eighties. After a chance meeting with a meditation teacher I sat down and followed the instructions. My meditation was strong and my personal notes based on real experiences were in drawings rather than words. These same drawings were used as illustrations in the documentary to explain some aspects of what is taught. Many diagrams and additional images were added to visually support Pa Auk Sayadaw's explanation of what the Buddha taught in his lifetime. The visual presentation makes the overview of the teachings based on the original Pali texts more accessible for westerners, who in general do not have much knowledge of original Theravada Buddhism.

The documentary, Sketch of an Excellent Man, is a result of my great personal appreciation of generations of people who protected the subtle meditation techniques - I received the knowledge for free and cannot keep it for myself. When I decided to "do something" to share the existence of this extra-ordinary system of meditation as originally taught by the Buddha, unchanged after 2,500 years, I knew that my concentration would suffer, but sharing the subtle knowledge that is of the highest value was more important than my wish for immediate advance in personal concentration. The wish resulted in the documentary, now ready for distribution. Translations into several languages are available (currently 14). The quality was approved by my meditation teacher in Pa Auk and the visual format is appreciated by many experienced practitioners as giving "quite a complete overview" of the techniques as taught, especially helpful for beginners who may not realise how important the appearance of "the wisdom light" and the subsequent cultivation of deep concentration is, to learn how to work with this light, the "nimitta".

The dvd is now available for free distribution and uploads are available on Youtube.

Support the distribution of the documentary to make the knowledge available to a broader public either by showing it, making dvd's to share for free, or arranging viewings.

For permission to distribute please contact: settiwessels@gmail.com