John Earl Coleman is an important teacher of Vipassana (insight) meditation, a kind of meditation of Theravada Buddhism. He was born in 1933 in a mining town of Pennsylvania, US. After attending his studies, he served the Army. He went to Korea during the war. After his coming back to USA, he started to work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Between the end of the 50's and the beginning of the 60's, he worked for the administration in Thailand. He worked officially for S.E.A. Supply Corporation, Advisers to Government of Thailand, as Specialist in Criminology.
In these years in Thailand he started to be interested in Vipassana meditation. He embarks on a vigorous pursuit of a different sort: a quest for spiritual truth.
Coleman travels through India, Burma, Japan and Thailand and encounters such legendary teachers as Jiddu Krishnamurti, Maharishi, D.T. Suzuki and Sayagyi U Ba Khin. His search for peace of mind and liberating insights comes to fruition in Yangon (Rangoon) under the tutelage of the great Vipassanā meditation master U Ba Khin, who had established the International Meditation Center. In fact, after some attempts to study Vipassanā meditation with different monks in Thailand, he went to Rangoon to practise Vipassanā with Sayagi U Ba Khin, the same teacher of S.N.Goenka. His method of practising Vipassanā is based on ten days retreats as he learned from Sayagi U Ba Khin. Ba Khin elaborated this method for lay people who work and have family. Ba Khin himself learned Vipassanā from a lay man, Saya Thetgyi, who was authorized to teach from the first Burmese monk who decided to teach Vipassanā outside the Sangha, to lay people, Ledi Sayadaw. Another important teacher of Ba Khin was the monk Webu Sayadaw, who was said to be an arahant, that is a person who is going out of Samsara. Coleman has been teaching Vipassanā meditation in Italy until 2006, with courses organized by International Meditation Center (IMC)of Italy, in Milan.
His story and hit method of teaching meditation is described in his autobiography "The Quiet Mind"- The important Italian writer, Tiziano Terzani, in one of his best-seller, Un indovino mi disse, describes his ten day's meditation retrets with Mr. Coleman, in 1993. Also another writer, Tim Parks, describes in his book "Teach us to sit still" a course with Coleman as teacher.
John Coleman is still living in Windsor (UK).
1.http://www.imcitalia.it/risorse/maestro.htm 2.http://www.wise-society.com/salute-e-benessere/archivio/2010/primo-semestre/articoli/lnternational-meditation-center.html 3.http://www.healthypages.co.uk/forum/archive/index.php?t-33820.html 4.http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Vipassana-Meditation-Buddhas-Teachings/dp/1928706061 5.http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=it&tl=en&u=http://imcitalia.it/risorse/introimc.htm 6.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_Khin 7.http://www.buddhanet.net/bvk_study/bvk001a.htm