Sayadaw U Ottamasara is 37 years old, and has been teaching vipassana meditation in Yangon, Myanmar, for the past 5 years as a monk. He was born in 1969, in Kathar Town, Sagaing Division, Upper Myanmar. At the age of 16, he started his own business and became professional business man at the age of 23. At the age of 29, he first encountered the teaching of the Buddha and theory of the emptiness of mind-and-matter. From then onward, he practiced diligently never to lose awareness of the Truth that 'everything is nothing'. After only 3 years of practice a deep realization of Truth was born in him which gave him the strength and courage to renounce all his possessions and worldly pursuits. Then out of gratitude for his teachers, and the Buddha, Sayadaw converted his business headquarters into what is now the Real Enlightenment, Wisdom Sharing Foundation for distributing materials that propagate the message of Truth. Soon after he began teaching meditation daily at a small monastery nearby. With wisdom it could be clearly seen that there were a great many weaknesses in the meditation methods currently being practiced in myanmar, and he fully devoted his time and energy to finding the best possible meditation method and explanation of truth in plain myanmar language. In the year 2005 he became famous as 'tsunami sayadaw' for a series of VCDs he produced that recounted the events of the tsunami and the lessons that a natural disaster of that magnitude taught human kind. The effect was very powerful and to this day 'Tsunami Sayadaw' remains a well-known name throughout myanmar.