Despite severe emotional difficulties, a Vietnamese monk, Sayadaw Khippapanno, was able to attain insight with Dipa Ma’s encouragement. In 1969, he went on a retreat during which, for five days, he was unable to stop laughing and crying. His teacher, deciding Khippapanno had gone mad, told him to stop the retreat and return home. When Dipa Ma heard this, she invited Khippapanno to practice with her.

From Khippapanno "For a whole month, I practiced at her house. She advised me, "You will overcome this difficulty. If everything is noted, all your emotional difficulties will disappear. When you feel happy, don’t get involved with the happiness. And when you feel sad, don’t get involved with it. Whatever comes, don’t worry. Just be aware of it.'

On a later retreat, when I felt the craziness come, I remembered her words. I had so much difficulty with the emotions that I wanted to leave the retreat, but I remembered her faith in me, and her saying, 'Your practice is good. Just note everything, and you will overcome the difficulty.' With this knowledge of her confidence in me, my concentration got deeper.

Soon I came to see that all emotion was from thinking, nothing more. I found that once I knew how to observe the thoughts that led to the emotions, I could overcome them. And then I came to see that all thoughts were from the past or the future, so I started to live only in the present, and I developed more and more mindfulness. I had no thoughts for a period of time, just mindfulness. And then all my emotional difficulties passed away. Just like that. And then I had an experience. I wasn’t sure what it was. It was only a moment, and there wasn’t anyone to confirm it at the time, but my emotional problems have never returned.

Later, in 1984, when I saw Dipa Ma in America, she took me aside and asked about my meditation. When I told her, she told me that I had completed the first stage [of enlightenment]. She told me like a mother would tell a child."