The Most Venerable Bhaddanta Āciṇṇa (ဘဒ္ဒန္တအာစိဏ္ဏ), more commonly referred to as the Pa-Auk Sayadaw (Burmese: ဖားအောက်ဆရာတော်; MLCTS: Hpa:auk Hca.ratau.), is a Burmese Theravāda monk, meditation teacher and the abbot of the Pa-Auk Forest Monastery in Mawlamyine.^[3][4]

Āciṇṇa ordained as a novice in 1944, receiving full ordination in 1954. Immersed in the study of the Pāli Canon from his days as a novice, Āciṇṇa gradually broadened his scope of attention to include meditation, initially training under Mahasi Sayadaw and U Paṇḍitā.^[1] Not long after, Āciṇṇa would also decide to become a forest monk. In the months and years to follow, he would deepen his meditation abilities under the Kathitwaing, Thanlyin and Shwetheindaw sayadaws,^[1] eventually developing his own set of meditation methods, often collectively referred to as the "Pa-Auk method".^[5]

On July 21, 1981,^[6] Āciṇṇa succeeded the Phelhtaw Sayadaw Aggapañña,^[6] at the latter's invitation, as the abbot of the Pa-Auk Forest Monastery.^[2] The monastery would then grow into a network of meditation centres across Southeast Asia and beyond, and is currently the largest network in Myanmar.

In 2010, the national government awarded Āciṇṇa the title of Aggamahā Saddhammajotikadhaja (အဂ္ဂမဟာသဒ္ဓမ္မဇောတိကဓဇ). In 2018, his title was raised to that of Abhidhaja Aggamahā Saddhammajotika (အဘိဓဇအဂ္ဂမဟာသဒ္ဓမ္မဇောတိက). In 2021, his title was raised to that of Aggamahāpandita.

In May 2017, Āciṇṇa was conferred an honorary doctorate of philosophy from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Bangkok, Thailand.^[7]