Satipatthana Retreat: Opening Talk

This teaching was given at a Refuge Recovery all day sitting at the North Carolina Zen Center. It outlines the history and practice of Satipatthana mediation, which helps the practitioner develop mindfulness through contemplations of the body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind.

Transcript

This talk was given in August 2018 at a Refuge Recovery Retreat at the North Carolina Zen Center.

The topic of the retreat was the Satipatthana Sutra,

Or the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

This talk was the opening lecture.

Unfortunately,

The first four or five minutes of the talk were not captured,

So the recording begins abruptly,

And so this introduction.

The talk itself is based mainly on the work of a number of teachers.

Bhikkhu Inalayo,

A German Theravada monk,

Scholar,

Meditation teacher,

Primarily his work.

Other teachers who contributed to my thinking,

Though,

Were Bhikkhu Bodhi,

Who is an American Theravada monk and well-known translator,

The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh,

Bantai Gunaratthana,

Who is a beloved teacher and retreat leader,

And Thanasarabhikkhu,

A well-known teacher and translator and once abbot of the first monastery in the Thai forest tradition here in the United States.

The Satipatthana Sutra,

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,

Details the seventh step of the Buddha's eightfold path,

Right mindfulness.

The Buddha explained that everyone,

People recently interested in the Buddhist path,

Monks and nuns,

Even advanced meditators who have reached the goal of liberation,

He said that all should be settled and established in the development of these four establishments of mindfulness.

Now the real discovery of the Buddha was that the truth of relieving suffering is within us.

The entire dharma is based on this realization.

When we look inside ourselves,

We understand the significance of the Four Noble Truths,

The Buddha's first teachings.

Where do we find suffering?

Within ourselves.

Where is the cause of suffering,

Our craving?

It's also within us.

How can we reach the end of suffering?

We find the way within ourselves.

The roots of suffering are within us and the method for eliminating suffering is also within us.

So what is the Satipatthana Sutra?

Why is it important?

Satipatthana meditations give us an opportunity to establish and deepen a practice of mindfulness,

To see how we can use mindfulness to better understand ourselves and to live happier,

More balanced lives.

Satipatthana contemplations are one of the most important Buddhist meditations.

Really,

The Satipatthana Sutra is the only place where the Buddha dealt with meditation in any detail.

The sutra explores 21 meditation practices for the cultivation of mindfulness,

Grouped into four areas.

Contemplation of the body,

Contemplation of the feelings,

Of the mind,

And contemplation of dharmas or objects of mind.

Bhikkhu Bodhi says that mindfulness is the act of attending to experience as it manifests in the present moment.

As we engage in Satipatthana contemplations,

He tells us,

Attending to each experience,

We fix the mind firmly onto the experience as an object of mind.

And our continuous attention to an experience stabilizes the mind in concentration,

So that our observation of the qualities and characteristics of an experience can bring us insight into its nature.

Now,

As for the setting of the sutra itself,

Early Buddhism,

The time of the historical Buddha 500 years before the birth of Jesus,

And where?

Northern India,

In the Ganges River Valley.

The Buddha often gave talks such as this in monastic settings,

Though also in the homes of patrons or even in towns and rural areas,

As was this teaching,

Given then to people of no rank and no monastic practice,

As you'll hear now as the recording gets underway.

.

.

.

Monastics,

Monks and nuns,

And the Buddha would have given the sutra,

Would have spoken this talk in a monastery,

But he didn't.

He gave it in a village where there were shopkeepers and farmers and just,

You know,

Other ordinary folk,

You know.

And I wonder,

You know,

What that seems like and how many people would be there and how that played out.

But when you read the sutra,

Here's the first part.

Thus have I heard.

On one occasion the Blessed One was living in the Kuru country at a town of the Kurus named Kamasadama.

And there he addressed the monks,

Thus,

Monks.

Then it will serve,

They replied.

Now since mindfulness can help men and women from all walks of life to relieve suffering,

We can assume that when we hear the Buddha using this word monks or bhikkhus,

The word is used here to mean anybody who's seriously interested in meditation.

It's up to us now when we hear this teaching,

When we read the sutra,

When we share these experiences,

To see the sutra through the lens of modern times in the world that we live in now and to think about how it is that we can find appropriate ways to practice these teachings here in our lives.

So about this word Satipatthana,

Let's talk about where that comes from.

Satipatthana contemplations is probably the most commonly taught style of meditation in Theravadin Buddhism.

Theravadin Buddhism is the Buddhism that came out of India,

Stretched across Southeast Asia,

Places like Burma,

Thailand,

Sri Lanka.

But it's not necessarily a Theravadin teaching.

As I said,

It came before Theravadin Buddhism as such came into being.

It stems from that period of early Buddhism,

From the Buddhist time of teaching,

Which I said went on about 60 years,

Before Buddhism itself began to split into different schools and different groups.

And in that period of early Buddhism,

Mindfulness played a central role in the path to liberation.

And the only real place,

As I said,

That the Buddha talks about mindfulness and meditation and learning to establish mindfulness is right here in the Satipatthana Sutra.

This fellow,

Biko Inayo,

He breaks down the word really nicely,

Sati plus Patthana,

Which traditionally has been translated as foundations of mindfulness.

But it turns out it's actually Sati plus Upatthana.

And in this language,

Pali,

There's an interesting thing that happens,

I guess,

That when you have a word that ends in a vowel and a word that starts in a vowel,

A letter gets dropped at the beginning of the second word.

But if you look at Upatthana,

What that actually means is something more like firm establishment or setting up.

And so combining the two,

The meaning of the compound Satipatthana becomes more like a firm,

Steadfast establishment of mindfulness and awareness.

And that awareness that we talk about is the meaning of the word Sati.

So Satipatthana awareness establishment.

The 21 Satipatthana contemplations,

Really they're a process contemplating body,

Feelings,

Mind,

Objects of mind,

A way of establishing mindfulness through meditation.

So let's talk about meditation for just a second.

Thich Nhat Hanh says that practice meditation is to look deeply in order to see the essence of things.

And with that resulting insight and understanding,

We can realize peace and joy.

Anger,

Anxiety,

Fear,

For instance.

He says these are the ropes that bind us to suffering.

And if we want to be liberated from them,

Then we have to observe their nature.

He goes on to say the first step is to establish awareness of an object of meditation.

The second step is to look deeply at that object,

Shed the light of awareness on it,

And to go deeply into an object in order to observe it.

And this is key.

Thich Nhat Hanh says when we are fully aware of an object of contemplation and we observe it deeply,

The boundary between the subject doing the observing and the object that's being observed gradually dissolve.

Dissolve.

And the subject and the object become one.

And this is really the essence of meditation,

As Thich Nhat Hanh teaches there.

He says that only when we penetrate an object and become one with it can we understand it.

Thich Nhat Hanh says it's not enough to stand outside and observe an object.

This is why the sutra reminds us,

You may have seen this language as you read it,

This is why the sutra reminds us we have to be aware of the body in the body,

The feelings in the feelings,

Mind in the mind,

Objects of mind in objects of mind.

So several thoughts leap out to me pretty clearly from this.

One is that the deeply observing mind is not merely an observer of an object,

But a participant with that object.

And only when the observer is a participant can there be transformation.

Once mindful observation is born,

It will penetrate the object of observation,

Illuminate it,

And gradually reveal to us its true nature.

And when mindfulness is present,

Thich Nhat Hanh says we have nothing to fear.

The object of our observation becomes vivid,

And its source,

And its origin,

And true nature become evident,

And that's how it can be transformed.

Bhante Gunaratana listens to several similar benefits of meditation.

He says first meditation helps us to become fully aware of what's going on in the mind and the body right here,

Right now.

And that with this awareness we're able to evaluate the purpose and the suitability of everything we do,

Everything we say.

He goes on to say that meditation trains us to see our own body,

Our feelings,

Our perceptions,

Our thoughts,

Our consciousness,

Exactly as they are from moment to moment.

And seeing ourselves clearly in this way is the essential first step to making positive life changes,

Because it enables us to make wise and more beneficial choices for ourselves and our lives.

Lastly he notes that as our practice deepens,

We see the world around us without distortion.

We come to understand that everything that exists,

Ourselves included,

Is interdependent with everything else,

And that everything is always changing in permanent.

And for this reason we realize that no person,

No place,

Thing,

Or situation,

No feeling can ever be permanently satisfying,

Or permanently dissatisfying.

There's a teacher out at the San Francisco Zen School who I listened to,

Paul Heller,

And he says the process of meditation,

Experiencing the experience that's being experienced,

The process of meditation,

Experiencing the experience that's being experienced,

He says it doesn't require us to be something that we aren't already,

It doesn't require us to know something that we don't already know,

But we experience the experience that's being experienced.

And if we come at things with this idea,

Then our experience will be here,

And our understanding of the experience will be here.

So I'd like to talk a little bit more about this word sati,

Or just awareness.

It comes from a root verb,

Sarati,

Which means to remember,

And you can see the use of the word to mean remembering several places in the Buddhist discourses,

And it's personified by this fellow Ananda.

Ananda was a Buddhist attendant,

This body man if you want.

He was a Buddhist cousin,

And apparently he had just a prodigious kind of photographic memory.

He had an arrangement with Buddha that if he didn't understand the content of one of the Buddha's teachings,

He could ask the Buddha as many questions as he needed until he understood.

And this is a time of oral tradition,

There was no writing in this time,

There was no writing in this place.

And Ananda,

Apparently with his photographic memory,

Took it upon himself to sort of record mentally all of the Buddha's teachings.

So when you read a Buddha's sutra,

The traditional opening is,

Have I heard?

And I is Ananda,

Repeating back what it was that he's heard.

But in the context of meditation,

This word sati,

Again is more about awareness,

Or wakefulness,

A presence of mind,

And attentiveness to the experience of the present moment.

Bante Gunaratana says that sati is a direct,

Non-verbal attention to what's happening from one moment to the next.

And it's one of the seven factors of awakening that we talk about in our meetings.

These natural qualities of mind described by the Buddha as building blocks of a Buddhist practice,

Spiritual practice.

So as I said in Buddha's time,

Oral tradition was the primary form of knowledge.

There was also logical reasoning,

And there was also direct experience.

The Buddha placed real importance on direct experience.

He didn't reject oral tradition,

He didn't reject logical reasoning as ways of acquiring knowledge.

I mean,

They were key to the transmission of his teaching,

The oral tradition.

They were key to understanding his message.

But he felt that those had limitations.

In an oral tradition,

Something can be remembered incorrectly.

Or it can be remembered correctly,

But maybe it was just flat out wrong to begin with.

And logical reasoning,

As we all know,

Can go astray.

Still,

He knew there was also a danger in relying entirely on direct experience.

You know the old story about the blind men who all had their hand on one different part of an elephant and they were asked to describe what it is that they think is right in front of them.

And of course,

Depending on which part of an elephant you've got your hand on,

You're gonna have,

You know,

You've got your hand on the ear,

It's like a palm leaf,

You know,

Or a leg,

It's like a tree trunk.

The trunk is like a snake.

So even direct experience is not necessarily gonna show us the whole picture.

Or it might just show us part of a picture.

So Buddha felt that emphasis on direct experience should not mean a rejection of oral tradition or logical reasoning,

But that they should be seen as secondary sources of information.

Oral tradition,

Thinking about the Dharma,

These prepare us for direct experience of reality.

And in the Satipatthana contemplations,

The practice of Sati,

This bare awareness of the present moment as we observe our body,

Our feelings,

Our mind,

That is direct experience.

The awareness is the direct experience.

It offers us an undistorted understanding of things as they are.

So,

To be clear,

It's not the job of Sati or awareness to interfere with what happens in the mind.

It's not to attempt to change what our experience is,

But only to see it.

Only to penetrate it and to become one with it.

So if a mental hindrance such as ill will or doubt comes up,

The task of Satipatthana meditation is to help us to know that this hindrance has arisen.

It's to help us try to understand what it is that has led to its arisen.

It's to help us to try to understand what will lead to its disappearance,

But not try to force it out because it never works.

The nature of Sati is to make things conscious,

Not to eliminate them,

But to transform them through understanding and non-attachment.

Sati observes without interfering its awareness without making choices,

Seeing all the pieces but not judging among them,

An impartial awareness without reacting to our likes and our dislikes.

Sati does not do away with our experience,

It transforms our experience.

Now in the long run,

This non-reactive observation,

It can help us to diminish that,

Which is unwholesome in our minds and our hearts.

And I really like,

Rather than right and wrong,

I really like these ideas of,

What's wholesome in your life?

What's unwholesome in your life?

So this kind of awareness can really help us understand,

Diminish what is unwholesome in our hearts and minds,

Our thoughts,

Our actions.

And so the application of Sati can have real strong consequences in the way that we live our lives.

Now,

Right up top of the sutra,

And you can see it here on the first page,

There's something that says the direct path.

And Buddha makes a very bold statement here,

And if you want to read it,

You can,

I'm going to read it out loud.

He says,

This sutra,

This is the direct path for the purification of beings,

For the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation,

For the disappearance of dukkha,

Of suffering and discontent,

For acquiring the true method for the realization of nirvana.

That's a big statement.

So that tells you how important the Buddha felt that the contents of this sutra were to liberation from suffering.

As far as he was concerned,

This is it.

The practice of mindful observation,

This is it.

So mindfulness,

That's fine,

But we also have this word concentration.

And it can be confusing about what it is that the two actually mean and how they relate to one another.

I said this at the beginning,

But a fellow named Thanassaro Bhikkhu,

Who started one of the first forest tradition meditation centers here in the West,

He's a translator and author,

He said,

The purpose of mindfulness practice is to lead the mind into a state of right concentration,

The seventh step in the eightfold path into the eighth step on the eightfold path.

But what really is the difference between the two,

Mindfulness and concentration?

I think the easiest way for me to sort of convey this is just to read several paragraphs from this book,

Mindfulness in Plain English,

A book I would recommend to anybody.

This is Thanassaro Bhikkhu speaking.

He says,

There's a distinction between mindfulness and concentration,

And the two work as a team.

Each has a role to play in meditation,

And we cultivate them side by side.

Concentration is often called one-pointedness of mind.

It consists of forcing the mind to remain on one static point.

Note the word force,

He said.

Concentration is a forced kind of activity.

It can be developed by sheer willpower,

He says,

And once developed,

It retains some of that flavor of being forced.

Mindfulness,

On the other hand,

Is a more delicate function.

It notices things.

Concentration provides power.

It keeps the attention pinned down to one thing.

Mindfulness picks the object of attention,

And it notices when the attention has gone astray.

Concentration does the actual work of holding attention steady on that chosen object.

He goes on,

He uses an analogy of a lens,

Like a magnifying glass kind of lens.

It says waves of sunlight falling onto a piece of paper will do no more than warm the surface.

But if that same amount of light is focused through a lens and falls on a single point of the paper,

The paper is going to burn.

So concentration,

He says,

Is the lens.

It produces that burning intensity that's necessary to see into the deeper reaches of the mind.

Mindfulness selects the object that the lens will focus on.

It looks through the lens to see what's there.

Mindfulness is just a pure noticing factor.

He says mindfulness cannot be cultivated by force or by struggle.

It grows by realizing,

By letting go,

By just settling down into the moment and letting yourself get comfortable with whatever it is you're experiencing.

Now this doesn't mean that mindfulness happens all by itself.

Far from it,

He says.

Energy is required.

Effort is required.

But this effort is different than force.

Mindfulness is cultivated by gentle effort.

You cultivate mindfulness by constantly reminding yourself in a gentle way to maintain your awareness of whatever is happening right now.

Persistence and light touch are the secrets.

Mindfulness is cultivated by constantly pulling yourself back to a state of awareness.

Gently.

Gently.

Gently.

Anayo says that Satipatthana contemplations,

They train us to develop mindfulness of what we do.

With the body,

We're walking,

We're standing,

We're sitting,

We're lying down,

We're speaking,

We're eating,

We're drinking,

We're writing,

We're reading,

We're playing.

The contemplations lead us into moment-to-moment awareness of our emotions,

Our sensations,

Our thoughts,

Our mental activities.

And how does this help?

The more aware we are of our actions,

Our feelings,

Our thoughts,

The more insight we have into why we're doing what we're doing,

Why we're feeling what we're feeling,

Why we're living in the ways that we live.

And this is key.

Awareness allows us to see whether our actions spring from beneficial impulses or harmful impulses.

Harmful motivations and actions are caused by greed,

Hatred,

Delusion.

Beneficial motivations are actions rooted in generosity,

Friendliness,

Compassion,

Wisdom.

Ponte Guna Ratana says,

When we're mindful of the roots from which our thoughts,

Words,

And deeds grow,

When we see them clearly,

Dispassionately,

Then we have the opportunity to cultivate those that are beneficial and to weed out those that are harmful.

But be clear,

He says,

This is not a process so much of analysis as it is a process of knowing.

It is present-time awareness.

So let's take a look at the sutra itself.

I don't know if any of you have had an opportunity to look at it.

It opens as any sutra does,

Thus have I heard.

It usually gives the setting,

This was in a small village.

And then it makes the statement of direct path,

Which I read a few minutes ago,

This boring statement by the Buddha,

Which essentially identifies the content of the statement as it.

You want to achieve liberation.

And liberation,

What are we really talking about?

Liberation from the suffering that we create for ourselves.

And if you want to do it,

He says,

Then listen up,

Because here it is.

So then the sutra offers a definition.

And actually I left off the last sentence of the direct path.

It says,

Let me just read that again.

Monks,

This is the direct path for the purification of beings,

For overcoming sorrow and lamentation,

For the disappearance of dukkha and discontent,

And for acquiring the true method and for the realization of nirvana,

Namely the four satipatamis.

And then the next section of it is a definition,

Straight up.

What are the four?

Here,

Monks,

In regard to the body,

A monk abides contemplating the body,

Diligent,

Clearly knowing,

And mindful,

Free from desires and discontent in regard to the world.

In regard to feelings,

One abides contemplating feelings,

Diligent,

Clearly knowing and mindful,

Free from desires and discontent in regard to the world.

In regard to the mind,

One abides contemplating the mind,

Diligent,

Clearly knowing and mindful,

Free from desires and discontent in regard to the world.

And in regard to dharmas,

One abides contemplating dharmas,

Diligent,

Clearly knowing and mindful,

Free from desires and discontent in regard to the world.

You notice the repetition,

Remember this is in the time of oral tradition.

So this definition tells us that not only are there these four areas of contemplation,

But there are also these three mental qualities that are required for the general practice of satipatthana contemplations.

Diligence,

Clearly knowing and mindful,

And being free from desire and discontent in regard to the world.

So what I'd like to do is just pick some of those words apart a little bit.

Diligence first,

Back in the time of the Buddha,

There were wandering aesthetics in India who saw this idea of self-mortification as the path to liberation,

Imposing real physical hardship on the body,

Just essentially not doing anything at all to help the body so that the spirit can develop.

These practices denied the needs of the body,

Prolonged fasting,

Exposure to temperature extremes,

The adoption and holding of painful postures and this sort of thing.

And the Buddha himself engaged in these practices for about six years or so before his enlightenment.

But he found that they didn't lead to liberation.

And he was at a point near death.

He'd left his palatial life,

Whether he was the son of a king or a wealthy businessperson,

I think is a little unsettled,

But he'd left this sort of lack of luxury life.

He'd been out in the forest living this harsh,

Extreme life,

And the story is told that he was really near the point of death.

And he realized then that awakening can't depend on just physical denial.

But instead,

It requires mental development,

The development of sati or bare attention.

So the form of asceticism that the Buddha came to teach was a predominantly mental one.

It was characterized by a firm opposition to unwholesome thoughts and tendencies.

And that's what we have to establish in ourselves.

For me,

That's what it's all about.

Because I have things in my head that I don't like and that I wouldn't share.

And I have to sometimes just set myself up in firm opposition to emotional unwholesomeness,

Mental unwholesomeness.

So characterized by a firm opposition to unwholesome thoughts and tendencies,

And which emphasize commitment and effort as essential requirements for achieving liberation.

But his experience with physical deprivation helped the Buddha to see the dangers of extremes,

Even in terms of mental development.

As he was lying by the stream side near death,

The story is told that there was a small fishing boat going down,

And there was an older man in the boat and a young boy.

And the boy had a lute,

A stringed instrument.

And the older man was saying to the boy,

If you leave the strings too loose,

They won't tighten.

And if you tighten them too tight,

They'll break.

So he came to see that both not enough effort and too much effort can both obstruct one's progress along the path.

So the quality of diligence is best understood as a balanced but sustained application of energy,

A middle path,

When you hear about that middle path.

Avoiding on the one hand just sort of a passive submission to inaction,

And on the other hand avoiding an overly assertive striving in that sort of self-inflicted suffering that we have sometimes in the name of achieving a higher goal.

This is the middle path of wise balance,

Avoiding the extremes of insufficient effort and excessive effort.

And yet we are called to action.

There's a quote that I have here,

And I honestly don't recall if it came from a book I read or a movie I saw,

But I've got it written on a piece of paper I keep in my dresser.

It says this.

The Buddha said,

Salvation does not come from the sight of me.

It demands strenuous effort and practice.

So work hard and seek your own salvation diligently.

And to be diligent is to keep up one's contemplation with a balanced,

Dedicated practice.

Returning to your objects of meditation gently each time it's lost.

That's all that's required.

So that's diligence.

Let's take a look at this phrase clearly knowing and mindful.

Clearly knowing,

I mean obviously it's the ability to sort of comprehend or fully grasp what's taking place in the moment.

The Satipatthana instructions,

The presence of this clear knowledge is often referred to by this recurring expression.

And if you read through the sutra you saw it,

This recurring expression of one knows.

Breathing in a long breath,

One knows.

I'm breathing in a long breath.

When feeling a pleasant feeling,

One knows,

I feel a pleasant feeling.

When feeling an unpleasant feeling,

One knows,

I feel an unpleasant feeling.

Simple enough.

But clearly knowing runs on a continuum from really basic forms of knowing,

Just like observing the breath,

To more sophisticated types of understanding where the meditator's task of knowing,

Or as my 18 year old would say,

Knowing,

It evolves,

Right?

It evolves to include something like the effects of a hindrance,

Like leverage on one's development along the path.

Knowing can also be a much more deep and discriminative understanding.

And this clear knowledge results from mindfulness and concentration,

And it points to the need to combine mindful observation,

The phenomena,

With an intelligent processing of the data that we observe about.

So to clearly know can be taken to represent that illuminating or awakening aspect of contemplation.

And then this last phrase here in the definition,

Free from desires and discontent in regard to the world.

And what this points to is the development of mental composure when practicing these satipatthama contemplations.

Free from desires and discontent represents a mental calm and contentment.

Now that's a hard thing to claim.

If you've got mental calm and contentment,

Please raise your hand.

Your excuse.

It's a hard thing to claim,

Especially if we identify this phrase as part of the definition with having removed obstacles on the path,

Like the five hindrances,

Sensual desire,

Aversion,

Lethargy,

Restlessness,

Worry,

Doubt.

So the good news is,

Is that complete removal of desires and discontent is not a prerequisite for practicing these practices.

Rather,

The removal of desires and discontent comes about as a result of practice.

Especially the first parts of satipatthama practice,

The contemplation of the body and contemplation of the feelings,

They're pretty straightforward,

Where the task of building up an inner sense of balance,

Of equanimity,

Of holding desires and discontent at bay,

It's more clear in these early stages and it's easier to attain.

And these initial stages of practice combine sati with deliberate effort in order to counterbalance desires and discontent with equanimity and contentment,

Both of which are necessary for the more advanced stages of practice that lead to realization,

Contemplation of the mind or emotions,

And contemplation of dharmas or objects of mind which hinder or help us along the path.

So,

Looking at the sutra again,

We've got the direct path,

We've got the definition,

And then we have these different sections.

So we have the body contemplations,

And I'm just going to breeze through the ten pages here.

The first one is simply mindfulness of breathing.

And there is a refrain,

Which we're going to come back to in more detail.

So mindfulness of breathing,

The refrain,

Mindfulness of postures of your body,

And then the refrain.

Mindfulness of contemplating activities of the body,

And then the refrain.

And then mindfulness of the anatomical parts of the body,

And then the refrain.

And then mindfulness of just seeing the body as a combination of the elements that make up our world,

And then the refrain.

And then mindfulness of death,

Mindfulness of the corpse and decay.

This is the part that throws people off.

You have to remember,

In the time and place where this was taught,

Death was much more present in life than it is for us today.

How often do you see a dead body?

I've seen two myself in my entire life,

My father and my grandfather.

Does this also point to dealing with issues of lust and attachment to social pleasure?

Yeah,

And that's what we're going to get into in the meditations.

But the death meditations,

They come from a time where dead bodies were around.

You saw dead bodies,

People died at home.

So it wasn't as unusual-seeming then as it seems now.

And then it goes on to mind contemplations.

I'm on page 5 here.

Contemplation of the mind,

And then the refrain.

And then here's what I need to show you because I've left off a word here on page 5.

You see where it says mind contemplations,

Mind,

Refrain,

And then hindrances.

This is where the fourth contemplation set starts,

Contemplation of dharmas.

And I left off the title there.

Just so you can see that.

Mindfulness of dharmas,

Or objects of mind,

Are the hindrances which can stand in our way of development.

And then the refrain.

The aggregates of being,

These things that create the physical,

Emotional,

Spiritual beings that we are.

And then the refrain.

Contemplation of the sense spheres,

The ear,

The eye,

The nose,

The tongue,

The body,

The mind.

And then the refrain.

Contemplation of awakening factors,

The seven factors of awakening,

Those contemplations.

And then the refrain is like a piece of music.

And then contemplating the four noble truths.

And the refrain.

And then the prediction that I'm going to share with you now,

And I want to come back to it at the end of the day,

But here's the prediction that the Buddha makes about this teaching.

He says,

Monks,

If anyone should develop these four satipatanas in such a way,

For seven years,

One of two fruits could be expected.

Either final knowledge,

Here and now,

Or if there's a trace of clinging left,

Non-returning.

In other words,

Not rebirth.

Let alone seven years,

Six years,

Five years,

Four years,

Three years,

Two years,

One year,

Seven months,

Six months,

Five months,

Four months,

Three months,

Two months,

One month,

Half a month.

If anyone should develop these four satipatanas in such a way,

For seven days,

One of two fruits could be expected.

Either final knowledge,

Here and now,

Or if there is a trace of clinging left,

Non-returning.

So the Buddha wasn't fooling around with this.

Can you explain the focus of the refrain?

I can.

First of all,

I think in terms of the oral tradition,

You notice as you read through a lot of the sutras,

And I haven't read all,

I've certainly not read through this whole book,

But I've been reading in it.

It's pretty interesting.

But when you do,

There's a lot of oral repetition,

A lot of repetition in saying phrases,

Because when you're in an oral tradition of transmitting knowledge,

It gives it kind of a sing-song nature and makes it easier to repeat and remember and easier to hear and remember.

The refrain speaks about ways in which we are also to approach what's being given to us in the different contemplations.

So let me just run through some information about the refrain,

And you tell me if this gives you what you need.

It occurs,

This refrain,

After each set of meditation exercises that are described in the sutra,

Having to do with the body,

The feelings,

The mind,

And the dharmas.

And here is the refrain.

I'll just read it through.

This refrain that I'm reading has to do with the contemplations of the body.

As it goes through,

For instance,

Contemplations of the mind,

The word body changes to mind.

Contemplations,

Feelings,

The word body changes to feelings.

But what I'm going to read here has to do with the meditations,

Has to do with the body.

In this way,

In regard to the body,

One abides contemplating the body internally,

Or one abides contemplating the body externally,

Or one abides contemplating the body both internally and externally.

One abides contemplating the nature of arising in the body,

Or one abides contemplating the nature of passing away in the body,

Or one abides contemplating the nature of both arising and passing away in the body.

One is mindful that there is a body established in oneself,

To the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness,

And one abides independent,

Not clinging to anything in the world.

This is how,

In regard to the body,

One abides contemplating the body.

A lot of words.

So the task of the refrain is to direct our attention to four key aspects that are essential to the practice of each of the Satipatthana contemplations.

One is that the contemplations are both internal within ourselves and external in terms of how we observe and relate to the world.

The second one is that the objects of our contemplation,

They're impermanent.

They arise and they pass away.

The third is that the purpose of the contemplation should be to establish bare knowledge of an object in continuous mindfulness,

And that we should live in a way that is independent and without clinging to these things.

So first the refrain shows us that Satipatthana includes both internal and external contemplations.

This sort of broadens these contemplations in space,

From within to without.

We can associate internal contemplations with our own personal experience and external contemplation with the corresponding experience and phenomena in others.

So the refrain tells us that the proper practice of Satipatthana should include awareness of the experience of not just ourselves,

But the experience of others as well.

And this can be possible through observing another person's body,

But to experience their feelings or states of mind,

Seems like it would sort of require almost like psychic abilities,

You know,

In order to carry out that external contemplation.

And yet the Buddha did introduce these three modes of attention,

Internal,

External,

And both internal and external.

And then the development of awareness,

That shift from the internal to the external,

Is important because what he cautioned against is that awareness applied only toward ourselves can lead toward self-centeredness.

We have to remember the community that surrounds us.

So a practical solution is to develop awareness of another's feelings and mental condition by observing those outer manifestations,

Their facial expressions,

Their tones of voice,

Physical posture,

Like a psychoanalyst observes a patient.

And this would be a good practice in daily life,

Just bringing our understanding to others.

And then there's this idea of impermanence,

This arising,

Passing away.

Buddha's teachings all over the place also make clear it's the nature of objects,

The contemplation to arise and pass away,

And the importance of understanding the impermanence of all things.

Bhikkhu Inayu says mere awareness of the various objects listed under these four satya-patanas are not really enough for developing insight,

Which penetrates their true nature.

Remember,

When we were talking about meditation a few minutes ago,

That's what this is about,

Penetrating the real nature of what we're thinking,

What we're feeling,

What's happening with our bodies,

So that we can understand them,

Not eliminate them,

But allow them to transform.

But he says that mere awareness of these meditation techniques is not necessarily enough to develop that insight,

Which penetrates the true nature of these things.

We have to see them with a comprehensive vision of impermanence.

In satya-patana contemplation,

Really in all of Buddhism,

A continuous awareness of impermanence is essential to one's mental condition.

Sustained contemplation of impermanence leads to a shift in our normal ways of experiencing reality,

Where we usually assume that ourselves as a perceiver are permanent,

And that the objects we perceive are permanent,

But they're not.

And once both of these are experiences changing,

Impermanent processes,

Our ideas about stable existence and substantiality,

They vanish,

And that can radically reshape our paradigm of experience.

And then lastly,

On this bare attention,

Continuous mindfulness without clinging.

So really what we're talking about is a certain attitude during these contemplations.

One is mindful that there is a body establishing oneself to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness.

But I'm going to throw two extra words in there.

One is mindful that there is a body establishing oneself,

But only to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness.

Observation should be undertaken for the purpose of establishing awareness and understanding,

But we need to remain free from clinging.

We have to be careful not to get taken up,

Not to get caught up in what we're observing.

What we're encouraged to do is turn toward the general characteristics of a phenomenon that we contemplate rather than its specific content.

So to let the content of experience go and observe the character of the experience.

It's not who am I angry with and why am I angry.

It's that I am angry.

Just as simple as that.

As the refrain says,

Awareness of the body,

Feelings,

And mind and dharma should take place only for the sake of knowledge and continued mindfulness.

This points to the need to observe objectively without getting lost in associations,

Reactions,

Attachments,

And versions.

So we observe things,

We recognize them,

And the way this instruction is phrased,

It almost suggests like mental labeling.

This is an angry feeling.

These are particular aspects of my body.

This is the presence of the water element in my body.

It feels like direct speech to oneself,

Kind of a form of mental noting.

And the skillful use of labeling in this way during Satipatthana contemplation,

It can strengthen that clear recognition and understanding,

That process of clearly knowing.

Labeling introduces a degree of inner detachment.

And since the act of labeling our feelings and the like diminishes our identification with them,

It allows us to step back.

On the other hand,

However,

Satipatthana contemplation has to be clearly distinguished from this labeling,

From just mere intellectual reflection.

What this part of the refrain,

This continuous mindfulness without clinging indicates is the extent to which concepts and labels should be kept to a minimum,

Put only in place to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness.

Labeling is useful,

But it's not an end in itself.

It's only a means to an end.

Once knowledge and awareness are well established,

We have to leave those labels behind.

We can't just get caught up in those.

So remember,

Sati,

Or bare attention,

Is simple awareness of phenomena,

Without letting the mind stray into thought and associations.

And when we can let go of any sense of me or I or mine,

Then the direct path of Satipatthana approaches its culmination,

Which is the liberation and realization of the body.

So that's kind of the setting of what we're talking about.

Any questions or comments from there?

I don't know if I can answer them.

I have a question.

So I don't fully get the external part,

Like in terms of how that works.

I think primarily what it's about is getting over ourselves and not bringing all.

.

.

I mean,

We have to bring focus to ourselves,

And we want to try to understand ourselves.

But it can lead to the sort of,

What was the phrase people used to use?

The nasal gait.

.

.

The nasal gait?

Yeah.

To remember that we are in interaction with others around us,

And they're experiencing the same things that we're experiencing.

But with regard to the four foundations,

Does that mean I'm supposed to pay attention to his breath?

Seriously,

I mean,

Is that what that means?

If the refrain is in there of the breath part?

I think it's a way of coming to understand others.

Yeah,

You can do that.

You can sort of see if you can suss out what's happening with their feelings,

What's happening with their emotions,

What's happening with their thought processes,

Just by observation,

Contemplating externally.

That's how I read it.

And I guess it also says that this isn't just a practice that you do by yourself.

There's an interactive element to it.

Yeah,

I think so.

Thank you.

Empathy,

You know,

The word empathy comes to mind when I was thinking of that.

Not just feeling bad or something,

But just really kind of what their experience or story was,

And why they might be doing their reaction,

You know,

And just,

Yeah,

Being mindful of that,

You know,

The possibilities of what could be going on in there.

Yeah.

I mean,

That was just the word that popped up.

No,

I think you're right.

I also,

In reading it,

Had the feeling with the external part,

You know,

So I'm looking internally at myself and then almost the idea of looking,

Like I'm outside of myself looking at myself,

The external,

Kind of like the mirror,

You know.

So if I was standing in the mirror looking at myself,

So seeing it externally,

And I think in one of his books he talks about that,

The mirror,

Seeing it that way.

Interesting.

So I think there's a lot of different ways to look.

I think we're trying to get the in,

The out,

And the in and out.

Right.

Yeah.

You know,

Every wish,

Every can.

And for someone who has a tendency to ruminate or to obsess future trip,

To overanalyze or overintellectualize,

Sift through old memories,

Should have,

Would have,

Could have done this,

All that person's mad at me,

This and that,

And the stories we build around things,

One is mindful of the there's body establishing oneself to the extent necessary for bare knowledge.

So intuitively and kind of like simple interpretation of this for me is,

Just go on the facts on what I am mindful of internally and externally.

This is happening.

This is going on right now.

I don't have to cling or associate or go down rabbit holes with the different stories and the rumination and the fears that are going on in my head psychologically.

I can just give it a simple label,

I'm feeling fear,

Or this is happening.

Give it a simple label and then just go back to the now.

Yeah.

I think that purpose will have to bring yourself out of the content of it and just to care for it,

Like you said,

I'm experiencing fear,

I'm experiencing doubt,

I'm experiencing anger,

Whatever it is.

Like the bare minimum.

Yeah,

Huge.

Right.

Bare attention.

Well that's like the second arrow thing,

Right?

We have this new line up and we're looking for the cause of it.

It's kind of like,

I've heard that.

It's on the one.

That's a lot of information to pass up.

Yes.

I know.

.

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