014/ MN010 Satipatthana Part 1
Part One: The Title
So in this series we've reached sutta number 10, which is the Satipatthana. Well, we should firstly say something about this title, Satipatthana, because this is the intention of the teaching. Sati, smriti in Sanskrit, means mindfulness.
Patthana can mean setting up, or it can mean a domain. Now, the Pali commentators prefer the second meaning, whereas modern scholarship generally prefers the first meaning. However, even the first meaning can be taken in two different ways.
You can take it as the setting up of sati, or you can take it as what sati sets up. Now, if you think about it, the second of these is quite close to the interpretation of the word as domain. The areas of things where mindfulness operates and has effect are its domain.
So, what sati sets up. And I'm inclined to go for this second meaning, even though it's not the currently popular one. It's closer to the tradition.
And also, in the text, very early on, near the beginning of the text, the Buddha says that in order to do the practice, the practitioner, quote, "has established mindfulness in front of him." In other words, mindfulness is not a result of the practice. It's a prerequisite for it.
Now, this distinction has some considerable consequence.
Buddhism is not a psychological technique. It's not a sort of quick fix, it's a spiritual path. It's a path of keeping the Dharma in mind. This is the real meaning of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is not just paying attention to the present moment. Mindfulness is having your mind full of the good thing, the best thing, the Dharma. If you have your mind full of the Dharma, then everything opens up.
So, I think the sutra is about things that become possible if one keeps the Dharma in mind. We see that often Buddhism is presented as a way towards awakening, taken as a sort of goal or reward. But many of the texts, they're really more about the way that unfolds from or after or as a consequence of awakening.
When one has entered upon the path, one's life is changed and the Buddha is telling us how it is when it's changed. The Buddha is telling us what can happen when you have mindfulness of Dharma established, not how to establish mindfulness as if it's some clever technique. So, this is rather different from how the teaching is presented in many contemporary books, but it does seem that this is the general drift of the Buddha's teaching in these early sutras.
Even in the teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, it doesn't appear that he is saying that this is the way to attain enlightenment. It seems that he is telling the listener, he's reminiscing in a sense, he's telling the listener what happened to him as a result of his awakening. When he awoke, then he realized the Eightfold Path.
At no point does he say, I became enlightened because I followed the Eightfold Path. He discovers the Eightfold Path by becoming enlightened and he's saying, when you have woken up, this is how it is.
And so this seems to me to be the general spirit of all of the sutras, and certainly of this one. This is a key point and many things open up from here. I'll be saying more about this sutra in the next few podcasts, because it's very important.
Thank you. Namo Amida Bu.
015/ MN010 Satipatthana Part 2
Part Two: Ekayana: Mindfulness as Gateway
We're now looking at the early paragraphs of the Satipatthana Sutta. Many suttas are records of conversations, but this sutta is more in the form of a lecture. The Buddha is not responding to an inquiry, he is making a declaration.
This is one of the reasons that this sutta is generally considered to be particularly important. In the second paragraph, he begins by saying, this is the ekkayana. This also marks this out as an important sutta.
The translation of the term ekkayana is open to a certain amount of debate, but it clearly refers to the way of the Dhamma, the essence of the teaching, the basic of what the Buddha wants to say. The ekkayana is what all true practitioners are on.
Ekka means one or singular. So you could take ekkayana to mean the only way, or the direct way, or the essential ingredient of all ways, the one thing, the one thing that matters. Through history there has been considerable debate in Buddhism about whether there are a variety of ways, or only one way, and whether what may seem like many ways actually is only one way, or is the one way that underlies all the other ways, and so on. Or does one way mean one gateway, one entrance? I think it's worth keeping that in mind when we think about the meaning of this sutta.
In Pure Land Buddhism we say first choose nembutsu. This is selection. It's called senchaku.
It's the point that Honen Shonin was always going on about, always making this point, repeating that senchaku was what mattered. You make the selection of nembutsu. Once you've chosen nembutsu, many things may come to be expressions of nembutsu.
So it can then look as if there are many nembutsu paths, but actually it's all based on a single choice, a single way, a single commitment, one act of taking refuge. Similarly in the Lotus Sutra, especially in the Parable of the Burning House, it tells us that there can be an appearance of many paths, but there is really only the ekayana. So in this Satipatthana Sutta, there are a whole load of different practices, and we're going to look at some of those, but the Buddha begins by saying that this is the ekayana, the single vehicle. So although he talks about many practices, it's a single vehicle. He's not talking about many vehicles.
So we have to think quite deeply about what it means, what is singular and essential, what is diverse and optional. Again, I think that this line of thought supports the idea that the sutra is about what mindfulness of dharma makes possible, rather than being the way towards mindfulness, because in the latter case, the sutra would be showing many paths to one goal. This is how a lot of people understand it, but I think this is wrong. The former case is showing that many possibilities emerge from the one root source, which is mindfulness, the mindfulness of the dharma, keeping the dharma in mind, nembutsu and this seems to me to be closer to the spirit of the whole dharma teaching. If one has the mind that turns to the Buddha, that turns to the dharma, then many things are possible, all sorts of things open up.
There are other implications from ekayana. The Buddha sometimes talks about ekagata. This means singular practice, or practicing. It could mean practicing alone, but it doesn't refer only to times when one is physically alone - even in the midst of a crowd or community, one practices ekagata. One is on the ekayana in all circumstances.
It means one takes responsibility, one holds firm. This is similar to what we learned in the salekha. Even if others are lying, killing, stealing, and so on, we won't be doing that.
You could say that it's about strength of character. This is what mindfulness of dharma gives one. Ekagata is the strength of character that comes from having the Buddha in mind, from nembutsu. This is the ekayana, the way of those who have got ekagata. If you've got that, if you've got that faith, then you've got that carácter. And what is the outcome? Well, the Buddha in this paragraph says that the outcome is that one is purified, one can surmount sorrow and grief, one is on the way, one actualizes nirvana, one manifests nirvana.
To be purified here means to overcome greed, hate, and delusion. So this is a description of strength of character. The person with such a character deals with his or her own greed and hate. He doesn't let it spill out over others. He or she overrides delusion, which is to say selfishness. Such a person meets the adversities of life with dignity and fortitude, and is not defeated by them.
These are the fruits of faith. They spring from the choice, the senchaku. So all of this derives from mindfulness of dharma.
We can say that if you see the Buddha, you see the dharma & if you see the dharma, you see the Buddha. Mindfulness of Buddha, mindfulness of dharma, they're the same thing.
Holding to this refuge, one has the courage to face life and also to explore one's being. It's not so easy to live in the truth, but if one has the spiritual reliance of the ekayana, all is possible.
Namo Amida Bu. Thank you very much.
016/ MN010 Satipatthana Part 3
Part Three: Mindfulness Gives One the Copurage to Face the Fact that the Body is Just a Body
The last two podcasts have dealt with the title and introduction to the Satipatthana Sutta. Now we move on to the next major section which is concerned with establishing the knowledge and experience that the body is just a body. Why do we need mindfulness to do this? The reason is that to really accept and know deeply that the body is just a body means giving up many illusions and for this reason, for the ordinary person, it's alarming.
We tend to believe I am my body, but according to the Dhamma, a body is just a body.
So one needs the courage of mindfulness to face this reality and to abandon one's illusion. The Dharma approach, we might say, is quite scientific. The body is simply an object in space made of physical elements, solid, liquid, gaseous, space and energy, no different in principle from many other objects.
There are several exercises listed in this section. One of them is to consider the body in terms of its constituent elements. Another is to consider it in terms of its constituent parts.
The different parts are organs, flesh, bones, hair, nails, teeth, lungs, intestine, bowels, muscles, ligaments and so on. And the text especially lists faeces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spit, snot, oil, urine, all the fluids that one might feel squeamish about. This is all to help one detach from one's worship of the body.
The body is a bag of shit and blood, belly fluids and saliva. Generally, we put a lot of energy into ministering to our bodies. We pamper them in all sorts of ways.
The Buddhist attitude is to be practical. The body should be kept in working order, but that's all.
This is all very relevant to our modern lifestyles. How many people really manage such an attitude? Very, very few. And in fact, many people start to panic as soon as the possibility of them losing their favourite bodily indulgences appears.
This is why one needs the fortitude of mindfulness in order to really take on that the body is just a body. If you're going to be useful in the world, you're going to go to places of poverty, places of difficulty, help people who are in distress and so on. It's no good being addicted to pampering oneself.
Other exercises here include awareness of breathing and of the physical movements of the body. These exercises demonstrate that there is both a voluntary and an automatic aspect to the body. I can control my breathing up to a point, but mostly it just carries on on of its own accord. I can move my limbs deliberately, but many of the sensations in my body are out of my control. I'm not my body. My body has a life of its own.
Again, it's a popular notion these days that the body never lies. This is however completely untrue. Autoimmune diseases are increasingly common. These are instances of the body treating healthy tissue as unhealthy and destroying it. Cancer is very similar. The body can turn against itself.
The messages that it gives to us are by no means totally reliable. They do provide information and that is often very useful, but sometimes untrue. To lose your fat, you may have to go against what the body is telling you. Sometimes to keep the body in good order, you have to oppose what it says to you.
Then finally the body fails. It dies. As we age, some parts stop working. Eventually the whole system breaks down. Does that mean that I break down? Not necessarily.
Therefore I and my body are not exactly the same thing. Eventually the body stops and then it decays. It rots away.
It's burned or eaten by maggots or vultures. The flesh putrefies and falls off. The bones fall apart. Eventually they are reduced to dust. Meditation upon the stages of decay of the body was a very important practice in the early days of Buddhism, sometimes called white bones meditation or the nine charnel ground contemplations. These were an essential part of the training of a monk, nun or yogin.
Many yogins spent much time in the charnel grounds, facing the reality of mortality. This is all about coming to terms with the dharma of the body, that the body is just a body. It takes a certain courage and that courage comes from having a refuge in Dharma.
When mindfulness of Buddha is established, then one can do these practices and come to a realism about life. Without such a refuge, one only attains intellectual knowledge and this doesn't penetrate deeply into one's character. So first choose dharma, then investigate the body as a body, internally, externally, arising, decaying or simply get to the point of such realism about the body that one is freed from any obsession with it. That is the first liberation, the first domain of mindfulness, the first thing that mindfulness makes possible.
Thank you very much. Namo Amida Bu.
017/ MN010 Satipatthana Part 4
Part Four: View Mind & Feelins as Just Mind & Feelings
This is the fourth podcast on the Satipatthana Sutta. In previous podcasts, we've understood the meaning of the title, the intention of the sutra, to show how the ekayana becomes possible when one is mindful of Dhamma, and we have considered the reflection that the body is just a body. Now, the Buddha suggests that both vedana and citta can be understood in a similar way.
These two sections are much shorter than the section on the body, but the implication is similar. Vedana is just vedana and citta is just citta. When one has taken refuge in Dhamma, it is different from taking refuge in one's feelings, or even taking refuge in one's mind.
Mostly people think that it is their self that matters, and the self is the mind and feelings. They think, I am doing this for me, and this seems to them like an ultimate justification, as though self is the supreme judge and test. However, feelings change, the mind swings about like a monkey in a tree.
Neither has real constancy, and so cannot be a true refuge. Each is merely a faculty. Vedana, often translated as feeling, is the reaction that arises when one comes in contact with something through one or more of the senses, including mano vijnana, the mind sense.
So, the principle that vedana is just vedana means that such reactions, well, they're just reactions. They're natural, they occur. One doesn't choose them.
One doesn't choose to be surprised, pleased, scared, dismayed. These things just happen. For sure, one can then choose what to do subsequently, and what one does with intention then lays down traces in the alaya, which affect one's mentality and this does have an effect upon what is pleasing or upsetting in the future. But the actual reactions themselves, well, they're just reactions.
Citta is the psyche, the mind. So, similarly, the mind is just the mind. It's doing its job. It's not me. I often rely upon it, and mostly, though not always, it does a good job for me. But it is just what it is, functioning as it does. It benefits me, but I shouldn't expect too much of it.
It's a bit like the algorithms in the computer. Mental impulses pop up like icons appearing on the screen that suggest this or that, and then one decides to act or not to act. One doesn't press every button.
Most of what the mind suggests, one glosses over and ignores. If one sits down to meditate, citta presents all kinds of distractions, and one practices not chasing after them. If one experiences spiritual awakening, this doesn't mean that one will stop reacting to things.
When things happen, such reactions themselves just happen. What matters is not to suppress the reactions, but to learn how to handle them. One might be shocked by something that happens. That feeling of shock is vedana. However, feelings don't determine actions. At such a moment, there is often a temptation to act in ways that may be excessive or foolish. If you follow those impulses, then later you might look back with some regrets. However, one should not blame the mind. It's just doing its job.
So this is a matter of developing an objective interest in what one experiences, what the feelings, what the mind are doing. Oh, that's interesting. I'm feeling shock, or I'm feeling sadness, or joy, or whatever. If one can regard feelings in this way, they become a source of useful information. The feelings are not the master, but they can be a very helpful servant. The practitioner becomes able to perceive them as they arise, as they persist, as they fade, and also to see when they're absent.
And the mind, the mind is like a mirror. The mirror reflects a million things. One uses the mirror in order to see one or two specific things, but all the while, the mirror is also reflecting everything else. It can't help it. And everything else is impermanent. So the mind is inconstant. So don't identify with the mind, but don't blame it either.
The dharma is reliable, whereas the mind and feelings flutter like butterflies. Holding to dharma, which does not change, one can see that which does change clearly. This is how mindfulness enables realism about citta and vedana.
Namo Amida Bu. Thank you very much.
018/ MN010 Satipatthana Part 5
MN010E 18 Satipatthana
This is the fifth and final podcast on the Satipatthana. We've now reached the long section at the end of the text that is commonly called contemplation of mind objects. I think this is a rather misleading translation.
In the original it's simply contemplation of Dharma. Dharma means fundamental truth or reality. What is called the teaching of Buddha is actually just the Buddha pointing out what is fundamentally true.
Zen master Dogen wrote about the Satipatthana. He called it the abodes of mindfulness. Abodes, quite close to the word domain, domains of mindfulness that we discussed in the first podcast.
Abodes of mindfulness are places where mindfulness lives. When mindfulness lives, one contemplates Dharma. He says that the four abodes of mindfulness are, quote,
- the reflections that the body is not pure,
- that feeling is suffering,
- that the mind is without constancy, and
- that dharmas are not self.
These are the facts of life. As one gets older one realizes that the body is becoming less and less reliable. Through it all one suffers the endless fluctuation of feelings.
Nowadays it's popular to say that suffering is optional, but this is not true in the original sense of the word. To suffer is to endure. One endures birth, aging, disease, and death. One endures meeting and parting, success and failure, beginnings and endings. None of this is optional. Through it all the mind flutters.
The images in the mind mirror are ever-changing. In the midst of all this ever-changing collage, one struggles to maintain a sense of self, and this self imposes a distorting frame upon experience. Yet the reality of life is beyond such distortion, beyond self.
The Buddhas teach this in a great variety of ways. It's said that the Buddha Shakyamuni gave 84,000 teachings in order to reach the 84,000 different types of beings. The Sadipatthana Sutta lists some of the most important of these teachings, namely the five hindrances, the five skandhas, the six sense bases, the seven enlightenment factors, and the four noble truths.
Well, we'll probably look at each of these in more detail in other podcasts. This sutra gives a short synopsis of each of them. But the purpose of every one of these teachings is to help the practitioner to appreciate and experience things as they fundamentally are, undistorted by selfish clinging.
The basic point of the Sadipatthana Sutta is to say that one can only really penetrate these teachings when one already has this firm faith in Dharma, which is to say, mindfulness. Only when the mind is full of Dharma, then one doesn't have to live for self. One lives for truth.
One is willing and able to see and experience things in their actuality, their impermanence, without falling into despair. Then, "he abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world." So this is the actualization of nirvana here and now, which is to say, in this lifetime.
The sutra is not really about dwelling in the present moment. The term here and now in Buddhist texts means in this life. It's not primarily about present moment awareness. One cannot understand dharma without appreciating change and change happens over time. One has to see the trajectory of things from the past into the future.
Buddhism is fundamentally about freeing oneself from one's past so that the new origination becomes possible. This does not mean that the past is obliterated, but rather that it becomes the springboard for a new leap beyond. As it says at the end of the Heart Sutra, the person who is on the ekayana is always beyond, beyond what is already established. The already established is respected, but it's only a jumping off point.
People tend to remain prisoners of their history, trapped in their conditioned hindrances, going round and round their skandhas, only seeing through prejudiced eyes. But there is a way beyond all that, that respects reality, yet is creative with it, that understands the nature of things and finds the beauty and freedom in their midst.
That person appreciates, but doesn't cling. This liberated way is ekayana.
Thank you very much. Namo Amida Bu.
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