Significant progress in bringing about the fundamental internal transformation aimed at in early Buddhist practice probably cannot be made without some kind of meditation practice. This chapter describes one particular kind of practice today called “Mindfulness,” taught in an early Buddhist writing called the Satipatthana Sutta.
Selected parts of this sutta will form the “skeleton” elaborated on in this chapter. I will put flesh on this skeleton in a way that will connect the practice described to the goals of internal transformation described in earlier chapters, centered around core teachings of Attachment, Impermanence, and Distress
Mindfulness in a Broader Context.
For those already familiar with some forms of meditation, a little history may be helpful to situate ideas in this chapter in a wider context.
In traditional times in Asia, meditation practice was largely something engaged in only by monks and nuns in monasteries and convents. In the late nineteenth century, some monks and nuns in Southeast Asia started a movement teaching interested lay people to meditate. They found the kind of meditation practice taught in the Satipatthana Sutta very suitable in this context, since learning this practice itself does not require extensive knowledge of Buddhist doctrines monks and nuns would have been learning, also because a person engaged in ordinary family and social life can experience significant benefits by attending weekend meditation retreats, and regularly practicing this kind of meditation only say twenty minutes a day.
I myself first learned this kind of meditation practice in two week-long Mindfulness-meditation retreats in the 1970’s under the direction of an ex-monk from Thailand (Dhiravamsa). I continued his practice after these retreats. This also led me to more intensive study of early Buddhist writings, in connection with classes on Buddhism I was teaching to undergraduate university students.
My attempts to recover the original meaning of the Satipatthana Sutta has led me to agree with Theravada meditation teachers when it comes to practice itself. When it comes to the purpose of this practice, considered in the larger context of early Buddhist teaching as a whole, I have come to conclusions which I have not seen explained in writings by any Buddhist teacher. (For example my explanation does not include the idea that the purpose of this meditation method is to gain direct insight into the truth of Buddhist teaching, presumably the reason why this meditation method is often called by the Pali term vipassana, “Insight” mediation.)
This introduction should be helpful in situating the ideas and explanations in this chapter in the broader context of teachings and writings on meditation by many others whom readers may be familiar with. The term “meditation” has been used to refer to many different meditation practices. I think each meditation method should be evaluated on its ability to achieve some chosen purpose. If someone chooses to pursue the particular transformative goals set forth in this book, then regular practice of the meditation method I think is being taught in the Satipatthana Sutta is one very effective method of achieving this goal, and I will try to give reasons why this can be expected. There are many other possible goals a person might choose to pursue, and there exist many other meditation practices effective in making progress toward achieving some particular chosen goals.
Introduction to passages to be focused on.
The specific passages in the Satipatthana Sutta I want to quote need a little more introduction, because they employ a particular set of four categories to describe all possible objects of meditation, everything a person could possibly become aware of meditating. These include all bodily sensations and processes included under the term kaya “body,” and also everything one could become introspectively aware of in one’s own mental-emotional life, designated by the remaining three terms, feelings (vedana), mental states (citta), and “mind objects” (dhamma, objects of the sixth sense mano.) I think details are not important here. All one needs to understand is that these include everything a meditator could be aware of.
Finally is helpful to understand that in the title Sati-patthana, the Pali word sati most likely means “mindfulness,” and different forms of this word occur in instructions, such as satova and satima meaning “being mindful.”
Key Passages.
I begin then with some passages from the Satipatthana Sutta involving the first category kaya or “body.” “Body” here is a general category which includes all bodily sensations, such as bodily pains or bodily processes such as breathing.
The first part of this sutta envisions a monk sitting in a cross-legged meditation position, paying attention to breathing, belonging to the category kaya “body”.
And how does a monk abide contemplating kaya as kaya? Here a bhikkhu, gone to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty hut, sits down; having folded his legs crosswise, sets his body erect, and sets up mindfulness (satim). Ever mindful (satova) he breathes in, mindful he breathes out.
Breathing in long, he understands: ‘I breathe in long’; or breathing out long, he understands: ‘I breathe out long.’
Breathing in short, he understands: ‘I breathe in short’; or breathing out short, he understands: ‘I breathe out short.’
He trains thus: ‘I shall breathe in experiencing the whole body’ [or “everything bodily”]; he trains thus: ‘I shall breathe out experiencing the whole body’…
In the next section, this sutta envisions a monk continuing this practice of attention to bodily processes after he has risen from the traditional meditation posture, and goes about his daily business.
When walking, a bhikkhu understands: ‘I am walking’; when standing, he understands: ‘I am standing’; when sitting, he understands: ‘I am sitting’; when lying down, he understands: ‘I am lying down’
[he] acts in full awareness when going forward and returning… acts in full awareness when looking ahead and looking away… acts in full awareness when flexing and extending his limbs… acts in full awareness when wearing his robes and carrying his outer robe and bowl… acts in full awareness when eating, drinking, consuming food, and tasting… acts in full awareness when defecating and urinating… acts in full awareness when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent.
So “Mindful” attention is not something confined to sitting-meditation itself, but can be practiced as a person goes through their everyday life.
The instructions given here closely match instructions given to British Admiral A. E. Shattock, who in the 1950’s enrolled in a two week meditation retreat at a meditation center in Rangoon (Yangon) established by a prominent Burmese Mindfulness teacher Mahasi Sayadaw. In this retreat, the sort of attentive awareness of all everyday bodily activities described above was supposed to be practiced without a break while engaged in everyday activities, during every waking moment for however long the retreat lasts.
I think it is noteworthy that Shattock’s meditation teacher taught him this practice, but did not immediately connect this practice to any other aspect of Buddhist teaching. This is also true of my introduction to Mindfulness meditation under the former Thai monk Dhiravamsa. I recall him saying nothing about the purpose of Mindfulness practice as it might relate to other aspects of Buddhist teaching.
The same is true of the passage from the Satipatthana Sutta given above. The practice is described in detail. But I think a puzzle remains about its purpose. The meditator is not trying to change anything. Breathing goes on as it normally does–no need to try to breath differently. And he goes about his everyday life as he normally does, walking, sitting, eating, lying down, and so on. The only change seems to have to do with the fact that, in the normal case, all these activities take place in a relatively unthinking way. When I am eating, I’m normally not paying much attention to the process of eating itself. Picking up food, chewing, and so on, are just happening rather automatically, while I pay attention to other things. What is different here is just that I am shifting my attention: Things that normally happen in the background of my awareness, are now made objects of conscious attention.
What is the purpose?
The Satipattahana Sutta does give several suggestions as to the purpose of this practice, given in a few very brief and succinct sentences.
One such statement is given near the beginning of this sutta, which says of contemplating kaya “bodily sensations and processes”
He abides contemplating kaya as kaya, ardent, fully aware, mindful (satimā), putting away desire and distress regarding the world.
“Fully aware and mindful,” seems to emphasize the importance of a high degree of mental alertness. The compound “desire and distress” (abhijjhā-domanassa) supports modern Mindfulness teachers who emphasize the fact that the meditator should try to be a neutral observer of all bodily processes and activities going on in everyday life, neither “desiring” that they take place in some certain way, nor “distressed” that they are happening in some other way than desired.
Note that “the world” here includes not only the external world, but everything happening in one’s own inner mental/emotional life, indicated when the text repeats this same formula of the remaining three categories of meditation-objects referring to this inner “world.”
One other very succinct passage is more explicit about “bare” awareness, but also ends by suggesting that practice of bare awareness is a means of ridding oneself of Attachments. This passage is repeated verbatim quite often in the Satipatthana Sutta, following passages describing Mindfulness of all the different kinds of things a person can be “Mindfully” aware of.
Again to avoid repetition, I cite here only the passage using the category kaya, “body.” It just has to be kept in mind that when this passage speaks of Mindful awareness that “body exists”, kaya/“body” here functions as a general category under which are included many different individual bodily sensations and processes, such as breathing, bodily pains, bodily activities, touching sensations, and so on, that a meditator might become aware of.
The passage first describes the practice itself. In this practice:
Mindfulness (sati)
that “body exists” (atthi kayo)
is present
just to the extent necessary (yavad-eva)
for mere knowledge (nana-mattaya)
[and] mere awareness (patissati-mattaya).
And he dwells non-dependent (a-nissito)
not Attached to anything in the world (na loke upādiyati)
So in the first part of this passage sati “mindfulness” is associated with “mere knowledge and awareness,” awareness of the bare existence of individual bodily processes and sensations a person can be aware of. This suggests a kind of limiting of one’s attention, just focusing alert attention recognizing the bare existence of whatever individual bodily processes and sensations a meditator might become aware of, without any further reactions or thoughts about what one is aware of.
This is in accord with what modern Mindfulness teachers speak of as “bare awareness.”
After this description of practice itself, final lines of this passage suggest the purpose of the practice:
And he dwells non-dependent (a-nissito)
not Attached to anything in the world (na loke upādiyati)
That is, practice in paying this kind of bare, non-reactive awareness is described here as practice in being a person un-Attached to anything to anything in the world (external or internal).
Here it is worth citing a passage from a book on Mindfulness by a Buddhist Mindfulness teacher Nyanaponika Thera describing in a more detailed way the meditation practice he thinks is taught in the Satipatthana Sutta. What this sutta calls “mere knowledge” and “mere awareness,” he calls “bare attention.”
Bare Attention is the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception. It is called ‘bare’ because it attends just to the bare facts of perception as presented either through the five physical senses or through the mind which, for Buddhist thought, constitutes the sixth sense. When attending to that sixfold sense impression, attention or mindfulness is kept to a bare registering of the facts observed, without reacting to them by deed, speech, or by mental comment which may be one of self-reference (like, dislike, etc.), judgement or reflection. If during the time, short or long, given to Bare Attention, any such comments arise in one’s mind, they themselves are made objects of Bare Attention, and are neither repudiated nor pursued, but are dismissed, after a brief mental note has been made of them. (P. 30)
How can this practice of bare awareness be expected to help make progress toward the central transformative goal of ridding oneself of Attachments?
I have several explanations.
My first explanation has to do with the doctrine of Dependent Arising.
The doctrine of Dependent Arising says that, in the case of a person still in the grip of Craving and Attachment, any perception of anything automatically gives rise to involuntary spontaneously reactions to whatever is perceived. More specifically, Attachment causes positive reactions of “desire” to perceptions of pleasant things, and and negative reactions of “aversion” to unpleasant perceptions. If while meditating I experience pleasant sensations of peace and calm, my spontaneous reaction will be to “desire” these to continue. If I experience unpleasant sensations of physical or emotional discomfort, I will spontaneously react with “aversion,” desiring these to go away. Bare awareness, merely acknowledging the existence of pleasant or unpleasant physical or mental/emotional condition, but trying to refrain from any positive or negative reaction of any kind, is a way of freeing oneself from such involuntary Attachment-driven positive or negative reactions.
Ajahn Sumedho’s explanation.
Another explanation along similar lines occurs in a passage in a book written by a Thai meditation teacher called Ajahn Sumedho. In one place he describes the purpose of Mindfulness meditation in terms of “object-ification.” Speaking of feeling uncomfortable feelings you might feel when trying to meditate after a hectic day:
If, after a hectic day, you try to stop all your mental reactions… it will lead to failure, then you’ll feel you can’t meditate. So instead… you have to learn to objectify the feeling of being scrambled… You have to recognize that those feelings and ideas are just objects of your mind, and you are a witness to them… objectify them, rather than resisting or trying to make the confusion refined or peaceful. (Sumedho, p. 100)
So when you try to meditate, sometimes you feel your mind involuntarily taken up with hectic thoughts, and unpleasant sensation that your inner life is “scrambled. Your desire to achieve a peaceful state causes an aversive reaction to these unpleasant experiences.
Then Sumedho introduces more useful concepts: “Objectify” these thoughts and feelings, make them “just objects of your mind.” That is when you are aware of something, this can be analyzed in terms of a perceiving subject and an object-perceived, as for example I might be a perceiving subject perceiving scrambled feelings which are objects-perceived by me.
But normally these feelings would not only be objects of awareness. These unpleasant feelings cause negative reactions of aversion to involuntarily arise in me, so I immediately become a perceiving subject caught up in and entangled with these unpleasant feelings.
Sumedho would instruct me in these circumstances to “object-ify” the unpleasant feelings, make them mere or “bare” objects of awareness for me as an aware subject aware of these feelings. This would amount to disentangling myself from the unpleasant feelings, putting more distance between myself and the feelings. They still remain objects-of-awareness for me, I am still aware of them and focusing attention (bare attention) on them. It’s just that I am now a more detached observer, observing them at a distance so to speak, not disowning them, but dissociating myself from them.
In another place (ibid. 106) Sumedho makes a similar point using the example of being aware of feelings of anger when you try to meditate. Anger is usually driven by some kind of Attachment. It is a kind of aversion-reaction to conditions being the opposite of what you need them to be. In the normal case, such Attachment-driven aversion would lead me to be involuntarily caught up in simply being angry, identifying with the angry feeling and being an angry person. Mindful bare and non-reactive awareness of the anger would mean not mean repressing the anger (driven by an aversion to being angry). It would mean reather again object-ifying the anger, putting some distance between me and the anger, letting it remain a bare object-of-awareness for me as aware but non-reactive subject, having no meaning beyond this for me as a disentangled human subject.
Mindfulness meditation as practice for life.
So, unlike many other kinds of meditation, Mindfulness meditation is not aimed at putting you in any particular state of mind or giving you special kinds of experiences (experiencing calm, bliss, etc.) No experiences at meditation are of particular value in themselves. The entire purpose is to get practice in being for the moment a liberated person, liberated from Craving and Attachment. Its ideal result would show itself in living your everyday life as a person free of Craving and Attachment outside of meditation.
Some personal thoughts
I’ve explained how I think parts of the Satipatthanna Sutta support modern descriptions of Mindfulness practice, and how this method van be expected to help bring about the kind of internal transformation described in earlier chapters.
I now want to add some personal reflections based more on my personal experiences trying to practice this method. These may reflect my own personal psychology, but it may be useful for others to hear about them. Some of these are meditation instructions I gave to university students as part of course-sections on Buddhism.
So I think one of the first things that needs to be said, especially for beginners, is: Don’t expect to be able to do this. Realistically, expect that you will be able to be less engaged than you would ordinarily be, and probably less engaged for only very short stretches, perhaps only a few seconds at a time. So expect short periods of disengaged awareness, followed by longer periods of involvement in some train of thought that is of concern or interest to you. This is like building up muscle by lifting weights – start with easy-lifting of lighter weights and build up to harder lifting of heavier weights. Patience with yourself is part of Mindfulness practice itself.
That is, frustration at not being able to do this is itself a manifestation of aversion and a contrastive mentality – contrasting your present state of rather weak ability with the advanced ability you wished you possessed instead. Fully accepting the present weak state of your ability is part of the practice itself. Try not to get frustrated with your lack of ability, and focus instead on the task, trying to be as disengaged as you can, for periods as short or long as you are able.
And don’t expect to feel good while you are doing this. How you feel when you are doing it doesn’t matter. This is a skill-building exercise, the skill being the ability to accept and feel comfortable with whatever feeling-state you find yourself in.
Thoughts as the main problem.
I personally find thoughts to be the main problem. In my experience, thoughts are a prime example of involuntary mental activity illustrating the principle of Dependent Arising. I might think that I am thinking because I want to think, and I could stop if I wanted to. But experience at meditation shows that this is clearly not the case. I find it impossible to make my thinking processes stop just by wanting to. One thought occurs in my mind, and immediately stimulates further thinking activity following up on that thought.
The ultimate goal of course would not be to stop my thinking, but let it go on as it wants, and become a neutral non-reactive observer of the thinking. The ultimate goal would be to “object-ify” the thinking process itself, disentangling myself from the thinking, putting more distance between myself and the thinking processes, which would become bare objects-of-awareness for me. (Like watching a herd of horses running by and remaining an uninvolved observer, resisting the temptation to jump on one and ride it.)
But very often I find this almost impossible. Sometimes it becomes more possible if make the meditation session last for a longer period of time. And it seems to have become somewhat more possible more often as I have practiced over many years.
Difficulties connected with thinking are one of the main advantages of paying attention to more concrete bodily sensations, like the physical sensation of breathing, or sensations of tightness or discomfort in other parts of my body. The problem with thoughts Is that they are interesting. One advantage of breathing sensations is not only that they are more concrete but they are relatively boring. In Buddhist terms attention to breathing can be an exercise in building concentration-abilities, having more control over what you attend to, breaking the habit of letting your thoughts run on involuntarily most of the time. This ability to concentrate seems to be aided by consciously counting each breath, identifying each extended breath as “one,” “two” and so on.
One other advantage of attention to breathing lies in the fact that attending to one’s breathing seems to have a calming effect. Again it is important in the Buddhist context not to think of mental calmness as part of the goal of Mindfulness meditation – that one is meditating in order to become more calm. The desire for calmness can be one of the main obstacles to achieving the goal of Mindfulness meditation, if it involves Attachment to feeling calm and Aversion to feelings opposite of calm.
Nonetheless, even though advanced skill in disengaged awareness should allow a person to pay disengaged attention to a state of frantic mental activity, it is much easier develop this kind of skill when one’s mind is relatively calm.
How it supposed to work?
Mindfulness meditation is a useful skill-building exercise, gaining the skill of becoming free of Attachment-driven reactions, becoming for the moment a person or “subject” liberated from Attachments. Ideally the results of this should flow over into everyday life, enabling me to go through life interacting with the world as a person free of Attachments.
But how is this supposed to work? It seems that it only works if there is some kind of carryover between an un-Attached state achieved through bare awareness during the time when one is meditating, and remaining in this unattached state of mind after returning to everyday life.
I have a few thoughts about this.
First, meditating regularly gives me a subtle sense of what it feels like to exist in a state free of involuntary reactions due to Craving and Attachments. I can call this to mind and have some ability to recover something like this state as I face everyday life situations.
Secondly, a phrase in a book by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki keeps coming to my mind. Suzuki teaches a meditation method very similar to Mindfulness described in this chapter. He says in one place (p. 30) that this method is “an activity which appeases your inmost desire.” It may be that something in us finds something deeply satisfying about the state of bare awareness free from involuntary mental activity, so that if you manage to approach something like this state frequently, the fact that it is deeply satisfying will mean that it will tend to stay with you outside meditation. Along these lines, it may be important when you meditate to avoid trying to make yourself remain in the state of bare awareness by pure will-power, which will cause a sense of strain after awhile. Aim to find a way of practicing bare awareness that feels more natural and relaxed, able to be maintained with a minimal sense of strain and forcing.
This is related to another idea that has occurred to me, an analogy with computers. Sometimes the computer gets “hung up,” caught in a loop that keeps repeating itself and prevents achieving other tasks. Often the best solution is “resetting” the computer, turning it off then turning it back on so it can start afresh.
Perhaps our minds are like this. Involuntary Attachment-driven mental activities feed on themselves, so that after awhile they get caught in a compulsive loop that becomes more compulsively active as time goes by. When you are drawn into active involvement with these compulsive trains of thought, thinking about them or even trying to stop them, this tends to increase this compulsive mental activity. Disengaging yourself from the thoughts by the meditative practice of non-reactive awareness, as the eventual effect of slowing them down, eventually stopping them and “resetting” your whole mental state of mind to some more “natural” state so you can start over, able to think in a more controlled and productive manner.
A clear idea of purpose to guide practice.
In any case, it seems important to have some clear idea about the goal of Mindfulness meditation as it relates to everyday life, and practice in a way that over time can be observed to be furthering this goal.
The goal described in the present book is to be able to face and react to everyday life situations as a person free of involuntary responses driven by Craving and Attachment.
That is, instinctive Craving causes an involuntary reaching out to find particular connections to the world that will fulfill our need to feel we are leading a meaningful life as a person deserving of respect from others, which makes us dependent on particular conditions in the world to fulfill this need. This dependency in turn makes us react defensively when situations occur that threaten to deprive us of the support we need from the world. It causes us to shrink back from such situations, to be caught up in feelings of resistance to being in the situation, or feelings of frustration and anger that we should be made to face a situation like this. We are no longer free and independent actors, able to concern ourselves with creatively finding the best and most meaningful way of responding. Any such concern is overridden by a need to defend some particular connections and some identity or self-image we have become deeply Attached to.
The ideal goal of Mindfulness should be to enable us to face all life situations as an independent, free-standing, flexible and creative maker of meaningful connections, and outgoing source of whatever good we can contribute to the world in any situation we find ourselves in.
