Mindfulness: practical applications of the satipatthana sutta

[Gem]

Hi guys

Three day passed since I quoted the text and discussed its practical application. I think that is adequate time to at least set up your meditation place and try out the practice. If you haven't done so in that time, it's not likely that you will. I encourage that you do because it is beneficial to you.

There being no reason for further delay, this post will discuss the reasons behind why it is practiced in this way so that your own intellectual understanding guides you forward - instead of merely being obedient to the authority of the dogma.

Morality

Morality is always foundational, and always remembering your pure intent helps you catch any ill-intent driven by aversion and craving. This helps in knowing your own mind and how your own agitations can compel harmful, impure impulses.

Upon this foundation, breath awareness is practiced. I.e. observe the sensation of air passing in or on the nostrils.

Subtle sensation of air around the nostrils

You might have noticed that it is sometimes hard to feel any breath moving in the nostril area.

The first reason the nostrils are used for anapanasati is because the air sensation there is rather subtle. The mindfulness journey takes you from hard, solid reality to subtler and subtler, deeper levels. You have to have sensitive, stable perception to perceive the subtle depths, and breath meditation is used to hone your mind into a sharp, sensitive perceptive instrument.

Selecting a subtle meditation object serves this purpose. Hence the subtle sensation of air in or around the nostrils. As relaxation sets in, the breath becomes lighter, and the sensation more subtle, and the mind continues to strive to perceive such a light touch. In this way mind is honed to become calmly observant, keenly perceptive and incredibly sensitive. You will need a sensitive, sharp, alert mind in later stages of body and mind mindfulness, so we practice with breath (and will refine breath awareness in coming days) to hone subtle perceptive ability.

Naturally occurring breath

The natural rhythm of breathing is observed because mindfulness is awareness of 'what is'. "Walking on the path of truth" - conscious of reality 'as it is' (not 'as you want it to be'). Your meditation role is to observe the way nature does it. You just observe, and dhamma does the rest.

No imagination

In other practices, counting breath, breathing mantra or other mental verbalisation or visualisation is used to concentrate and calm the mind and drown out mental chattering. However, there are reasons why the satipattana sutta does not say to do that.

The purpose of mindfulness is purification, overcoming misery, liberation. If the purpose was just to create calm pleasantry, then we'd count, verbalise, imagine etc. However, mindfulness is about truth, not imagination. Calm pleasantry is not the goal of mindfulness. Calm, quiet observation is just a means. A 'way' of pervading the body and mind with pure awareness to purify the entire life-form from the surface to its deepest levels. The actuality, the reality, the truth of yourself which imaginary cannot reveal.

Universality

When you verbalise and visualise it often involves a religion. People will visualise Buddha or chant buddo buddo buddo, or visualise Christ and repeat a prayer, or krishna or other Hindu god; but then it is no longer universal dhamma. It becomes sectarian and begins to exclude people who do not believe.

The dhamma is always universal, and in the interest of the truth, mindfulness does not incorporate man made constructs. There is no Buddhist breath, Christian breath or Hindu, Jew or Muslim breath. There is just universal breath - only awareness of nature's breath - so any human being can equally participate.

Conclusion

I hope the above helps to clarify why anapanasati is the way it is, and be able to see some sense in it and be empowered by your own intellectual understanding (see foundations of knowledge post #3).

You understand the main purpose of anapanasati, why breath control or imagination is not involved, and how this deals with reality - the truth just as you experience it. You can be of any religion or background and I am not preaching 'Buddhism'. I'm discussing and practicing universal Dhamma, and anyone can participate.

Do the work and benefit. Feel the sensation of air passing at the nose. Notice the subtlety of the feeling. Become familiar with the kind of effort it requires to make such a subtle feeling become clearly distinct to you - to hone the mind, sharpen the perception and cultivate extraordinary sensitivity.

The purification commenced, the truth of pure awareness, free of all fabrications. May everyone benefit from their ardent awareness.

[Gem]

Hi everyone.

I'm going to paste the next section of the satipattana, and discuss the practical implications, but before I do, I want to recap the 'way' breath is observed.

The word 'sati' (prefix of satipatthana and suffix of anapanasati), as I mentioned before, has two meanings: 1) remember and; 2) be aware. In the first context it means remember your object of meditation, the feeling of breath in/around the nose, and in the second context it means remain aware.

How to observe is important in Buddhist practice because it is included in the 8 fold Noble Path: 'Samma sati' which translates to 'right awareness' or 'right mindfulness' - being aware in the right way. The satipatthana describes this as follows: "he dwells ardent with awareness and constant thorough understanding of impermanence... having removed craving and aversion towards the world". The text repeats that in regard to all four mindful aspects. The satipatthana later and similarly says: "he develops his awareness to such an extent that there is mere understanding along with mere awareness. In this way he dwells detached, without clinging towards anything in the world"

From the quotes above one can infer that the 'way to observe' is with detached but ardent attention, free of all aversion and desire, and with the understanding of the nature of the object: anicca (change or impermanence).

The breath is a perfect example. You are breathing in, yet you are not desiring it, and when the in breath is complete, you are not clinging to it, so you let it go out freely. As it goes out you are not crying, oh my precious breath, I am losing you. There are no adverse feelings. You are just neutral, breath is coming in; breath is going out. You know the breath is moving, always changing, the old one gone and this one new, and with full awareness that this breath is now passing, you understand its nature.

From this practice you know for yourself, I observe without any adverse reactions or craving, without any attachment to that which must pass - the breath passes just as it is wont to do - while you become calm and unperturbed.

"With mere awareness" - only awareness - what I call 'pure observation'. Present attention, pure of any reactivity or other mental fabrication like judgment and interpretation. It's the 'mere' truth: breath is happening - I'm aware.

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Now I shall paste the next part of the satipatthana sutta, and discuss

"Feeling the whole body, I shall breathe in." "Feeling the whole body, I shall breathe out," thus he trains himself. "With the bodily activities calmed, I shall breathe in," thus he trains himself. "With the bodily activities calmed, I shall breathe out," thus he trains himself".

I left this out of the breath meditation before because it adds confusion. People would be wondering, am I feeling the breath in nose or feeling the whole body? Just take the lead from the quote that you can release your tension and sit with a relaxed upright posture, relaxing more as you feel air passing about the nose.

Become established in breath awareness, and use anapanasati to hone sensitivity of the mind. The sharp, perceptive, penetrative mind will start to 'feel the whole body' later on in the body and sensation stages. This takes time. It typically takes about 30 or 40 total hours of ardent breath meditation to become established enough, sharp enough, and stable enough to start purification through body awareness.

Ok. That's all I can say for now. I'll come back tomorrow, so until then, be happy.

[Gem]

Hello everyone.

Due to zero response rate, I doubt anyone has undertaken anapanasati, but I still suggest that you do. It is a great opportunity because this thread will give very indepth explanations (as it has so far) which will empower you. I hope to discuss anything which might help to refine your practice, but one must practice or there is nothing to refine.

Today I am going to paste the next section of the satipatthana - the analogy of the wood turner - and discuss how the analogy may be interpreted in a useful, practical way.

The analogy of the wood turner

Just as a skillful turner or a turner’s apprentice, while making a long turn understands properly: "I am making a long turn," and while making a short turn, understands properly: "I am making a short turn," just so, the monk, breathing in a deep breath, understands properly: "I am breathing in a deep breath." Breathing in a shallow breath, he understands properly: "I am breathing in a shallow breath." Breathing out a deep breath, he understands properly: "I am breathing out a deep breath." Breathing out a shallow breath, he understands properly: "I am breathing out a shallow breath." In this way he trains himself:

This analogy impels us to observe the breath with the same exacting attention with which a skilled wood turner gives his craft: completely steady and calm, tremendous care to detail, exacting attention and patience. If he is making a deep cut, then he turns the lathe long. If a shallow cut, short. He puts chisel to wood for a long time to make a long cut and a short time to make a quick cut. He applies very exact pressure for whatever cut he makes. His attention never wavers and his touch is 'just right' - touching exactly to make the exact cut. This is the kind of attention one applies to their breath be it long, short, deep, shallow, in, out, this nostril or the other.

Most importantly, where does the wood turner place all of his attention? He isn't putting attention on one end and cutting the other end. He places his entire attention exactly where he touches the wood with his chisel - and with complete involvement in the intricate work, he knows exactly how he touches it. In the same manner, the meditator has all their attention where the air touches the nose in or around the nostrils - the sensation which is felt - the spot being touched. All the attention on that spot, as you are doing incredibly intricate work.

Just as a highly skilled wood turner attends his craft, thus attend the touch of your breath.

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If you are following the sutta, you will see that I again omitted the part which says 'feeling the whole body'. One has to remain with breath awareness for a while before moving on to 'feeling the whole body'. There is a process of progression from breath to body awareness. After doing breath awareness for some time, you will start to notice unusual sensations coming up on the body. The crown commonly begins to tingle for one example, and other tingles, waves, vibes or similar subtle feelings might start anywhere on the head, face and/or body. This indicates that the body started to 'wake up', and then we consider moving on to full body awareness. It can take some time (maybe 30 to 50 hours), but if you really work at it, putting the fullness of attention into your diligent, daily anapanasati practice, some sort of subtle, light sensation will occur somewhere soon enough. One has to be patient. Impatience will hinder progress and it's completely counter-productive. After all, an impatient wood turner cannot do outstanding work.

Due to the time it takes, this thread isn't going into body awareness for at least a month. In the meantime, there are still some refinements to be made to this breath awareness practice, and some important things to talk about regarding the already commenced purification process.

I will come back tomorrow to talk about how to adjust in life to best enable the purification... and I wish you every happiness until then.

[Gem]

Hi everyone.

Today I have to talk about something important, because 'The way of the purification' is a psychological matter which can't be overlooked or taken lightly.

During my stay as a meditator, and also in service at the ashrams, I have seen a lot benefit come from meditation, my own and the benefit of others, but I have also seen significant distress, and some instances where meditators had psychotic breaks which sent them straight from the retreat to the psychiatric ward.

Delving deep into the truth of yourself comes with difficulty of facing trauma and existential crises which can broach the tipping point, so one has to approach it with a lot of care. I am under an onus of care because I describe and encourage the practice while being fully aware of the potential for highly adverse outcomes. So far, only the beginnings have been discussed so there is very little potential for risk of harm, but there is a point where I have to draw the line - where it presents risks.

You can search online and find tons of examples of adverse outcomes from retreats, meditation apps etc, and read the concerns of mental health professionals who have had to mop up the aftermath. It's real and not uncommon.

Mindful meditation deals with people's lives and I have seen things go tragically wrong. For these reasons and more, meditation is a most serious thing. At least you can know I've seen it all and I take care.

Considering the above, if you undertake this practice as I hope you do, you need to know that this isn't light spiritual entertainment. It is the truth of your real life. As much as we can here on this thread where interact, we need to understand that this meditation has the effect of bringing life issues to the surface and people among us are likely to have 'exposed wounds'. In light of this, be very considerate. If you have 'exposed wounds' yourself, you are bound to be unusually sensitive and have to take care not to over-react to benign conversation. We also have to understand that this is an open thread which can't be properly protected and made safe. This will never be optimum conditions, but at least you can do your small part being hyper-considerate and self-aware.

Outside this thread's community, it is everyday life. The world we typically live in, with its harshness, loudness, social media, inanity and aggression is really not conducive to the affect of meditation. Those undertaking the practice need to be a little more careful for the reasons I just mentioned. You might find life issues rising up at any time, and you could be a little more delicate and easily triggered than usual at times.

'Care' and 'careful' are key words. Take care in self awareness so that things don't run away with you, and keep an even keel.

You have an individual life and I can only make broad generalisations, but as you incorporate more carefulness and consideration, you'll notice your meditation starts to effect your daily life with positive change, and conditions become gradually more conducive to the purification process.

Lastly I want to share a personal example from my life to illustrate how the meditation affects emotional issues arising. While diving home from the gym I suddenly felt lonely, and my chatter said, in the third person, 'Of course you're lonely; no one loves you,' and from that there was a rush of emotions that stemmed all the way back to mother abandonment issues. I don't mean to be self-indulgent or seek consolation and comforting, but I have been practicing this meditation twice a day since I started the thread, and the emotional issue seems to have risen as a consequence. I just wanted give one person's example how the purification affects emotion and subsequent proneness to becoming delicate and over-sensitive. Later in the thread I will discuss how to navigate emotional storms, but it's too early to get into all that right now.

This is as much as I can say. I hope I have impressed upon you the seriousness of meditation and clarified potential positive and negative psychological outcomes. Please read online about cases where it all went wrong to pique your own caution. I hope considering the post increases your consideration and care, and you start to adjust in daily life as mentioned.

If there's anything you want to comment on, ask or discuss, go ahead - I just saw a tumbleweed rolling by in here.

Tomorrow I will recap what I said in the last few posts about 'how to observe', and start to discuss refinements to the initial anapana practice - so for now - I wish you every peace and happiness.


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[Gem]

Hi guys

Yesterday I mentioned the potential risks of this meditation, how long term life issues tend to arise as consequence of this practice, and that taking care and being considerate are important going forward.

As I said yesterday, today's post will recap 'how to observe' and begin to discuss how the current anapanasati practice can be refined.

The satipatthana sutta makes two statements on how to observe:

1. "he dwells ardent with awareness and constant thorough understanding of impermanence... having removed craving and aversion towards the world" and;

2. "he develops his awareness to such an extent that there is mere understanding along with mere awareness. In this way he dwells detached, without clinging towards anything in the world"

In addition to the above, the analogy of the wood turner illustrates how the attention should be acute and unwavering, exacting in detail, focused on the spot where you are working, and concentrated because you are doing very intricate work

The meditation is an intricate work. It is the technique of looking deeply and piercingly - like peering intently through darkness to find something on a dark night. At first one tries to feel any movement of air in and around the nose, and you'll notice this has a relaxing effect, a quietening effect, but calmness is not the goal. The purpose is to purify the mind from the surface to the deepest levels. The quiet, calm mind is necessary because an agitated, noisy mind cannot see deeply, and mindfulness is the way of looking though the apparent surface into the depth to reveal insight into the true nature of mind and matter.

This takes us back to wood turner who gives us a feel of his kind of concentration. He is not fighting to be concentrated - moreso the task demands his attention, so rather than trying to concentrate, he becomes absorbed in what he does as he needs to be single minded to make the exact, intricate cut. In this sense, rather that 'trying to concentrate', he is undistracted as he hones in on the exacting detail of his work. This undistracted attention allows him to work for hours, whereas 'trying to concentrate' would quickly become exhausting.

In the same way, breath meditation is not just 'trying to concentrate' or 'keep your attention on' the air/nose feeling. The meditation hones in on that sensation to feel it in detail. This demands heightened attention just like making a very accurate cut does. It is alert, undistracted, intense attention to detail. That is how a woodturner observes, and that's how we start to refine breath awareness.

In the beginning, which was a week ago, the meditation was to try feel a sensation caused by the breath in or around the nose. After a week of one-hour daily practice a meditator will have settled in and become accustomed to breath awareness, and become somewhat established in the experience of quiet, calm, open meditative mind. Meditative mind makes it possible to look deeply. Hence, we start to refine the meditation practice by honing in on the more subtle detail of the initial sensation. That's why I started to talk about the 'touch' of your breath in and around the nose, and elaborate excessively about the wood turner - so you get some sense of 'how to observe' and how refined mindfulness meditation really is.

Now when you sit to meditate, just as before, feel some sort of sensation caused by the breath in and/or around the nostrils, and then take it a little further by noticing a particular area where the air touches and hone in on it. You will notice how more intense attention is required to feel the subtler aspect of the initial sensation. You may imagine how a highly skilled woodturner attends to his finest, most detailed cuts - and give that same acute attention to the spot where the air touches you on a particular area somewhere within, around or under the nostrils.

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Little note

If you are new to the thread, go back to the beginning and familiarise yourself with the foundations of meditation first before start practicing as per post#16. Spend at least a week with that before starting to make refinements. Do not skip steps.

For people who practiced for a week or more, still spend maybe 10 minutes meditating on the general air/nose feeling, then try hone in on a spot where you feel the moving air touch - and maybe go back and forth between the two. If it is hard to feel the air sensation, then stay with step one for a while. 7 days is probably not enough time to really start to refine, but at least you can try it out a little and get a feel for it.

Now we have started 'piercing' to look deeply, be aware of yourself, be aware of those around you, be gentle, and take every necessary care.

Much happiness.

[Gem]

Hello again.

Yesterday I suggested a refinement to this practice, with undertones of taking greater care, and today I should elaborate.

This is how the woodturner analogy relates to the steps of refinement in anapanasati:

1) The woodturner first roughs out a basic shape to work on = the meditator feels any air feeling in/around the nose anywhere to become accustomed to the practice

2) Having made the basic rough shape, the woodturner pays closer attention and starts to carve more careful, delicate cuts = Meditator pays closer attention to feel the air touch at some place within the nose area, and hones in to feel air moving over that spot (see previous post).

There are more refinements we have not discussed, but we will follow the wood turner through 2 more stages:

3) Once wood turner has refined the shape to resemble the product he wants, he pays yet greater care and attention and begins working on the more refined details

4) Once he has detailed the work, he finally carves the most intricate and minute ornate decorations.

Each step requires closer attention, greater care and more precision that the last, and we should refine anapanasati twice more before we move on to 'feeling the whole body'.

To understand this kind of attention, the woodturner does not 'concentrate on' his wood. Rather, the intricacy of his work requires his close attention. Similiarly, one does not 'concentrate on' the breath. Rather, observing more subtle aspects of the air sensation requires closer attention.

This is how we train the mind to become more sensitive and perceptive of the subtler and subtler... and subtler... by requiring it to perceive increasingly subtle breath objects.

Does that seem to make sense?

I hope it does, because your intellectual understanding needs to be what guides your practice. It is utterly mindless to obey a teacher and be a docile follower of authority and dogma. You have to make sense of the dogma, be discerning, see logic, and be self-determined through understanding for yourself why you do it in the way that you do.

I hope I have articulated the meaning of the woodturner analogy in way which is quite complete. I think understanding the interpretation of the analogy gives a good impression of what the particular awareness of 'right mindfulness' is.

There is no interest in the thread, and maybe people think it's all nonsense, but it is beneficial to me and improves my practice, and of course I hope others also benefit.

Peace.

[Gem]

Hi

I just wanted to comment on how the satipatthana sutta divides the 4 mindful objects into separate categories (body, sensation, mind and mental content), but in practice, these 4 kinda merge together.

The opening passage is about breath awareness, but breath awareness is awareness of the sensation caused by breath, so breath-mindfulness and sensation-mindfulness are happening at once rather than as distinct and separate objects.

The mindfulness of mind is also meshed with the breath sensation awareness. When you sit to meditate on the breath, mind wanders away, and you realise you've gone daydreaming, which is mindfulness of the mind. You might also notice your self becoming bored, impatient, maybe frustrated with some discomforts, and the kind of thoughts associated with those. I.e. mental contents.

In this way, although we categorise the 4 mindful objects and take a step by step process to explore them, in practice it sorta works all at once and they can't actually be separated from each other.

We still follow process, starting with breath, refining the breath, progressing to body awareness and so forth, and we are now at the breath awareness stage - so don't jump the gun.

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Four Noble Truths

The meditation outlined in the satipatthana sutta follows precisely the 4 noble truths. One usually thinks that meditation is going to be a pleasant relaxation with spiritual experiences, and those who undertake this practice will notice the spaciousness of 'meditative mind' and have new experiences, but if you have sat up and meditated in accordance with the sutta for 45 minutes to an hour, you will also have experienced pain, stiffness, squirmed around a lot to keep comfortable, become impatient, bored, frustrated with yourself and/or other physical and mental sufferances... and this is the first truth: there is suffering.

As the meditation progresses, how suffering is caused and how it might end becomes increasingly apparent, and as it does, you also become wise to the 'way' to end it.

The satipatthana sutta I linked includes discourse on the 4NT's toward the end. It's worth a look because the 4NT's are the essence of Buddha's teachings.

Much happiness, all.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by Gem

To understand this kind of attention, the woodturner does not 'concentrate on' his wood. Rather, the intricacy of his work requires his close attention. Similiarly, one does not 'concentrate on' the breath. Rather, observing more subtle aspects of the air sensation requires closer attention.

This is how we train the mind to become more sensitive and perceptive of the subtler and subtler... and subtler... by requiring it to perceive increasingly subtle breath objects.

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[Gem]

Hi Guys



If you started this breath awareness meditation 11 days ago, you have had several hours total practice time and become familiar with it



3 or 4 days ago I started discussing a refinement to the initial practice, but it is early days, and that refinement takes a while to establish.


As we continually refine breath awareness the mind will become subtler and subtler still, and even subtler, so when we start to 'feel the whole body' we can feel into subtle levels. As the breath awareness meditation becomes more refined, meditators will start to notice some subtle feelings in the body, but I wouldn't get carried away with that. I'd stay with breath meditation for a while longer and continue that refinement. The first refinement will take something like 10 hours practice time to establish well, and there are another couple of steps of refinement I haven't spoken of.



From here on I would start to discuss the experiences of meditation, the difficulties and how to get past them and so on, but if the third aspect of knowledge (seeing for yourself) is not there, we can't go past intellectual understanding, and we have to surpass that to continue. Thus I have reached the limit of depth possible in this monologue which I thought was going to be a conversation.


I hope the superficial dogma and theory I discussed so far has been beneficial to you, and as always, I wish you all every happiness.

[JustBe]

Hello there. I haven’t been in this thread for a little while and I’m a little late on starting, but I am inspired to take up your offering because I am ready. I haven’t meditated in long time but I’m going to start this practice you offered tomorrow. If you don’t mind I might just note my experience as I go through the process. Time to prepare my space. I have the other info tucked into my awareness.