Don't do that

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by Gem

Whatever you are doing, stop doing that, and just observe.

Yes! Instead of responding observe the response. But then for some interesting reason when you are aware like that, there never is a response. Listening, observing without an observer or listener. Not one listening, just listening. Not me listening or observing, listening is external I would think, as if you listen or observe inwardly, without an observer, nothing is there to observe or experience... the observer is the observed in other words. The thinker and the thought are two sides of the same coin.

[Gem]

The next section is the section on impermanence. It expands on the postures section. In addition to the postures, standing, walking, sitting and lying down, it mentions several other activities like bending, stretching, eating, drinking, chewing, sleeping, in silence, talking, and a few other things. You get the idea, though - whatever you're doing, whatever posture you assume, be aware. Not later, but now.

Impermanence

Although this is all categorised into different sections, that's only for the sake of explanation. In practice, everything is blended with impermanence. Hence, from the very beginning, the first definition of meditation was:

A monk dwells ardent with awareness and constant thorough understanding of impermanence observing... having removed craving and aversion toward the world.

Again, when illustrating breath meditation with the parable of the wood turner (post #5), observing the temporal nature of phenomena arising and passing alludes to the impermanent nature of all things:

"Thus he dwells observing the phenomena arising in the body, thus he dwells observing phenomena passing away in the body. He observes phenomena arising and passing away in the body and his awareness is established: this is body. He develops his awareness to such an extent that there is mere understanding and mere awareness. In this way he dwells detached, without clinging to anything in the world.

This section on impermanence just emphasises how "thorough understanding of impermanence" applies to literally everything. IRL it is not sectioned. It's simply true.

Impermanence is a direct, immediately subjective knowledge, and is also understood intellectually to be true. It is also an insight that can change you as a person. When practicing breath awareness, and expanding to awareness of the body, we can directly experience the feelings as they change; we can see a feeling appear, changing, changing, and be replaced with a different feeling changing. Intellectually we know, all things change, and as an insight or wisdom we realise how the craving, the desire and aversion, the clinging, resisting and avoiding are utterly futile because change is inevitable, and 'this won't last'.

Hence, if you are practicing breath meditation and some discomfort arises, then your understanding of impermanence is like ' this will soon pass'. If you meditate and pleasure arises, 'This will soon pass'. Everything is always passing, and with this understanding you to settle into quiet equanimity, regardless of the nature of your passing experience, and accept the simple truth, 'this is how it is'.

[Gem]

Repulsiveness

The next section is on the repulsiveness of the body. It's more like a critique of beauty in context with vanity, lustfulness and possessiveness

The sutta points out:

In this body there are the hairs of the head and skin, nails, teeth, sinew and bone, guts with their contents, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, fat, tears, saliva, mucus and urine.

That is the intellectual contemplation, and we can agree that all these parts taken separately, or laid out together on a table are not attractive, and not objects of lust or vanity. In our mind's eye a person is beautiful only if all the parts are together and the revolting stuff on the inside is out of sight/out of mind. It's a very fractional overlay that constructs beauty, for which we are vain and lustful, but if the whole of reality is revealed, the body is 'repulsive'.

Since it is the intellectual knowledge, it's not actually an object of observation. The Objects are body/sensation and mind/mental contents. Of these we can only actually experience sensation and mental contents, but the understanding of repulsiveness is 'equally true', albeit intellectual.

Next there is a parable about a bag of mixed seeds:

Just as if there were a provision bag full of various grains and seeds, such as paddy, mung beans, cow peas, sesame seeds and rice, and as if there were a man with discerning eyes, who, after opening the bag, would say 'this is a paddy', ' these are mung beans', these are cow peas' [etc]; in the same way, a monk reflects on this body, which is covered in skin and filled with impurities of all kinds from the soles of the feet upward and the hair on the head downwards considering this: In this body there are hairs of the head and skin, nails, teeth, skin, bone [etc].

Still one has to discern; while seated with eyes closed, and examining from the soles of the feet to the top of the head and back again, you cannot feel what is a bone, what is a hair, what is blood, what is a kidney or intestine etc. You can only actually experience feelings that don't come with any intellectual knowledge. Hence, in the section on repulsiveness the words 'reflect' and 'consider' pertain to the philosophical knowledge that the body is all skin, blood, guts, bones, saliva, feces, urine etc. - IOW observation and contemplation are not the same thing.

I personally don't give any importance to this section as far as the meditation goes, but it is pertinent in the sense that contemplating the repulsiveness of the body mediates clinging with vanity or resisting with a dejected body image, and with respect to others, mediates lustfulness and possessiveness along with negative body judgment.

[Gem]

Now the text is getting abstract, i.e. talking about objective truths rather than immediate subjectivity, one has to remember that the meditation itself only has the observable objects: sensations and mental contents; and we can only be aware of what we are actually aware of.

Like the explorer sets forth to find out what is there, as one feels the body from the soles of the feet to the hair on the head and back again, you can know, this is as it is, it is always changing, and these feelings don't endure in time.

The next section expands on this by discussing the material elements. Like the section on Repulsiveness, it is also called "a Reflection" (rather than an observation). It's a philosophical contemplation of the body, and not awareness of the body as such

Material elements

This is an old fashioned theory about Earth, Water, Fire and Air, so it's not really relevant to the modern age. It really only means that when we observe the sensations we can notice that they have qualities such as density (earth), fluidity (water), temperature (fire) and lightness (air). We can use that framework to help us notice more detail about the characteristics of our sensations, but other than that it's pretty much useless, so I won't dwell.

The next section is about dead bodies, which is a bit more interesting, and I'll go over it later.

[Unseeking Seeker]

More or less a Buddhist thread here but that’s alright, all paths are our friends!

The key difference between Buddhism and Tantra (Kashmir Shaivism) as a concept as I see it and have experienced is that Buddhism relies on awareness by mindfulness negation and Tantra by surrender and celebration. Thus, the former employs mind and the latter, heart and internal sense polarity.

All good ~ whatever works. One size does not fit all, however.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

One size does not fit all, however.

My suggestion is to approach with beginner mind, or an empty cup, because the mind that already knows isn't observing. At the moment it's a little dry because I'm just going over the Satipatthana, but later I intend to revisit at a more nuanced layer. I understand the desire to to jump ahead like open heart and bliss and stuff, but I'm slow and patient and methodical and understand the complexity of the difficulty and suffering that makes up the reality of people's lives. Unfortunately on the forum it's not properly protected for the reality of purification, so it can only go so far, and for most it can't even start because the circumstances in their lives aren't conducive to any level of sensitivity and vulnerability. I understand what I have to say isn't popular, but I don't make promises and pander grand allusions that garner false hope and then devastation. I'm only staying with the actuality of real lived experience, so if life is brimming with bliss, great, and if it isn't then fine. I can explain the way to unravel the things, but I'm not selling a quick fix, or stroll over rose petals, and even then, most of us don't even have the environmental conditions that make it possible.

There is a way these things work in nature, and it doesn't work another way. These things can be discussed in ways that bring them into individual nuanced understandings. The discussion, meditation and discovery of natures way is 'the way'. It's the actuality of you, your life, and nature herself. It is the truth 'as it is' in the way it is experienced by you.

[Unseeking Seeker]

@ Gem ~ not mind (thought). We must drop that. As long as there is thought, we are enmeshed in concepts.

I appreciate that many cannot relate to thought rested awareness but I’d say, that’s a prerequisite to actual meditation.
Otherwise we’re caught up in a this or that limited doership practice.

Just sayin’ ~ I didn’t mean to interrupt.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Gem

Material elements
This is an old fashioned theory about Earth, Water, Fire and Air, so it's not really relevant to the modern age.

Mybe it seems an 'old fashioned theory' to you personally but it is an important part of the ' Sattipathana Sutta ' as taught by the Buddha.

' In this body there are the earth element, the water, the fire and the air element.' In this way he abides contemplating the body as a body internally and externally. He abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. That is how a Bhikkhu abides'. The Buddha.

It's not a good idea imo to omit parts of Sutta/Sutras that we do not agree with...

[Gem]

I thought for a little while, but don't really have an answer for the previous two posts.

I'll just forge ahead to the section on dead bodies.

In the text, the section is called "Nine Charnel-Ground Observations". The internet defines charnel-ground as: "Charnel-grounds, in India, are places where unclaimed human corpses are dumped to rot, or be eaten".

Dead Bodies

This section is a reflection on how your body will die and eventually decay to dust. It has nine points

1) A new corpse of up to 3 days, swollen, blue and festering
2) A dead body as it being eaten by crows, falcons, dogs and other animals
3) A skeleton with flesh still peeling from it and still held together by remaining tendons and ligaments
4) A skeleton stripped of of flesh, smeared with blood and still intact
5) A skeleton completely stripped of flesh and blood but still held together by its last ligaments
6) A skeleton no longer intact - just scattered bones
7) Skeletal remains scattered about and bleached white from exposure to the elements
8) Skeletal remains after a year that are gathered into a heap
9) Old skeletons where the bone heaps are reduced to dust

With every stage of death's decay it says:

"A monk, when he sees a dead body that has been thrown in a charnel-ground... regarding his own body considers thus: "Indeed, this body is of the same nature, it will become like that and cannot escape it."

I personally wouldn't obsess over it, but it is a handy reflection in the sense that it relates to the truth of the way nature works.

Not only does it pertain to your body, and all the bodies that have and will ever live, it shows us that nature works in a universal way. Becuse it works the same for everyone, the meditation is not 'whatever works for you', but the actuality of nature's way. This is why the purpose is to "walk the path of truth".

The philosophical knowledge that this body will inevitably die makes clinging to the body futile, and as always, the section ends by repeating the stanza:

"...Thus he dwells observing the phenomena of arising in the body, thus he dwells observing the phenomena of passing away in the body, thus he dwells observing the phenomena of arising and passing away in the body. Now his awareness is established: "This is body!". Thus 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..."

[sky]

Originally Posted by Gem

Not only does it pertain to your body, and all the bodies that have and will ever live, it shows us that nature works in a universal way

Nature does work in a 'Universal way' each body has the same ' Material Elements '

The Reflection on the Material Elements.

'And further, monks, a monk reflects on this very body, however it be placed or disposed, by way of the material elements: "There are in this body the element of earth, the element of water, the element of fire, the element of wind.' The Buddha - Sattipathana Sutta....

He then proceeds to the Nine Cemetery Contemplations.

(1) And further, monks, as if a monk sees a body dead one, two, or three days; swollen, blue and festering, thrown in the charnel ground, he then applies this perception to his own body thus: "Verily, also my own body is of the same nature; such it will become and will not escape it."

'Same Nature' refers again to the Material Elements.....