Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Buddhist Mindfulness Practice

Friday, December 20, 2019

Buddhist Mindfulness Practice

Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth), edited for Wisdom Quarterly by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (palikanon.com)

Mindfulness meditation accepts all, sees all, comes to know all. (Vedic? sporteluxe.com)

Before Harry: Yoga, meditation, and mindfulness (Meghan Markle/besthealthmag.ca)

The Four Foundations or Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness

[See PART 1] The Four "Foundations of Mindfulness" (lit., "awareness of mindfulness," sati-upatthāna), are systematic contemplations of:

body (form, materiality)
feeling (sensation)
mind (mentality)
mind-objects.

1st human depictions of the Buddha: Gandhara

For sati ("mindfulness, wakefulness, vigilance, bare-awareness [free of evaluation and reactivity]," figuratively, striving-for-insight-into).

Two sutras give a detailed treatment of this subject, so important for the practice of Buddhist meditation/mental cultivation. The two Satipatthāna Sutras (DN 22 and MN 10) proclaim these weighty words as they begin and again when they close:

"The one and only way [or the direct way] that leads to the attainment of purity [of view], to the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, to the end of pain and grief, to the entering of the right path, and to the realization of nirvana is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness."

After these ominous introductory words, aasking the question, "What are these four?," it is said that the meditator dwells in contemplation of the body, feelings [sensations], the mind, and mind-objects "ardent, clearly conscious and mindful, after setting aside worldly greed and grief."

Bliss becomes joy.

These four systematic contemplations, in reality, are not taken merely as separate exercises. On the contrary, in many cases, particularly for arriving at the blissful meditative absorptions (jhanas), the four are inseparably associated with one another.

Meditation is the greatest thing!

So the Satipathāna Sutra forms an illustration of the way these four contemplations relate to the Five Aggregates Clung to as Self (khandha) simultaneously come to be realized.

This finally leads to insight and enlightenment (awakening) by directly realizing the impersonal nature of all things and all forms of existence. More