Year: 2022

rethinking the satipatthana series

[revised 1/30/2023] Suppose you want to do something really well, maybe wash the dishes, ride a bicycle, write a report, identify the birds feeding in your back yard, play a tune. What mental resources do you require? First, you need to bring the relevant knowledge and skills to bear; they are always there, even for the simplest task. Second, you need to be very attentive to the circumstances in which you are performing the task. Third, since you want to do the task really well, you need to muster attention and concern to bear on the task. Fourth, you need to let go of all distractions to your attention and concern.

What I have described is what I call the ‘satipaṭṭhāna method.’ It is a method that when developed and cultivated turns into the skill of doing things skillfully. Learning this skill is critical to Buddhist practice. The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta goes beyond the method: it outlines a fourfold practice task, along with this four-factored method which is applied in the performance of that task:

Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu abides contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, and recollective, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. He abides contemplating feelings in feelings, ardent, clearly comprehending, and recollective, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. He abides contemplating mind in mind, ardent, clearly comprehending, and recollective, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. He abides contemplating phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, and recollective, having put away covetousness and grief for the world.
(MN 10 i56)

. . .  MORE: SatipatthanaMethod

The following is another series of talks that has appeared in my two-year-old podcast series, found on the audio and video page and many podcast hosts.

4. Samadhi and right view (2/2). How is it possible to develop knowledge and wisdom based on right view from within samadhi? This is the art of balancing vipassana with jhana.

3. Samadhi and right view (1/2). The attainment of wisdom attributed to samādhi is generally called knowledge and vision. However, the question remains controversial how knowledge and vision are related to right view, i.e., to Dharma, for how can understanding of something cognitively complex be brought into the stillness of samadhi?

2. Pleasurable abiding in samadhi. Pleasurable abiding in the progressively unfolding factors of delight, tranquility and samaadhi is a karmic fruit that we enjoy when we are engaged in wholesome practice of all kinds. It has the important function of informing our practice of the difference between worldly and suprmundane pleasure.

 1. The context of samadhi. Far from the common characterization of samadhi (concentration) as a difficult and specialized practice of samatha, what we find in the Suttas is that samadhi arises quite spontaneously in a wide variety of practice contexts. It is a rather bread-and-butter factor in Buddhist practice.

Please click on the image to hear the interview.

Continuing to offer an overview of my weekly podcasts for the last two years, I offer the two series that supplement my book  Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path.

Buddhism began with the Buddha, a towering figure who lived some hundred generations ago, taught for forty-five years, developed a huge following of ascetics and householders, kings and paupers, and left behind a vast corpus of teachings, astonishingly profound and comprehensive, consistent, brilliantly coherent and still intelligible today. His teachings span not only the higher training of meditation, psychology and the path to awakening, but also practical advice on virtue, harmony, community and basic human values. He left behind a culture of peace and awakening and a monastic community that persist to this day. These talks on the Buddhist Life and Buddhist Path are based on the earliest stratum of scriptural sources, on early Buddhism. They supplement Book One of the text  Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path: foundations of Buddhist based on earliest sources, and it is recommended that these talks be heard in conjunction with reading the text.

There are two sets of podcasts, one called Buddhist Life and the other Buddhist Path:

Twelve talks, click on the image. These encompass instructions for leading an upright, virtuous and devoted Buddhist life, a life rooted in basic Buddhist values, which constitute the prerequisites for the Buddhist Path.

Twelve talks, click on the image. These encompass the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path, that is, systematic training in virtue, wisdom and equanimity and toward awakening.

I have been quietly reposting my podcast to this site since the beginning of COVID on THIS PAGE. I thought I would start highlighting some of these posts for the sake of my blog subscribers, starting with:

What did the Buddha think of women