Bhikkhu Cintita

Year: 2023

  • Non-self in Satipaṭṭhāna

    RETHINKING THE SATIPAṬṬHĀNA

    The seminal Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is today one of the most studied discourses of the entire Pali canon. It serves to verify, investigate, intuit and internalize Dhamma through through contemplation of direct experience, that we may attain knowledge and vision of the way things are, and it is the historical basis of modern insight or vipassanā meditation. I intend here to show here what is rarely recognized, that the primary Dhamma teaching of concern in the first three of the four themes of satipaṭṭhāna (body, feeling, mind and dhammas) is that pivotal and most challenging teaching: non-self.

    Briefly, the first three satipaṭṭānas correspond to three facets of the self as it is presumed to exist as a substantial, fixed thing. Each of the exercises within this scope challenges this presumption by demonstrating that bodily, percipient and mental evidence for the presumption is lacking, primarily through recognition the impermanence of the evidence in contrast with the presumption. It is the distinction between evidence and presumption that gives us the dichotomies referred to in “internal and external” and in “body in body.”

    The three facets of the self

    We will initially set aside the wide-ranging fourth satipaṭṭāna, each exercise of which takes up a recognized dhamma (Dhamma teaching) for experiential investigation and internalization. The exercises of the first three satipaṭṭhānas are quite different in that they make little or no reference to Dhamma in the exercises themselves, but rely on the common formulaic refrain that is, nonetheless rich in Dhamma. The refrain uniformly conveys the critical teaching of the three characteristics (tilakkhaṇa) of non-self, impermanence and suffering. To get a sense of the logic of the refrain, consider this passage from the Mahānidāna Suta:

    Now, Ānanda, one who says: “feeling is my self” should be told: “There are three kinds of feelings, friend: pleasant, painful, and neither pleasant not painful. Which of the three do you consider to be your self?” When a pleasant feeling is felt, no painful or neither pleasant not painful feelings is felt, but only pleasant feelings. When a painful feelings is felt, no pleasant or neither pleasant not painful feeling is felt, but only a painful feeling. And when a neither pleasant not painful feeling is felt, no pleasant or painful feeling.

    A pleasant feeling is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, bound to decay, to vanish, to fade away, to cease – and so too is a painful feeling and a neither pleasant not painful feeling. So anyone who, on experiencing a pleasant feeling, thinks, “This is my self,” must, at the cessation of that pleasant feeling think: “My self has gone!” and the same with a painful and a neither pleasant not painful feeling. Thus whoever thinks: “feeling is my self” is contemplating something in this present life that is impermanent, a mixture of happiness and unhappiness, subject to arising and passing away. Therefore it is not fitting to maintain: “feeling is my self.” (DN 15 ii66-7).

    We notice that this Mahānidāna passage considers the prospect that feeling is equivalent to the self, and argues that this is unsubstantiated. The teaching of non-self is that we presume the existence of a substantial, fixed self as an abstraction which is unsupported by the evidence, and which furthermore results in suffering. It is just as reasonable to consider that either body or mind is equivalent to the self. This explains the particular themes the first three satipaṭṭhānas: the body, feeling and the mind are three facets of this self that we presume to our detriment.

    The Mahānidāna passage then considers the evidence for feeling being this presumed self and finds it wanting, primarily because whatever it is we experience as feeling is always fragmentary, situation-specific, and ever changing, that is, impermanent and lacking the substantial fixedness we presume the self to have. We could argue the same way about the body and the mind.

    Now, let’s compare the Mahānidāna passage with the Satipaṭṭhāna refrain:

    1. In this way he abides contemplating body in the body internally, or he abides contemplating body in the body externally, or he abides contemplating body in the body both internally and externally.
    2. He abides contemplating in body the nature of arising, or he abides contemplating in body the nature of vanishing, or he abides contemplating in body the nature of both arising and vanishing.
    3. Recollection that “the body exists” is simply established in him to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and proficiency.1
    4. He abides independent. He doesn’t cling to anything in the world.
    … That is how a bhikkhu abides contemplating body in the body.

    I submit that the logic of the two passages is substantially the same: …

    CONTINUE READING

  • A back-road tour of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta

    RETHINKING THE SATIPAṬṬHĀNA SERIES

    The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10) describes a practice of contemplating Dhamma in terms of direct experience through a long series of exercises, which are grouped under the four categories of body, feelings, mind and dhammas. This practice is properly a development of right view, whereby individual Dhammic teachings are verified and internalized, such that Dhamma becomes ultimately a matter of direct perception, and we attain knowledge and vision of things as they are, effectively seeing through the eyes of the Buddha. This practice is properly undertaken on the basis of the previous establishment of the virtue factors of the path (resolve, speech, action and livelihood), and integrates an optimal functioning of all of the developmental (bhāvana) factors of effort, proficiency (sati) and, notably, samādhi, for that final push toward liberation.

    The structure of the text

    Opening. The text of the sutta begins:

    Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living in the Kuru country where there was a town of the Kurus named Kammāsadhamma. There he addressed the bhikkhus, “Bhikkhus.”

    “Venerable sir,” they replied.

    The Blessed One said this:

    Bhikkhus, this is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of nibbāna, namely, the four satipaṭṭhānas.

    The phrase ‘direct path’ is a translation of ekāyano maggo, literally ‘one-vehicle path,’ and sometimes translated as ‘only path.’ If it is the only bus to get us to where we want to go – to panoramic views, ultimately to nibbāna – this does not make satipaṭṭhāna a stand-alone practice by any means, as it is often regarded by vipassanā yogis, because we must first travel on many buses before our transfer onto that final bus. The whole noble eightfold path must be mastered to reach nibbāna. The Buddha tells us,

    Then, bhikkhu, when your virtue is well purified and your view straight, based upon virtue, established upon virtue, then you should develop the four satipaṭṭhānas in a threefold way. (SN 47.3)

    By analogy, pushing the garage door button might be the direct or only way to arrive at home, but is a useless exercise if we have yet to drive across two states, deal with restless children and tank up multiple times before we reach a point where the garage door will actually respond to pressure from our thumb.

    MORE …

    This paper is part of a series on Rethinking Satipaṭṭhāna.
    Please click HERE for references and for access to other papers in the series.

  • How “mindfulness” got mislabeled

    RETHINKING THE SATIPAṬṬĀNA SERIES

    By 1881 the scholar T.W. Rhys Davids had found the optimal translation for the Pali word sati. Previous scholars had variously tried translating or defining it as ‘remembrance,’ ‘memory,’ ‘recollection,’ ‘thinking of or upon,’ ‘calling to mind,’‘active state of mind,’ ‘fixing the mind strongly upon any subject,’ ‘attention,’ ‘attentiveness,’ ‘thought,’ ‘reflection,’ ‘consciousness,’ ‘correct meditation.’ Most of them seem to have understood that the root of the noun sati was ‘memory,’ and that the Buddha explicitly defined it that way himself, but were clearly dissatisfied given the subtle ways it interacted with other factors of Dhamma.

    In his 1881 work Rhys Davids explains his choice of ‘mindfulness,’ giving a nod to ‘memory,’ but then drawing attention to the common co-occurance of sati with sampajaññā, which he translated as ‘watchfulness.’ What he seems to have intended with ‘mindfulness’ has been described as “a faculty of active memory, adept at calling to mind and keeping in mind instructions and intentions that will be useful on the path.”

    That was then and this is now. Unfortunately the felicitous marriage of sati and ‘mindfulness’ did not survive the contingencies of the twentieth century. One hundred and twenty-five years later, the Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace emailed the scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, “As you well know, in the current Vipassanā tradition as it has been widely propagated in the West, sati is more or less defined as ‘bare attention,’ or the moment-to-moment, nonjudgmental awareness of whatever arises in the present moment. There is no doubt that the cul­tivation of such mindfulness is very helpful, but, strangely enough, I have found no evidence in traditional Pāli, Sanskrit, or Tibetan sources to support this definition of sati (smṛti, dranpa).” Little remained of Rhys Davids’ original intent, which had been grounded in the earliest scriptures.

    MORE …

    This paper is part of a series on Rethinking Satipaṭṭhāna.
    Please click HERE for references and for access to other papers in the series.

  • Samādhi springs up

    rethinking the satipaṭṭāna series

    Samādhi or jhāna is the meditative state, an attribute of mind (samāhita citta), recommended in the early texts. It arises with the delight in engagement in a task requiring utmost skill, as the mind centers itself fully around the competence and attentiveness required for that skill, and yet slips into an almost trance-like state of stillness and composure. Just when one would expect every cognitive capacity to be fully engaged, there is in samādhi a withdrawal from thinking and deliberation, even a withdrawal from personal engagement as the performance of the task seems to continue of its own accord.

    buddhaSamādhi is an anomaly for most of us in the way a human mind is supposed to work, and yet there it is. Accounting for it has caused endless confusion among modern scholars and teachers, many simply attributing mysterious or mystical powers to it, others viewing it as superfluous in Buddhist practice. Yet the weight given to this quite state in the early texts cannot be overlooked. It holds the prominent place as the ultimate factor of the noble eightfold path, it is declared to consolidate all previous factors on the path and to be indispensable in the early texts for the highest attainments: knowledge and vision, and liberation.

    When right samādhi does not exist, for one failing right samādhi, the proximate cause is destroyed for knowledge and vision of things as they really are. (AN 10.3)

    There is no jhāna for one with no wisdom, no wisdom for one without jhāna. But one with both jhāna and wisdom, he’s on the verge of nibbāna. (Dhp 372)

    What is often overlooked is the spontaneity and pervasiveness with which samādhi arises in the early texts. Often regarded as an isolated and refined practice, we actually find that it arises of itself in practice contexts of every sort: when reciting ancient texts, when engaged in virtuous activities, when reflecting on the triple gem, and with the contemplation of the Dharma, as in satipaṭṭhāna.

    In this paper we want to look at the conditions under which samādhi arises, to try to understand what is going on psychologically in samādhi, and to try to get an idea of how it is able to fulfill the almost miraculous functions attributed to it in the early texts. We also hope to account for its relationship to other aspects of Buddhist practice, in particular satipaṭṭhāna. I hope we will thereby contribute to a full understanding of this remarkable multifaceted culminating factor of the noble eightfold path.

    MORE …. (pdf)

  • Introduction to Buddhism via Zoom

    ON LINE CLASS

    Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path

    an intoduction to Buddhism
    Sundays 3:00-4:30 pm CST (Chicago time)

    Starts Jan. 29

    front050217A 12-week course on the fundamental concepts of Buddhism based on the earliest sources. We will use Bhikkhu Cintita’s book Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path as a text, which is available as download or hard copy. Copies are also available at the Sitagu Buddhist Vihara in Austin and the Sitagu Dhamma Vihara in Minnesota. Please join us. You’ll learn a lot about early Buddhism. Join us, you’ll learn a lot about Buddhism.

    ZOOM LINK