Bhikkhu Cintita

How “mindfulness” got mislabeled

Gupta
Gupta

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.

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This paper is part of a series on Rethinking Satipaṭṭhāna.
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  1. Min Khin Kyaw Avatar
    Min Khin Kyaw

    Sati is compared with a guard who must see everyone going in and out through the gate. Sati is also compared with six generals with their armies protecting the six city walls (the six senses – ayatana) against the kilesa armies attacking from six directions (ayatana). That is a purpose of satipatthana. Another is vipassana. The late Mogok Sayadaw said that if one meditates a day without kilesa coming in between panna (insight), one can attain liberation. I got here because I found your post on google but cannot find it on your blog: mindfulness | Buddha-Sāsana | Page 2 – WordPress.com: 22 Mar 2012 — The Mahasi method is a practice of noting which entails moment to moment awareness of impermanence. Noting here means mentally naming what has…

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    1. bhikkhucintita Avatar
      bhikkhucintita

      Thanks for pointing out these aspects of sati. This paper has gone through a couple of drafts, and is now called “There is no word for ‘mindfulness’ in Pali.” My main point is that sati and mindfulness came to differ as Dhamma became marginalized in popular vipassana. As I remember Mogok Sayadaw was a notable exception, that he required intensive Abhidhamma study before undertaking vipassana. Unfortunately, his teachings are not widely practiced in the West, in spite of their popularity in Myanmar.

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      1. Min Khin Kyaw Avatar
        Min Khin Kyaw

        Guarding the mind from kilesas is Sati (in Satipatthana), in my opinion.

        [Sariputto Sutta: Sariputta] Watchfulness, guard, mindful https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.120.wlsh.html
        [Ārakkha Suttaɱ: On Guard] earnestness, mindfulness and guard of one’s thoughts be exerted. https://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/an/04_fours/an04.117.wood.pts.htm
        [SN 47.35 (S v 180) Sati Sutta — Awareness —] https://www.buddha-vacana.org/sutta/samyutta/maha/sn47-035.html
        “In the Satipațțhāna-sutta the term sati means to maintain awareness of reality, whereby the true nature of phenomena can be seen.[1]” https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/31148

        “11. Satipaññhàna (Sati = mindfulness, awareness of what is occuring + paññhàna = that which plunges into and penetrates continuously, again and again) is the type of mindfulness that penetrates repeatedly into the body, feelings, mind, and dhammas, and sees the actual reality that is occurring. This is in contrast to the normal unmindful state in which the mind bounces or skips over these phenomena. “The four satipaññhànas” might therefore be translated as the “four steadfast mindfulnesses”. http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/mahasati.pdf

        “The third is the presence of a guard or mindfulness.” [On the Ariyaavaasa Sutta
        (Discourse on the Abode of the Noble Ones)
        Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw] https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut049.htm

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        1. bhikkhucintita Avatar
          bhikkhucintita

          Min Khin Kyaw,

          Thank you for collecting these references. My investigation of this topic began be looking at all of these examples. Sati means liternally ‘memory,’ and the Buddha explicitly defines it that way, so the question I always kept in mind is, What is being recalled here?

          My point is that every use of sati in the early texts has to do with memory, in particular keeping some norm or principle of Dhamma in mind. This is certainly true in the guarding examples (guarding against what?). In satipatthana we indeed penetrate into the nature of our experiential world, but we need the Buddha to point us toward what to look for. The Satipatthana Sutta, for instance, is a tutorial. It offers 21 specific exercises, and in each one we examine observable experience in terms of a set of Dhamma teachings. Impermanence and non-self are included in the refrain following each exercise. But each of the dhamma exercises explicitly introduces a sophisticated Dhamma teaching (aggregates, sense spheres, etc.) to guide our analysis. Awareness is inadequate; in all Buddhist practice we try to narrow the focus of attention to the practice task at hand and not to be distracted by what is irrelevant. Ardency is also important. “Mindfulness” as it came to be understood in the twentieth century has these qualities, but seems to have lost the element of recollection of norms and principles, without which there is no guarding and no satipatthana.

          In Buddhist practice, we practice right view, right intention, right speech, etc., as opposed to wrong view, etc. This means that there are always Dhamma norms and principles to keep in mind. Along with keeping those standards in mind, we discern carefully the present practice circumstances in order to respect the guidance of these standards. This is sampajanna, which works together with sat. This is why the compound satisampanna is common.

          BC

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      2. Min Khin Kyaw Avatar
        Min Khin Kyaw

        In the Ārakkha Suttaɱ, Sati is to prevent sankhara.

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