NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASSA
oOo
More has been said about the practice of
Satipatthana than about any other meditation practice by Buddhist
teachers of today... except by this monk! So in this Dhamma article
I will keep up with the trend by presenting some practical
observations on this most misunderstood of Lord Buddha's Teachings.
Those of you who have been "sitting around"
Buddhist Centres for a while have probably heard some teachers claim
that the fourfold "Focus of Mindfulness" (my translation of "Satipatthana")
[1] is the "one and only way" to the goal of full Enlightenment!
Although this is an impressive sales pitch for the teaching, it is
neither a true translation of the original text nor consistent with
what the Lord Buddha said elsewhere. The very phrase ("Ekayana Magga")
which is mistranslated as "one and only way" occurs again in the
l2th Sutta (discourse) of the Majjhima collection where it
unmistakably means a "path with only one possible destination". Many
different paths can share a common destination. In fact, the "one
and only path" is the Lord Buddha's description, not of Satipatthana,
but of the Noble Eightfold Path:
"Of all Ways, the Noble Eightfold Path is
the best.
This is the only way, there is none other for the purity of
insight"
Dhammapada verses 273 and 274 (abridged)
Thus, the "only way" to Enlightenment, as all
Buddhists should know anyway, is the Noble Eightfold Path. The
fourfold Focus of Mindfulness constitutes only a part of this Path,
the 7th factor. Jhanas are the 8th factor and there is also Right
View, Right Intention, Right Effort and the three factors of Right
Virtue. Each of these eight factors are necessary to achieve the
goal of full Enlightenment. lf any were redundant, then the Lord
Buddha would have taught a 7-fold path, or a 6-fold path etc. So, in
your practice of Buddhism, please keep in mind that all eight
factors of the noble Eightfold Path should be cultivated as the "one
and only way".
Now the fourfold Focus of Mindfulness method as
taught by the Lord Buddha, is a very advanced practice. So advanced
that the Lord Buddha said that if anyone should develop them in the
way He described for only seven days, then they would achieve full
Enlightenment or the state of non-returner. Many meditators reading
this may have gone on such a retreat for nine days or even more and
not yet fulfilled this most lofty of the Lord Buddha's promises. Why
not? Because, I suggest, you were not following the Lord Buddha's
instructions.
If you want to practise the fourfold Focus of
Mindfulness in the way that the Lord Buddha said leads so rapidly to
Enlightenment, then certain things are required before you begin.
The essential preparations are in short, full cultivation of the
other seven factors of the Noble Eightfold Path. Or, as the Lord
Budda said in the Anguttara collection ('Nines', Suttas 63 and 64),
one should maintain the five Precepts (the longer the better),
abandon the five Hindrances [2] and then practise Satipatthana.
These vital prerequisites are actually stated by
the Lord Buddha in His two discourses on the fourfold Focus of
Mindfulness, as "Vineyya Loke Abhijjha-Domanassam" (please forgive
me quoting Pali. It is the only way I can make this important
point). This phrase is usually translated as "having put away
covetousness and grief for the world", or something similar. Such
translations mean so little to meditators that they ignore this
instruction altogether, and thereby miss the bus! In the time of the
Lord Buddha, the monks, nuns and lay disciples would have understood
the phrase to mean "after having abandoned the five Hindrances"! The
authoritative commentaries to the two Satipatthana Suttas taught by
the Lord Buddha both clearly state that "Abhijjha-Domanassam" (sorry
for the Pali again!) refer precisely to the five Hindrances.
Elsewhere in the recorded Teachings of the Lord Buddha, "Abhijjha"
is a synonym for the first Hindrance, "Domanassam" is a synonym for
the second Hindrance, and together they stand, in Pali idiom, as an
abbreviation for all five. This then means that the five Hindrances
must be abandoned first before beginning any of the Focus of
Mindfulness practices. It is, in my not-so-humble opinion, precisely
because meditators attempt to practise the Satipatthana method with
some of the Hindrances still remaining that they achieve no great or
lasting result.
It is the function of Jhana practice, the
ultimate factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, to abandon all of the
five Hindrances long enough to gain BIG Insight. For example, in the
68th Sutta of the Majjhima collection ("Nalakapanna"), the Lord
Buddha stated that for the meditator who does not attain to Jhana,
the five Hindrances together with discontent and weariness invade
the mind and remain. Only when one does attain to Jhana do the five
Hindrances together with discontent and weariness not invade one's
mind and remain the way the Lord Buddha said it is.
Any meditator who has experienced the powerful
Jhanas would know through that experience, and what happens after,
what a mind without any Hindrances is truly like. The meditator who
hasn't known Jhanas does not realise the many subtle forms
Hindrances can take. They may think that the hindrances are
abandoned but, the truth is, they just don't see them and so do not
get great results in their meditation. This is why Samatha practice
which cultivates Jhana is part of the Satipatthana teaching and why
it is misinformation to call Satipatthana "pure Vipassana". Even my
teacher, Ajahn Chah, said over and over again that Samatha and
Vipassana, "calm and insight", go together and are inseparable as
the two faces of a coin.
Having patiently completed the necessary
preparations, the meditator sustains their mindfulness on one of the
four focuses: their own body, the pleasure and pain associated with
each sense, the mind consciousness and, fourthly, the objects of
mind. When the Hindrances are gone and one can sustain one's
powerful and penetrating attention on these four objects, only then
is it possible to realise that deep in our psyche, far deeper than
the veil of intelligent thinking, we have been assuming a Self. We
have been assuming that this body is "me" or "mine", that pleasure
or pain has something to do with me, that the mind which looks on is
our Soul or something close, and that the objects of mind such as
thought or volition (the 'chooser') is a Self, me, or mine. In
short, the purpose of the fourfold Focus of Mindfulness is to
instruct one what to do when one has emerged from a Jhana, to
uncover the deeply disguised delusion of a Soul and then see what
the Lord Buddha saw, the Truth of Anatta.
This is not an easy thing to do, but it can be
done, and it can take only seven days. That is if one follows the
Lord Buddha's instructions, follows them and takes no short cuts.
Ajahn Brahm
(From: Newsletter, July-October 1997,
Buddhist Society of Western Australia, Perth, Australia)
Notes (by Binh Anson):
[1] Other translation: Four Foundations of Mindfulness
[2] Five hindrances: sensual desire, ill-will, restlessness, sloth
and torpor, doubt