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Guided Meditation: "There Is A Body"

Greetings, greetings friends, greetings sangha. Whatever time zone you are in, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Lovely to be with you in practice together at this moment in time.

So for today, this week we've been exploring the refrain of the Satipatthana Sutta^[1], going through each statement step by step together and exploring it. I'll say more again about the context during the brief dharmette afterwards, and I'll put up the diagram again just to give a refresher.

For the guided meditation, I'd like to just mention very briefly what the statement, the sentence is that we're working with today. The next part of the refrain we're working with today is, "Mindfulness that there is a body is established in one to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness."

I'm going to read this again, because this is going to serve as the inspiration. Actually, maybe it will help to read the whole refrain just for context. The whole refrain: "In this way, in regard to the body, one abides contemplating the body internally, or one abides contemplating the body externally, or one abides contemplating the body both internally and externally." We did this a couple of days ago.

The next sentence: "Or one abides contemplating the nature of arising in the body, or one abides contemplating the nature of passing away in the body, or one abides contemplating the nature of both arising and passing away in the body." We explored impermanence yesterday.

Now here is the next sentence: "Or mindfulness that there is a body is established in one to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness."

I'll read it one more time. "Or mindfulness that there is a body is established in one to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness."

So there are many keywords here which I will expand on later in the dharmette. During the guided meditation, I'll give invitations based on these particular keywords here: "that there is a body," "extent necessary for bare knowledge," "continuous mindfulness." These are, of course, beautiful, poetic, but they're not just poetry; these are direct instructions that the Buddha is offering.

I'll just read the last sentence which we'll bring in tomorrow and put it all together. The last couple of sentences: "One abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. That is how in regard to the body one abides contemplating the body."

So without further ado, let's practice together formally.

Arriving, arriving in our seat. Arriving in this body. Here, here.

As always, let's start by relinquishing, by releasing thoughts, preoccupations, what is not needed. Releasing preoccupations.

Relaxing into the body. Relaxing into the body.

And taking refuge in this moment in time, in our heart's intention, in our goodness, coming together to practice together. Taking refuge in the goodness within, the possibility for awakening, the teachings, and the sangha: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

Ah, let there be brightness. Let there be brightness, this sense of alignment. Maybe sitting up a little straighter if you're sitting. Not tightening, still relaxed, but a sense of alignment, verticality in our heart, body, and mind.

Noticing there is a body. There is a body.

Aware there is a body.

Can there be awareness with this phrase, with dropping in, "there is a body"? Not so much, "here is my body" or "what is this body?" Oh, there's a body, there's a body here. There's breathing happening here, sensations.

There is a body.

Notice how the use of this mental labeling, very light—"there is a body"—can bring recognition. Saññā^[2], recognition. What is here, present. And support sati^[3], mindfulness, and clear comprehension of what is here.

Simply, there is a body.

Established in awareness. Here, not entangled, but spacious.

Knowing clearly, knowing clearly. Knowing there is a body.

Not to analyze, not to be entangled. Just simply this awareness. Knowing there is a body.

This reflection for the purpose of continued awareness, continued mindfulness. Bare knowledge, bare knowledge, and continued awareness, light touch.

There is a body. There is a body.

A mental note. A linguistic note.

If you notice there's entanglement in the mind, the linguistic noting technique: "there is a body, there is a body." Ah, establishing, re-establishing sati, awareness, mindfulness, and continued recognition without entanglement, analysis. Simply knowing, clearly knowing.

There is a body.

There is a body.

Simply barely knowing. Continuous mindfulness. There is a body. There is a body, so simple and yet profound.

And for the last moments of this practice period together, whether there were many moments of bare knowing, clear comprehension, continued mindfulness, or just one, it's okay. Letting go, relinquishing, releasing any judgment. You showed up, you did your best by just showing up and planting seeds. We're cultivating goodness individually and collectively in the world for the benefit of ourselves and others.

Let us trust in this goodness, and this goodness co-created, and offer it generously. Generously and with humility, our goodness, the goodness of this body, this heart, this mind, and all of us collectively in this brief period in time that we're alive, this flash of lightning that is our life.

Offer this goodness. Offer this goodness from our practice today to all beings everywhere. Especially to those in the war zones, those feeling unsafe, threatened, fearful. Offering our care to all beings, especially those in difficult situations. May all beings everywhere be safe. May all beings everywhere be free.

Thank you for your practice.

Dharmette: Satipatthana Refrain (4/5) Use of Lexical Note For Awareness's Sake

Greetings, greetings dear friends, global friends. It's such a delight to feel your presence all over the world in various places. There's just a sense of brightness and gladness that's arising for me right now. Trusting you're here, we're all practicing together. I feel connected to you as if I see you in your homes, you're just all here, connected through this invisible thread of goodness and intention coming together to practice. So beautiful. I'm so touched, thank you.

So today we continue our fourth day of exploring the refrain of the Satipatthana. Just to remind us of the context, I will share this screen just as a bit of review.

The Satipatthana Sutta, the four foundations of mindfulness sutta, which you've been practicing and studying with Gil systematically over the past many weeks and continuing to practice for the next few weeks. The sutta has four sections. Looking at this, and this is drawn from the book Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization by Bhikkhu Anālayo^[4], a wonderful book. It's actually his PhD thesis that he did on this.

Looking starting from the bottom structure, there are four parts. There's the body—you see on the left side there's the body, there are six teachings to it. Feelings, which you practiced with Gil last week, feeling tones or vedanā^[5]. There's mind, mind states, often translated as citta^[6]. And then there is the dhamma^[7]. So these are the four foundations or establishments, four ways to establish awareness through these establishments, foundations.

And each teaching, many teachings in these sections go into detailed descriptions as to how to do the contemplation. It lists the postures, or say corpse and decay as a cemetery contemplation, stages of decay to go through, etc. And at the beginning there is a definition which I shared on the very first day; I'll touch into it today again. And the refrain repeats after every section. The Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha offers the refrain thirteen times, as if to say, "Hello, are you listening? I'm going to repeat the refrain thirteen times." And as I said earlier, I thought, "Oh, refrain, you know, sometimes the suttas are very repetitive like, 'Okay, okay, I want to get to the main teaching,'" whereas actually the refrain is so important, as we have been exploring this whole week together.

So today we want to focus on the third statement as I read it earlier. Just to bring us up to date, the first statement has to do with internal and external. Not just internally, as we associate mindfulness to be just internal. No, internally one abides contemplating the body internally, one abides contemplating the body externally, and one abides contemplating internally and externally. We discussed that, we practiced with that, and the sense of impersonality of internal and external can pop out.

Yesterday we worked with the second statement: arising and passing, or arising and passing, and the significance of contemplating impermanence, which is a doorway which is necessary for awakening. One cannot awaken without a deep appreciation and contemplation of arising and passing. Really grokking, getting impermanence in every way. Not in just one way, not in just one phenomena, but in every way, all phenomena, internal, external, the perceiver and the perceived, all aspects of experience, the long list of Satipatthana teachings. That's why the Buddha keeps repeating after everything: after breathing, after postures, after activities, anatomical parts. It's all impermanent, it all arises and passes away. Everything. Feeling tones, mind states, hindrances, everything. It's a pretty radical teaching, applied to all of these.

And today we turn to this third sentence, which relates to the previous two sentences, kind of building up. The third sentence: "Or mindfulness that there is a body is established in one to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness." Okay, there are a lot of key words here. Let's decode the significance of this.

In the guided meditation, I brought in "there is a body, there is a body." We dropped it in. And by the way, just to say, let me share this screen one more time. The refrain, of course, after feeling tones, it says the contemplation is that there is a feeling tone, not that there is a body. Or after the mind, it would be contemplated that there are mind states. So "that there is a body" repeats in the body section, and then the refrain for feelings, mind, dhammas, substitute the word feelings, mind, dhammas for the word body in the refrain. Just to be clear, these ones don't say "there is a body," they say "contemplating that there is dhammas." Just to be clear when you read it.

So what's the significance of this practice that there is a body, there is dhammas, there's feeling tones? I'm just going to continue with the body here just to have a specific instantiation, but again you can apply it to all these other foundations.

First, "mindfulness that there is a body." This is a mental label, or a mental note, or rather a linguistic note. This is the way that the suttas—and this is common actually in many places in the suttas. For example, in the Ānāpānasati Sutta^[8], "one knows I'm breathing, I breathe in long, one knows I breathe in short." Like, "one knows." It's a linguistic device. In the tradition, in the practice, it's called mental noting. But I like "linguistic" or "lexical" noting because "mental" somehow I feel like we have to note it in our head, but lexical I think is a better choice of the word. So I'm going to use linguistic note.

It's a linguistic note, as we practiced with together. "Oh, there is a body, there is a body," you drop it in, you bring it up. The idea here is that it's a skillful employment, a skillful use of verbal knowledge. So the practice doesn't mean that you have to relinquish all verbal knowledge. Actually, concepts can be helpful for the sake of knowledge and continued mindfulness, as it says in the rest of the sentence. In fact, I think what I'll do is that I will put this line in chat so that you can actually see this and follow this line of the sutta that we're talking about here.

So there is a skillful use of linguistic noting for the purpose of bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness. This labeling can strengthen recognition, as you might have experienced yourself today in our practice. It can strengthen recognition and clear comprehension. It kind of brings it back together if the mind is distracted and lots is arising. "Oh, there is a body, there is a body." And again, it's not that "it's my body," there is a sense of objectivity. There is a body. There's a sense of spaciousness that can arise. "Ah, there is a body."

And yet, this is not an end to itself. This lexical note, we don't keep repeating it as a mantra. We don't attach to it. It's only again, as this beautiful line in the sutta says, "to the extent necessary." So important, to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continued mindfulness. You might have noticed it, I hope you did, for at least a little bit. Like, "yeah, there is ease." Like, "oh yeah, it's easier, there's a body, I can have an awareness of it, and there's more continuous mindfulness, awareness, clear knowing when this lexical labeling is used."

Another significance of this, and I'll wrap up quickly, is that labeling is not a means to an end; it will be let go of when it does establish awareness. It also connects this clear knowing in this sentence, "bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness," it connects to what we discussed about the definition on Monday with sampajañña^[9], with clear comprehension. So this mental note can bring more clear comprehension, which I really hope you experienced.

And lastly, to say, this use of concept here, using this lexical note, we are using concepts in a helpful way. The object of this practice is not to get rid of concepts to have an empty mind. This is a misperception sometimes; people think, "Oh yeah, the point is to empty my mind." No, here the Buddha is actually instructing us to bring in, to use concepts skillfully in order to establish what? In order to establish bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness. So this is a very important point here.

With that, I'd like to end by thanking you and inviting you, as you go about your daily life, take this practice with you. "There is a body." When you are distracted, stressed perhaps, "ah, there is a body." And again, it's not my body, it's like, "oh, there's a body, there's a sense of spaciousness, a healthy lack of attachment. Like, oh there's a body. Wow, how amazing there's a body." That's one thing that was coming up for me this morning. A sense of joy actually can arise. "Oh, there is a body, wow." And continuous mindfulness, the mind can really engage and relish the light in continuous mindfulness. So please take the practice with you through the day, let it be with you, support you. Thank you so much for your practice, and looking forward to being with you tomorrow as we bring it all together. Be well, take good care.