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Guided Meditation: Inspired by Satipatthana "Definition"

Hello, friends. Hello, good morning, good afternoon, whatever time zone you're joining from. Delighted to be with you, delighted to practice together in this moment in time. As Gil announced on Friday, he's teaching a retreat this week, and I'm glad to be together, supporting your practice, and practicing together with you in this moment in time, feeling your presence. Thank you for the warm welcomes that I see in chat, very kind of you.

For this week, given that you have been practicing the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta^[1] in a very methodical and slow way with Gil over the past few weeks, and weeks also remaining, what I would like to share and offer in support of your practice, our practice, is delving into the refrain of the Satipaṭṭhāna. It's not the specific sections about the topics, but it's the refrain that actually, years ago as I was studying the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, blew my mind—how significant the refrain actually is for all of the practices.

I'll also bring in a little bit of the introduction, phrasing, and suggestions for setting the frame. Basically, this week, these five days, it's about how to practice the Satipaṭṭhāna, not what to practice. Gil is very slowly, thoroughly going through the topics of the establishments, of the foundations, and the refrain and the introduction really have to do with how to practice—the way, the scope, the attitude. That's what I'd like to bring in to offer to support your practice, and may it be of service.

I'll say more about this in the Dharma talk afterwards. Without further ado, let's meditate together. I'll drop in a few invitations, and we'll simply be with the body, the first foundation for this practice together. So without further ado, let us begin.

Let us begin. Arriving, landing. Landing in our seat, landing in our bodies. Arriving, arriving each moment. Each moment a new arrival.

Letting go, letting go, releasing. Releasing any thoughts, releasing preoccupations. Releasing whatever is not necessary or not helpful in this moment. Releasing, releasing.

As thoughts arise, not that there's anything wrong with thinking per se, but for the benefit of ourselves, for the benefit of others. In service, our practice as service. Dedicating ourselves in this moment in time. Dedicating, dedicating ourselves wholeheartedly to this practice right now. Lovingly, not with "shoulds" and "I have to," but lovingly giving ourselves over with love to this moment, to arriving.

Being aware wholeheartedly, lovingly, even if what we're aware of are challenging sensations or emotions, it's okay. Relaxing, softening, releasing. With each breath, with each in-breath, becoming more present, a little more present, a little more aware.

Bringing in balanced engagement. Engaging, this beautiful word, engaging. With each out-breath, letting go of preoccupations, of thoughts, of disengagement with this moment. Letting go of entanglement with the world. Each in-breath, engagement with this moment, here, now, heartfully, lovingly. Each out-breath, letting go of entanglement. Engagement in, and then releasing entanglement.

Letting awareness receive the breath in the abdomen, perhaps settled, well-rooted, grounded.

Engagement, engagement with energy. Engaging, engaging with balanced energy. Not too tight, not too loose. Tuning the bow of our musical instrument, which is our awareness, our body, our body's fullness. With each in-breath, brightening this engagement, the ātāpī^[2].

Letting the engagement be easeful, energetic yet easeful. It doesn't have to be tight. With the out-breath, let there be release. Let there be release.

As in the introduction of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta: free from desires and discontent in regard to the world. Vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṃ^[3]. Letting go of discontent, entanglement, for this moment. Desires and discontent, entanglement. Ah, here, just here.

And clearly knowing, clearly knowing what is here: the breath in the body. Clearly knowing, sampajañña^[4]. Clearly knowing, not foggily, not half-thinking about this or that, but clearly knowing this breath, this sensation. This miracle of being alive. This body breathing, sensing, being. Respecting the miracle it is as doorways to wisdom, to clear comprehension. Clear comprehension, sampajañña.

Mindfully, with sati^[5]. Mindfully, it's like this. Without judging, wanting it to be different, it's like this. Wow, interesting, with curiosity, interest. Mindfulness and clear comprehension. Sati and sampajañña.

Let's see what is needed more in this moment in time. More engagement, energetic engagement with ātāpī? More release, more letting go with the out-breath? And of course, always with sati, with mindfulness, knowing what is needed. With clear comprehension of what is happening, what's here right now, this miraculous mind, body, heart.

Discover how nourishing and delicious these factors can be. Engaged, energetic engagement. Releasing what's not needed. Mindfulness and clear comprehension. How delicious, how bright they can feel. How soothing, how relaxing to the body, and heart, and mind. Without judging yourself if any of them isn't present, no problem. No problem, release, just release. If any judgment arises, then begin again with engagement. It's very simple. Don't throw perfectly good moments after moments that are gone. Begin again.

Clearly knowing, sampajañña.

And as this period of our sitting meditation comes to a close together, let us bring to mind all of us sitting together, in our mind's eye. Hundreds of us, and hundreds listening later, and hundreds of other practitioners around the world. Knowing, trusting that there is goodness. There is goodness in us practicing separately, together, and dedicating, offering this goodness. This service, our practice as service to love, to wisdom. Offering our practice, no matter how shoddy we might judge it to be. Trusting there is goodness we've showed up, even if there was one moment of clear comprehension or mindfulness. Dedicating together, dedicating our practice, our service, our goodness to the entire world, to all beings, to all beings.

Those who are living through war right now, feeling unsafe and challenged. Offering our care, for holding witness, not turning away. With wisdom and compassion, offering it to them and all beings everywhere.

May all beings everywhere be safe. May all beings everywhere be happy. May all beings everywhere be free.

Thank you. Thank you for your practice.

Satipatthana Refrain (1/5) Introduction

Greetings, greetings again friends, wherever in the world you are. Delighted that we are coming together in time, even if not spatially, but temporally, which actually ties into something I want to talk about today: spatial and temporal relationships.

As I mentioned at the beginning, since you've been studying the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta with Gil systematically, thoroughly through the different sections as a way of supporting your practice, I'd like to offer this week taking more time, taking detailed time with the refrain. Today in the meditation, I brought in some invitations, some teachings from the introduction. So I'd like to say a little bit about the structure of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. For some of you this might be new, for some of you this might be review, and it's always fun even if it's review.

I have one slide, and if you have your eyes closed or if your screen is too small, not to worry because I'm going to share with you everything you need to know. Let me bring up... let me share my screen. [Laughter] The joys of Zoom. Here we go. Okay. Alright, let's see if it's showing. No, it's not. Okay, let's try that again. It's not showing, I'm not sure... let's... okay, I'm going to try it one more time. Oh dear Zoom, how I love thee. Okay, there we go. I think it's working now. Okay, I think it was working before also. Anyway.

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the four foundations of mindfulness sutta. I have to give credit, this is from the book Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization by Venerable Bhikkhu Anālayo^[6]. You can't see it quite clearly because of the virtual background, but I'll say more about the book in a moment.

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is divided into four different sections. On the left, as you see from the bottom, there's a section called the Body. There are six sections in the Body, and you've studied them with Gil: breathing, postures, activities, anatomical parts, elements, and corpse and decay. Then the second section of the Satipaṭṭhāna, the second foundation, the second establishment, is Feelings, or vedanā^[7], or feeling tones, which you practiced with Gil last week. Next week, I trust he will be covering the third Satipaṭṭhāna, Mind, here you see it. And then the last foundation is Dhammas^[8], which again has five parts: hindrances, aggregates, sense spheres, awakening factors, and noble truths. So right now you're kind of in the middle here of having covered half of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta with Gil, and the other half remaining.

This is the structure of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and what I'd like to bring your attention to is that in between each section where specific teachings are given—say, starting from the bottom, the first teaching is about the breath, the second one about body postures, etc.—the way the sutta is written, at the beginning it talks about how this is the direct path. How these teachings are the direct path to awakening. I can also read that for you, it's a short paragraph:

"Practitioners, this is the direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of dukkha^[9] and discontent, for acquiring the true method, for the realization of Nibbāna^[10], namely, the four satipaṭṭhānas."

So here is the declaration that this is the direct path. And of course, this is repeated at the end, and I love this because as an ex-academic, whenever I gave talks, I was told: at the beginning, say what you're going to say; then expose it, give the details; and at the end, say what you have said. So here the Buddha is doing that as supreme academic. He is like, "This is what I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you about the direct path." Then he goes through all the details, lays it out, and at the end, again, this paragraph is repeated again. So it's a beautiful mirror image in that way.

Then there is a definition. This definition, which I will read for you in a minute, is also a way of offering how to practice. But what I really want to bring your attention to, which we'll go over this week, is the refrain. You see the refrain shows up after every teaching. For those of you who have read the sutta, sometimes suttas can be repetitive. And when you see something repeated, sometimes you're like, "Okay, okay, I've seen this before, I want to see the actual new part, the teaching." And yet, the refrain here is repeated thirteen times. If it weren't important, it wouldn't be repeated thirteen times. Each teaching is repeated once, the refrain is repeated thirteen times. Wow.

Years ago, when I was studying the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, realizing this through the pointing out of Bhikkhu Anālayo—his PhD thesis, he's a venerable monk, a respected monk, and he did his thesis on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, which became a book called Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization—when I read this and noticed, "Wow, the refrain is so important," and then he exposed the nuances of the refrain, it made so much sense given my own practice with Pa-Auk Sayadaw^[11] and the various things that he had taught me that had blown my mind. Yes, they were in the refrain, and I hadn't seen them pointed out clearly by others. So the refrain is so important that I would like to bring that to your attention this week.

I'll read the definition because I borrowed from it in the guided meditation, and then read the refrain, and then we'll go through it more this week. After the direct path, it ended there and then continues: "What are the four?"

"Here, practitioners, in regard to the body, a practitioner abides contemplating the body, diligent, clearly knowing, and mindful, free from desires and discontent in regard to the world."

And then he goes through and points out the same phrase repeating in regards to feelings, mind, and mental objects. "In regards to feelings... a practitioner abides contemplating feelings, diligent, clearly knowing, and mindful, free from desires and discontent in regard to the world."

Basically, the Buddha is telling us in the definition at the very beginning, like, "Hey, I'm going to tell you about these four: I'm going to tell you about the body, feelings, mind, and mental objects. And the way I invite you to reflect on them is in these four ways: with diligence, with a sense of energy, balanced but sustained application of energy," which is this beautiful word called ātāpī, which I mentioned before. So ātāpī. Clear knowing is sampajañña. Mindful is sati. Free from desires and discontent in regard to the world is vineyya loke abhijjhādomanassaṃ.

So these four. In the guided meditation, I invited for us to bring this ātāpī, this sustained application of energy, balanced engagement. I call it engagement or energy, ātāpī, which I love. By the way, when I learned about it, wow, what a beautiful concept you can just drop it into your practice now and then. Ātāpī, ātāpī, let it light up your energy. And the letting go, which is also a factor of concentration: free from desire and discontent in regards to the world. And then sampajañña, clearly knowing, and mindfulness, which is sati, which we've been practicing.

I'll just briefly read the refrain—since I've talked about the refrain, I'll just read the refrain. And of course, we'll go through it more, there's so much more about the refrain. So here goes the refrain. Actually, I have it up on my screen, I can read it. After, say, breathing has been taught, the Buddha says:

"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."

Wow, okay, so we have this internal-external concept. We've just expanded the spatial dimension, it's not just internal. Okay, then he continues:

"One abides contemplating the nature of arising in the body, 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."

Okay, so we're not just contemplating the breath itself anymore, it's not the object, but we've now added a temporal aspect: time, arising, passing, arising and passing. Okay, we've just expanded this teaching of breathing in the Satipaṭṭhāna to have both spatial (internal and external) as well as temporal aspects. Wow. Okay, what else is there in the refrain? A couple more things:

"Mindfulness that 'there is a body' is established in him to the extent necessary for bare knowledge and continuous mindfulness."

I'll say more about this later, we just want to read it. And lastly—oh, this is my favorite line:

"And one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world."

And the last finishing line:

"And this is how, in regard to the body, one abides contemplating the body."

Like, okay, you get it? Practitioners, this is how in regards to the body, one abides contemplating the body. It's just so beautiful. I'm going to stop share. It's just so beautiful, this teaching is so beautiful, and I can't wait for us to discuss it and explore it in practice together this week.

Thank you so much for your practice, for your care, for your kind attention, and I look forward to practicing together this week. May you be well.