The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: A New Twist on an Old Teaching

Last updated on: June 1, 2011 at 1:20 am by Justin Whitaker

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: A New Twist on an Old Teaching 2011-06-01T01:20:00-06:00 Justin Whitaker

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This week, Bodhipaksa, my former teacher and long-time Dharma-friend, posted an in-depth article on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, a central practice in Buddhist meditation. I’m glad to see it and hope it, along with my thoughts below, spawn some interesting discussion. Indeed, this teaching has spawned some different interpretations over the years, but Bodhipaksa’s approach of pulling together the process-nature of the first three foundations is, to my knowledge, a completely new way of approaching the practice. I’ll start off by saying that while I can see the utility of the explanation as a whole, I’m still inclined to favor the ‘traditional’ understanding as it comes to me via Matthew Flickstein.

In his explanation –it’s been a few years, so no doubt I’m importing my own understanding and teachings from others- the four foundations are akin to peeling an onion (indeed the onion of the self), moving from coarser layers toward the –nonexistent (or dynamic/process-oriented if you like)- center. We start with kāya, the body, seeing that we identify with it quite easily, and thus we cling to it. And body is easily apparent to us, manifesting as solidity, pressure, obstruction. Even a monkey-mind can find these and try to observe them in most any moment of ordinary life. Turning to analytic evaluation of what the body is, which is rather foul, we should develop less clinging and indeed renunciation from the body.

Then we move on to vedanā, the affective quality of anything that arises to our consciousness. This is more subtle, but we can still ‘see’ ourselves liking and disliking fairly easily; especially in meditation, where pains or feelings of calm may sweep over us unexpectedly. So we just observe this ‘reactive’ quality to whatever appears to our consciousness. We also, on a subtler level, identify with our likes and dislikes, building a world of good/bad and us/them ideologies.

Cittā brings us a layer deeper, to something finer and again a bit more difficult. Here we bring awareness to what I below describe as the “conceptual” nature of experience. It’s a deeper level and in a two-way relation to all others. This may give trouble to your process explanation, insofar as it should show the other way things can flow. For example, I might have a negative vedanā when I see a colored person if I have racist qualities of cittā. From my own experience a better example, however, is that of having a negative vedanā when pain arises in a knee when I have the conception of that pain as solid, stabbing, burning, and so on. These descriptions qua reality are wrong –a product of delusion and/or aversion-, but subjectively, due to my cittā, they are real enough. When I can see the pain as dancing, flowing, and ultimately simply as rising and falling, then the vedanā becomes neutral.

Finally the dhammā. The apparent redundancy in this and cittā is, I believe, just a matter of the poverty of the English language when it comes to describing aspects and processes of the mind. I recall a conversation back in Bodh Gaya when a colleague asked several of us, “What do you think is the difference between open awareness and nonconceptual awareness?” I declined to speculate then, but, in usual smart-aleck fashion wanted to say that one seems to have more letters and syllables then the other. As to what Pāḷi or Sanskrit terms these relate to, my immediate thought was that they were probably just two different translations of sati.

Roughly speaking, I take cittā to be heart/mind in a “postconceptional” sense; it is what we think and feel (emotionally) about things/nouns, a product of delusion. The dhammas are the raw (mental) data of conception; they are experience, the flow of experience, free of subjective conceptuality and clinging/aversion. Cittā is much closer in usage and meaning to intention (cetanā) and kamma. They are aspects of the subjective world, whereas dhammas are pre-subjective (subjectification is a process) or objective. And, given that I don’t think Buddhism can be reasonably argued to be materialistic or dualistic, we can see that an idealistic understanding of “Reality” can only be expressed in terms of mental states. So it makes sense that commentators (indeed the entire tradition) oscillate between these two explanations of the term. In fact I can see plausible reasons for all of the translations of the four foundations by various authors (from the article):

· Bhikkhu Thanissaro has Body, Feelings, Mind, and Mental Qualities
· Joseph Goldstein (One Dharma): Body, Feelings, Mind & Mental States, and Dharma
· Bhikkhu Bodhi (Middle Length Discourses): Body, Feeling, Mind, and Mind Objects
· Bhikkhu Bodhi (A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma): Body, Feelings, States of Consciousness, and Mental Objects.
· Sangharakshita (Know Your Mind): Body, Feelings & Emotions, Thoughts, and Ultimate Reality

Although I do agree that vedanā as “Emotions” can be problematic. Bodhipaksa further writes, “The two things vedanā-s needs to be distinguished from are sensations and emotions.” I agree and found this discussion very helpful. I’ve mostly been inclined to use “sensation” in stead of feelings, because in modern vernacular “feelings” is so often synonymous with “emotions.” I suppose whatever word you use, you’ll need to give the further explanation that vedanā comes in just three flavors: positive, negative, and neither-positive-nor-negative.

I think Bodhipaksa is on exactly the right track when he says of the first three foundations, “They represent a progressive training in recognizing each of the three stages in the formation of our mental states — our emotional and cognitive “inner climate.” But I think his understanding of that progressive training is a bit different from my own and that of tradition as I know it.

Bodhipaksa goes on, “Again, this may or may not be a novel observation, but I’m not aware of other commentators having regarded the satipaṭṭhānas as a training in the observation of psychological dynamics.”

Indeed, while I haven’t heard it stated exactly this way, the satipaṭṭhānas are generally taught as trainings in observations of mind/mentality/psychology – and as is becoming a helpful commonplace, “Buddhism does not speak in nouns, but verbs” (my old professor John Peacock comes immediately to mind with that quote, but I’ve seen and heard it elsewhere too). So that all of this is dynamic is also well established and shouldn’t conflict with traditional explanations.

What do conflict with tradition are the exposition of the fourth foundation and the notion of “commentarial bloat.” No doubt the commentators have made mistakes with the Buddha’s teachings, as Richard Gombrich has argued (and Jayarava argues in a discussion of the Mettā Sutta). But the burden of proof lies with the accuser in these cases and while I think Gombrich and Jayarava give sufficient evidence, Bodhipaksa’s case here needs more argumentation in my opinion.

I welcome further discussion of this point because if it is correct, Bodhipaksa’s interpretation would open new directions in the interpretation and implementation of the four foundations of mindfulness. To my understanding, the inclusion of the 5 hindrances, the 7 factors of awakening, the four noble truths, etc., are found in the discussion of the fourth foundation of mindfulness precisely because of their subtlety. It is only with the mind conditioned by the previous three levels of practice that these can be properly seen “as they are.” They also can be seen as methods by which to better see “Reality” as it is, each bringing us closer in its own way. Likewise the various exercises in the kāya section (with the body as foundation) serve as pointers to seeing the body as it truly is – and cultivating the necessary detachment to finally quit identifying with it.

Again, I hope for further discussion of these texts and practices, as they form an important basis for Buddhist meditation practice. I welcome Bodhipaksa’s interpretation and explanation into the fold of traditional understandings, though I find the analogy of the practice as “peeling an onion” more satisfactory both in terms of my practice and philosophical/philological dispositions. The onion analogy also preserves the sequential nature of the practice’s four stages. Each is deeper, more subtle, and brings us nearer to reality – dhamma. In Bodhipaksa’s interpretation:

The third satipaṭṭhāna (cittā) involves mindful awareness of mental states as they arise on the basis of vedanā-s. The fourth satipaṭṭhāna is a mindful observation of the process by which these mental states lead toward, or away from, suffering, and toward, or away from, Awakening. While the cittā satipaṭṭhāna involves noticing the mind and its mental states, the dhammā satipaṭṭhāna involves noticing the spiritual-psychological dynamics in which mental states are involved.

But the sutta itself explains that the Contemplation of Mind (Cittānupassanā, the third foundation) as, “Here a bhikkhu understands the mind [citta] affected by lust as mind affected by lust, the mind unaffected by lust as unaffected by lust [rāga].” The same for hate, delusion, and mind affected by contraction, exaltation, and surpassed and unsurpassed mind, as well as liberated vs. unliberated mind. This seems to go beyond the mere connection with vedanā (feeling/sensation), and into a the more complex and subtle (and, I’d suggest, “conceptual”) aspects of experience. Here we can say the mind “colors” experience, as hate “colors” ordinarily neutral experiences as negative, or delusion can make us see things in an overly “rosy” manner. The other states I haven’t heard/seen discussed in nearly as much detail, but I assume they operate in the same way. [The inclusion of liberated and unliberated here, vimuttaṃ and avimuttaṃ, is admittedly puzzling, as I’m not sure a monk could know/understand liberated mind in the sense that the Buddha usually means this without in fact being liberated – vimuttaṃ elsewhere being synonymous with nibbāna. Something to think about no doubt.]

To say that the the fourth foundation involves again looking at mental states with a particular awareness may be correct, or it may get us caught in the confusion of the English language mentioned above. In the third foundation we’re given the above list of ways of looking at mind, citta. In the fourth we’re given a few different approaches toward understanding dhammā as dhammā (or mind-objects as mind-objects). We’re instructed to look at the five hindrances, understanding each simply as it is. We look not for a mind, citta, affected by each, but rather for the hindrance itself, ajjhatta, meaning subjectively or from within. Likewise in the discussion of the five aggregates and the six sense bases, we’re not looking for them as aspects of mind/citta. In fact the sense-base often translated as “mind” is mana. And the “mental objects” that arise to mana are none other than dhamma. So we’re here dealing with something different from citta (mind) and citta/cetasikā (mental-factors). In the factors of awakening, Bojjhaṅga, again the monk understands these simply as arising within (ajjhatta).

The section on the four noble truths (cato ariyasacca), is the shortest, and simply instructs the monk to dwell contemplating each of the four, knowing it as it truly is (yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti).

Hence my argument above that in the fourth foundation we are not trying to look at citta or mental states in a new way, but rather at something deeper or more fundamental (“raw”). You could say this means looking at the “spiritual-psychological dynamics in which mental states are involved,” but it’s not clear to me how lust, hatred, and delusion, aspects of the third foundation, are not spiritual-psychological.

Again, I liked Bodhipaksa’s article, and his writing in general – and I geekily love all discussions of this kind – so I hope this promotes rather than quiets discussion of his article and how we can best understand (and practice!) the four foundations of mindfulness. My gratitude to Bodhipaksa and to you for any thoughts you might share.

Check out his article for links to the suttas used. I have to admit I stuck with just one, while he give a broader survey. My apologies for formating problems and not italicizing the Pāli, it was all beautiful at one point, but got really ugly, so I had to strip it down to bare text…