Satipatthana - The Basics

At the heart of Buddhist meditation practice is a method which the Buddha called Satipaṭṭhāna. And the Buddha had called Satipaṭṭhāna the only way (ekāyano) for the realization of Nibbāna, the ultimate goal of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. Therefore it is not surprising that sammā-sati (right-mindfulness), one of the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, is also defined as the practice of Satipaṭṭhāna (Saṃyutta Nikāya, Maggasaṃyutta, Sutta 8). In fact, so integral is Satipaṭṭhāna to the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path that if one is to practice Buddhist meditation effectively one must have a good understanding of what Satipaṭṭhāna is.

So what exactly is Satipaṭṭhāna?

The Place of Vipassana Among the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path

In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Saṃyutta Nikāya, Mahāvagga, Saccasaṃyutta, Sutta 11), the Buddha declared for the first time the basic foundation of his teaching: the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths.

The first noble truth is the noble truth of suffering (dukkhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ). In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta the Buddha gave a list of things which are suffering: birth, ageing, sickness, death, meeting with people and things that are displeasing, separation from people and things that are pleasing, and not to have one’s wish fulfilled. We can also add to this list sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. But at the end of the list in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta the Buddha said: “In short the five-aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.”

So the truth of suffering is, in short, these five-aggregates subject to clinging: the aggregate of materiality, feeling, perception, mental-formations, and consciousness, subject to clinging. If we simplify them we can say that they are mundane mental and physical phenomena (nāma-rūpa). They are the truth of suffering because they have the nature of being subjected to suffering.

The second noble truth is the noble truth of the cause of suffering (dukkha-samudayaṃ ariyasaccaṃ). The Buddha traced the cause of suffering to craving that leads to renewed existence or rebirth, that is accompanied by delight and lust, that finds delight here and there in one existence or another. It is this craving that compels and propels beings, at the time of death, to seek rebirth and so be embroiled into yet another cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death, another cycle of suffering. And as long as craving is present the cycle of suffering will go on and on from one birth to another, each birth marking the beginning of another cycle of suffering.

The third noble truth is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering (dukkha-nirodhaṃ ariyasaccaṃ). Here the Buddha gave us hope. Even though there is suffering in the world there can also be an end to it. Suffering ceases, according to the Buddha, when there is the complete fading away and cessation of its cause i.e. craving.

Not only did the Buddha said that suffering can cease, he even gave us the way of practice, the method to bring suffering to an end. This is the fourth noble truth, the noble truth of the way that leads to the cessation of suffering (dukkha-nirodha-gāminī paṭipadā ariyasaccaṃ). This is the Noble Eightfold Path consisting of right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

The Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths, these are the basic foundation of the Buddha’s teaching. The Buddha taught in ancient Northern India for forty five years and all the discourses that he delivered during this time were, one way or another, based on the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. But given that these are the basic foundation of the Buddha’s teaching, where does vipassanā comes in? Where can we place vipassanā in the scheme of the Noble Eightfold Path and Four Noble Truths?

Asking Questions About Dhamma

Note: This post is a follow-up from the previous post Doubt and Wrong-View.

Raising questions about the Dhamma regarding matter which is not clear or which one is not certain about, with the purpose of seeking clarification, should not be construed as doubt (vicikicchā) or wrong-view (micchā-diṭṭhi). The Buddha’s teaching is not some unquestionable dogma that must be accepted by it’s devotees without question. There is room for “healthy doubt” in the Buddha’s teaching. This is not the same as the doubt which constitute one of the hindrances to the practice of meditation nor has the questioner fallen into wrong-view. He simply wants to know the truth.

Doubt and Wrong-View

Buddhists tend to get doubt (vicikicchā) and wrong-view (diṭṭhi) mixed-up, or confused one with the other. For many Buddhist when somebody holds wrong-view that person must also have doubt. And vice versa, when a person has doubt he must have also fallen into wrong-view. But actually doubt and wrong view are very different one from the other. They have very different nature.

Attaining Enlightenment While Listening to Dhamma

In the Pāḷi Texts we find many instances of people during the Buddha’s time who attained the various stages of enlightenment even while listening to the Buddha teaching the Dhamma. How is this possible? In the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta the Buddha had said that satipaṭṭhāna or the establishing of firm mindfulness is the only way for the realization of Nibbāna. If so, how is it that these people attained enlightenment and realized Nibbāna by listening to the Dhamma instead of practicing satipaṭṭhāna? Two questions arise: (1) What exactly happened in the minds of these people as they sat there listening to the Dhamma that led to their attainment of enlightenment? And (2) why is it that we no longer hear of people attaining enlightenment in this way anymore nowadays?

The Spirit of Vesak

Somewhere along the process of evolution human developed the faculty of thinking and the capacity for self-awareness. Since then man had began to wonder about the natural world that he lives in and its effect on his awareness. He had strived to understand and make sense of the many natural phenomena that he experiences around him and their impact on his consciousness. In the process of doing so man had come out with many different explanations for their common experience of these phenomena.

But there are two things that many among the human race share in common as a result of their attempt to understand their experience of the world. Firstly, they realized that the world is plagued with suffering and is unsatisfactory; and, secondly, they share a feeling or a sense of something beyond their experience that is greater than themselves, something that is ever present, that transcends and is untouched by the unsatisfactoriness of their world. This something, they believe, they must seek, and finding it, they believe, will deliver them from the unsatisfactoriness, the suffering, of their earthly existence. This belief had given birth to many of the world’s major and minor religious and spiritual traditions that we have today.

Rituals and the Practice of the Dhamma

In so far as the teaching of the Buddha deals primarily with the training and disciplining of the mind in order to achieve mind’s liberation from the shackles of dukkha, it is a spiritualistic rather than a ritualistic teaching.

There is little that is ritualistic in the teaching of the Buddha. Although there are certain recommended procedures and guidelines given in the Vinaya for carrying out certain function of the Saṅgha, these are practical advices which are meant for the Saṅgha to use in a very real world of human beings, to address very real human problems and needs. They are not ritualistic procedure that must be rigidly adhered to, and the failure to do so does not entail a violation of some sacred ceremony or ritual purity that may incur the wrath of some unseen being.

But after the Buddha’s passing away his teaching gradually became institutionalized into a religion called Buddhism (Buddha – ism). And together with this came the accompanying rites and rituals that usually adorn religions. Simple teaching of the Buddha such as going for refuge and observing the precepts which was originally recommended as personal spiritual undertaking, forming part of the foundation of the training on the spiritual path leading to liberation from dukkha, was turned into religious rituals to be carried out by the assembled devotees in every religious ceremony and meeting.