The Noble Eight fold Path

(The Fourth Noble Truth :  Magga : The Path)

5. Right Mindfulness

Meditation is fulfilled by the conjunction of the three factors of the Path : Right Effort, Right Mindfulness  and Right Concentration. These form the three strands of the rope; they are intertwined and interrelated. Mindfulness, however is considered as the strongest strand, for it plays an important role in the acquisition of both calm and insight. Without this all important factor of mindfulness, one cannot cognize sense objects, one cannot be fully aware of one’s behavior. It is called Right Mindfulness, because , it avoids misdirected attention, and prevents the mind from paying attention to things in a false way.

Right mindfulness is instrumental not only in bringing concentrative calm, but in promoting right understanding and right living.

The Buddha has pointed out that the four fold Arousing of Mindfulness, as the one and only way that  the liberated ones have taken.

In his discourse on the Arousing of Mindfulness, (Satipatthana-sutta), which may be called , the most important discourse by the Buddha on mental development or Meditation, the Buddha has identified four references for establishing mindfulness (satipatthana): body, sensations (or feelings), mind (or consciousness) and mental contents. These are then further broken down into the following sections and subsections:

1.    The Contemplation of the Body (Kāyā)

·         Mindfulness of Breathing ( Anapanasati Sutta)

·         Mindfulness of Postures (Walking, Standing, Sitting, Lying Down)

·         The four fold Clear Comprehension

·         Reflections on Repulsiveness of the Body

·         Reflections on Material Elements

·         Cemetery Contemplations

2.   Sensations/Feelings (Vedanā)

·         Mindfulness of pleasant or unpleasant or neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant (neutral) feelings

·         Mindfulness of worldly or spiritual feelings

3.   Mind/Consciousness (Cittā)

·         Mindfulness of lust or without lust

·         Mindfulness of hate or without hate

·         Mindfulness of delusion  or without delusion

·         Mindfulness of shrunken state of mind or  distracted state state  of Mind

·         Mindfulness of the developed state of mind  or undeveloped state of mind

·         Mindfulness of surpassable mind or unsurpassable mind

·         Mindfulness of the concentrated Mind  or not concentrated Mind

·         Mindfulness of the liberated or the unliberated mind

4.   Mental Contents (Dhammā)

·         The five Hindrances : sense desires, ill-will, sloth & stupor, restlessness and worry and skeptical doubt.

·         The Five Aggregates of Clinging : material forms, feelings, perception, mental formations and consciuosness

·         The Six Sense-Bases and their Fetters : eyes & visible forms, ears & sound forms, nose & smell forms, tongue & taste forms, body tactile objects  and mind and mind-objects.

·         The seven Factors of Enlightenment :

·         The Four Noble Truths

 (for the detailed study of the above refer -The Budhha’s Ancient Path by Ther Piyadassi)

As stated above, Mindfulness is specially concerned with just four things : Body, Feeling, Mind and mind-objects., all pertaining to human being. The contemplation of the body makes us realize its true nature, without any pretence, by analyzing it right down to its ultimates, into its fundamental elements. This mental scrutiny of our own bodies helps us to realize, what kind of a phenomenon the human body is , to realize that it is a process without any underlying substance or core that may be taken as permanent and lasting.

The description of each type of Mindfulness in the sutta ends with the words :’he lives independent clinging to nothing in the world’  This is the result aimed at by the meditator.