Reply To: Validity of current interpretation of Satipatthana Sutta

#51048
TripleGemStudent
Participant

Hope everyone is doing well and with their practice.

“I think the general idea is to see the body as it is, eg observe the breath, observe how it moves, observe what it is made of, observe how it decays, and then realise that the body is like this.”

One doesn’t necessary need to observe the breath to observe the body . . . Observing or focusing on the breath as meditation is a vayo kasina or 1 % of the full Buddhist dhatu meditation. One needs to contemplate / comprehend all the 4 dhatus and not just with vayo ( air)

In the sutta’s the formula for any dhatu meditation is always  Etaṁ mama, esohamasmi, eso me attā’ti in the end. Maybe I might have forgotten or missed, but from all the different Buddhism teachers / teachings I have come across teaching others to focus on the breath, I have yet see any teacher that teaches breath meditation as Etaṁ mama, esohamasmi, eso me attā’ti. There’s more things I can say about this, but don’t currently have the time to type all the things I want to say.     

“The body is like this” is applying the tilakkhana to the six internal sense spheres and the six external sense sphere. 

See the connection with the sections Kāyānupassanāpaṭikūlamanasikārapabba, Kāyānupassanādhātumanasikārapabba, Kāyānupassanānavasivathikapabba. Internally, externally, both internally and externally . . .  

Here’s another take / teaching on Anapanasati / Satipatthana.

Ana pana sati samadhi

I linked the video to the anapanasati / satipatthana series of video, but I would also recommend to watch the earlier video’s / teachings in the series which helps to gain a more complete / better understanding relating to the teachings in the video linked.

All the best.

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