[sybe07]

Sati is often translated as mindfulness. Lal showed that this is a bit superficial.
Sati in satipatthana has a deeper meaning too. A thief might be very mindful, but this cannot be called sati. Sati does also refer to a moral mindset and satipatthana to the practise of keeping a moral mindset.

Thinking about this the thought of conscience came to mind.
A conscientious person is also concerned with keeping the mind clean, undefiled with immoral thoughts, speech and actions. He/she has a strong sense of moral shame and dread (two treasures).

So i was wondering, is sati related to the function of conscience and can satipatthana be seen as keeping a clean conscience? The conscience seems to know what is right and wrong.
What to do and not to do. Not listening to ones conscience is problematic.

[Lal]

Yes. Sati is another misinterpreted Pali word.

Sati means keeping the mind on a particular arammana. That can be good or bad.
– Miccha sati is keeping the mind on a defiled arammana, say, stealing something, sexual misconduct, etc.
– Samma sati is keeping the mind on moral thought objects. That can have a wide range from, say, thinking about giving to focusing on a deep Dhamma concept.

Samadhi is a related word that also has been misinterpreted.
– Miccha sati leads to miccha samadhi. Thus, one ‘s mind will focus on a misdeed or a wrong view.
– Samma sati leads to samma samadhi. Here, one’s mind will be focused on a moral deed or a concept.

Sybe wrote: “Thinking about this the thought of conscience came to mind.
A conscientious person is also concerned with keeping the mind clean, undefiled with immoral thoughts, speech and actions. He/she has a strong sense of moral shame and dread (two treasures).”

That is right. What you describe is samma sati.

[Lal]

Sybe07 has tried to post the following comment and was unable to. I am sorry about this persisting issue. Hopefully, the forum software team will be able to fix this issue soon. It seems to be an intermittent problem, since Sybe07 was able to post his original question above.

Sybe07’s comment:

Thanks Lal,
In SN35.245 en SN47.12 sati is compared to a gatekeeper who is wise and competent. I think this also says a lot.
https://suttacentral.net/sn35.245/en/bodhi

[y not]

Thank you for the reference Sybe,

It lead me to the previous sutta sn35.244/en/bodhi (States that entail suffering). Compelling. I have a habit of doing this, reading also the previous and the following one or two suttas to the one referenced. More often than not the topics are related, though maybe not exactly one and the same.

I urge you too to reflect on it.

[Author]

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