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Part One

Chapter One

Mindfulness the Gatekeeper

The Buddha adopted the term sati from the languages of his culture. It’s related to the Sanskrit term smriti, which means remembrance or the act of calling to mind. However, there is no record of his having defined the term per se. Instead, the texts depict him as observing that there are two types of sati when viewed from the perspective of a person trying to put an end to suffering: right and wrong (MN 117; MN 126; AN 10:108). The texts also show him defining the faculty of sati (sat’indrīya), which is equivalent to right sati:

This definition of right sati falls into two parts. In the first sentence, the Buddha is obviously retaining the meaning of its Sanskrit cognate—remembrance—showing how sati, when developed to the point of being a faculty, or dominant factor in the mind, is able to remember words and actions far into the past.

The second part of the definition is identical with the definition of right sati in the noble eightfold path, and is often called the establishing of sati (sati + upaṭṭhāna [establishing, setting near] = satipaṭṭhāna). This part of the definition sets out the task that sati is meant to keep in mind, along with the other mental factors that have to be developed, and the concerns that need to be subdued, to help keep sati firmly established on its task.

In the practice of the path, sati and satipaṭṭhāna are mutually reinforcing. On the one hand, as the satipaṭṭhāna formula states, sati is one of the factors brought to bear on the task of remaining focused as a part of satipaṭṭhāna. On the other, SN 48:11 notes that the practice of satipaṭṭhāna gives rise to strengthened sati.

So, just as physical strength grows by being used in exercise, sati is strengthened by being applied to the task of the four establishings of sati. This has practical consequences that we will discuss further below.

The central task of satipaṭṭhāna is to remain focused on any one of four topics as a frame of reference. The phrase, “remaining focused on” is nowhere defined in the Canon, but the Pāli term (anupassanā = anu [follow] + passanā [seeing]) is commonly used for two types of meditative practice: keeping watch over a particular topic in the midst of other experiences, and looking for a particular quality in experiences as they arise.

Both types of anupassanā are relevant in the practice of establishing sati. An example of the first comes in the standard satipaṭṭhāna formula. Remaining focused on the body in and of itself, for example, means keeping track of the body or a particular aspect of the body as a frame of reference in the midst of all your sensory experiences. Even when another topic looms large in your awareness, you try to keep track of where the body is in the midst of that awareness, or of how that other topic and the body interact. In this way, the body remains your frame of reference regardless of whatever else may arise. The same principle applies when remaining focused on feelings, mind, or mental qualities in and of themselves.

As for the second type of anupassanā—looking for a particular quality in experiences as they arise—an example would be the practice of looking for inconstancy (anicca) in all phenomena. This, as we will see in Chapter Two, is one of the steps by which sati is established through breath meditation.

The four topics to remain focused on are body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities. “Body” means the physical body; “feelings” covers feeling tones of pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain; and “mind” covers states of mind. The phrase “mental qualities” (dhammas) covers a wider range of phenomena. Its primary meaning in this context covers mental events or mental actions, but it also covers any physical or mental experience viewed as an event. All of these meanings play a role in how right sati makes use of this frame of reference. There is some overlap between the content of “mind” and “mental qualities” as frames of reference, but as we will see in Chapters Six through Nine, their difference lies primarily in their respective functions. “Mind” is concerned primarily with how the mind relates to the object of its focus; “mental qualities” are concerned with the qualities and thought-categories involved in the process of fending off any defilements or distractions that surround that focus or threaten to interfere with it.

The duty of sati is to remember to remain focused on any one of these topics in and of itself. The Pāli passage expresses this idea literally by saying, “body in the body,” “feelings in feelings,” etc., with the locative case—a grammatical case indicating location, often translated as “in”—also meaning “with reference to.” In other words, each of these topics is viewed solely with reference to itself, on its own terms, without subsuming it under a larger frame of reference, such as the world outside. Each topic is thus a frame of reference in and of itself.

Sati is one of three mental factors that should accompany the activity of remaining focused in this way. The other two are alertness and ardency.

The Canon defines alertness (sampajañña) as knowing both events in the mind and activities of the body as they are happening:

This means that for sati to be properly established, it must not only remember far into the past, but also be coupled with a clear awareness of what’s going on in the present.

Ardency (ātappa) is the desire to avoid what is unbeneficial.

The discourses often pair ardency with compunction (ottappa), fear of the consequences of doing evil, perhaps because the words are so similar in meaning and—in Pāli—in sound. (Here I am using compunction in its American sense, as a twinge of scrupulous conscience prior to doing wrong.) Working together, these two qualities find expression in the determined abandoning of evil, unskillful qualities. Without them, the goal would be impossible to attain.

Ardency is thus closely connected with right effort. In fact, it’s synonymous with the desire explicit in the definition of right effort, and motivated by the discernment of what’s skillful and unskillful—the element of right view implicit in that definition.

It’s worth noting here the centrality of desire in right effort. As AN 10:58 observes, all phenomena are rooted in desire. This observation applies to skillful as well as to unskillful phenomena. Without skillful desire, it would be impossible to develop the path (SN 51:15). This means that the path is not a truth available to passive observation. It’s a truth of the will: something that can become true only if you want it to happen. By applying the desire of right effort, the element of skillful purpose, to the act of remaining focused, ardency enables sati to be established as right sati.

Taken together, these mental factors of sati, alertness, and ardency indicate that right sati, as a factor in the path to the end of suffering and stress, brings memories from the past to bear on a clear alertness of events and actions in the present with the purpose of abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful ones both in the present and on into the future. In this way, alertness and ardency ensure that right sati points not only in one direction, to the past, but to all three directions of time at once: past, present, and future.

When, in the nineteenth century, T. W. Rhys Davids encountered the word sati while translating DN 22 into English, he tried to find an English term that would convey this meaning of memory applied to purposeful activity in the present. Concluding that English didn’t have an adequate equivalent, he made up his own: mindfulness. This, of course, wasn’t a total invention. In fact, Rhys Davids’ choice was apparently inspired by the phrasing of the Anglican prayer to be ever mindful of the needs of others—i.e., to always keep their needs in mind. Rhys Davids simply turned the adjective into a noun. Although the term mindfulness has its origins in a Christian context, and although its meaning has ironically become so distorted over the past century, its original meaning serves so well in conveying the Buddhist sense of memory applied to the present that I will continue to use it to render sati for the remainder of this book.

A. Right View, Right Mindfulness, Right Effort

The role played by mindfulness in applying memory of the past to present activities—for the sake of present and future results—is best illustrated by a passage in MN 117, in which the Buddha presents the first seven factors of the noble eightfold path as requisites for right concentration, the final factor in the path. With each of the first five factors, the three factors of right view, right mindfulness, and right effort work together to abandon the wrong version of the factor and to develop the right version as an aid in noble right concentration. For example, with the factor of right resolve:

As we will see in Chapter Nine, this aspect of right mindfulness comes under the fourth frame of reference in the establishing of mindfulness: keeping mental qualities in and of themselves in mind as a frame of reference. In this role, right mindfulness builds on right view and remembers to apply right effort to develop each factor of the path.

The standard definition of right view is that it pertains not just to the factors of the path, the fourth noble truth, but also to all four noble truths. And its relation to those truths—stress, its origination, its cessation, and the path of practice leading to its cessation—is not simply a matter of knowing what they are. It’s a matter of knowing in terms of those truths (SN 45:8). The phrase “in terms of”—again expressed by the locative case—means that right view uses the four truths as a framework for classifying experiences as they happen: knowing which experiences count as stress, which count as the origination of stress, and so forth. One of the duties of right mindfulness is to keep this framework in mind and to apply it to present experience.

However, the Buddha’s first exposition of right view in SN 56:11 shows that there is more to right view than just a framework of four truths. It also includes the motivation for adopting the framework, as well as the duties enjoined by the framework. In the Buddha’s exposition, the motivation actually comes first. Before introducing the framework, he explains why it should be adopted. It’s part of a path that—avoiding the extremes of sensual indulgence and self mortification, both of which lead to suffering—“leads to stilling, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to unbinding (nibbāna)”: i.e., to total freedom from suffering. By beginning with this motivation, the Buddha indicates the role that desire has to play in the path, for as we just noted, all phenomena, even the path, are rooted in desire. In recognition of this fact, he starts with an explanation of why you would desire to adopt the framework of the four noble truths.

After explaining the framework, the Buddha points out that each truth carries a duty: stress is to be comprehended, its origination abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed. Only when these duties have been completed is total awakening achieved. So right view consists of three parts: a framework for viewing experience, an understanding of the motivation for adopting the framework, and knowledge of what should be done in light of the framework.

All three parts of this knowledge are what right mindfulness remembers and applies to the present. It remembers to keep a particular frame of reference in mind; it remembers the purpose for keeping it in mind; and it remembers lessons from the past—“things said or done” by oneself or others—that indicate what would be best to do in any given present situation in light of that frame of reference, taken within the overall framework of the four noble truths. In the context of the passage from MN 117, this would mean recognizing that right and wrong resolve, as mental qualities, fall under the fourth frame of reference; remembering what distinguishes wrong resolve from right resolve; remembering the duty appropriate to each—abandoning wrong resolve, and entering and remaining in right resolve—as well as remembering why it’s worthwhile to make the effort to fulfill these duties.

This is where right mindfulness connects directly with right effort, for it directs right effort in light of the three aspects of right view. It remembers the framework of the four noble truths—which, in the formula of right effort, is translated into the distinction between skillful and unskillful qualities. It remembers the motivation provided by right view so as to generate the desire central to right effort. And it remembers the duties appropriate to the four noble truths, which are translated into slightly different terms in the formula for right effort: The effort to prevent the arising of unskillful qualities that have yet to arise, and to abandon unskillful qualities that have already arisen, corresponds to the abandoning of the second noble truth. The effort to give rise to skillful qualities, and to develop them once they have arisen, corresponds to the developing of the fourth noble truth. The effort to bring the skillful qualities of the path—and in particular, the quality of discernment—to the culmination of their development requires the comprehension of the first noble truth and leads to the realization of the third. In this way, the primary duty of right mindfulness is to remember to keep these aspects of right effort in line with the three aspects of right view.

However, there is some complexity in the relationship between right mindfulness and right effort in this project, for these two factors are not radically distinct. Right mindfulness doesn’t simply give directions and motivation to right effort, for right effort is actually a part of right mindfulness. This is indicated in the satipaṭṭhāna formula not only by the presence of the quality of ardency, but also by the concluding passage of the formula: “subduing greed & distress with reference to the world.” It’s worth looking carefully at this passage, for the subduing and restraining aspect of right mindfulness is often overlooked.

The word “subduing” (vineyya) is related to the word for “discipline” (vinaya). This suggests that greed and distress are not yet uprooted in this part of the practice. They are simply put aside and kept in check. The tense of the verb—it’s a gerund—can mean either “having subdued” or “subduing.” In other words, the activity is either already accomplished or in the process of being accomplished. Both meanings are appropriate here, in that greed and distress have to be brought under a measure of control simply to start the process of establishing mindfulness. Because they are not yet uprooted, they have to be continually put aside as they arise.

As for the word “world” in this passage, this has two meanings in the Canon. In general usage—as when the Buddha refers to the world with its devas, Māras, etc., or as the world of beings to whom the four immeasurable attitudes of good will, etc., are directed—“world” means the ordinary sense of the world outside: a place in which we move and interact with other beings.

On a more technical level, “world” simply means the six senses, the data they transmit, and the feelings they engender.

Because events known purely at the intellect are included in this list, this second sense of the word “world” covers not only sensory input from the world outside, but also any input dealing with inner worlds of the mind, such as the states of becoming induced by the practice of right concentration. As we will see, this point has important applications in the practice.

Apparently, the word “world” in the last part of the satipaṭṭhāna formula covers both senses of the word. On the one hand, the act of subduing greed and distress with reference to the world is a way of keeping your frame of reference with, for example, the body in and of itself, and not allowing that frame of reference to shift to the world in which the body moves and to which it relates. In other words, you pay no attention to the body as viewed in the context of the world outside—as to whether it’s attractive to others, strong enough to do work, etc.—and instead attend strictly to the issues of the body in and of itself.

On the other hand, the act of subduing greed and distress with reference to the world of the six senses is a way of not allowing any extraneous sense data to interfere with the work at hand: that of getting mindfulness established and keeping it established in line with its duties on the path. At a later stage, the act of subduing is also a way of overcoming any attachment to the worlds of becoming created by the practice of right mindfulness itself.

So, considering this passage in line with both meanings of “world,” it’s easy to see that one of the important duties of mindfulness is to remember the right effort of restraint: the need to exclude any mental frameworks that would dislodge the proper frame of reference, and to exclude any defilements that would interfere with the proper actions in line with that framework.

This point is illustrated by two similes in the Canon. The first simile shows the dangers of leaving the territory of satipaṭṭhāna and wandering off into the territory of sensual pleasures.

The other simile shows the safety that comes when you can stay within the territory of a proper frame of reference and are able to subdue any greed and distress with regard to the world of sensual pleasures.

Because one of the first steps of right concentration practice is to seclude the mind from sensuality, these similes show how the act of subduing greed and distress with reference to the world leads the practice of right mindfulness directly into the practice of right concentration.

B. The Governing Principle

When we consider all the elements of the satipaṭṭhāna formula, we can see that right mindfulness plays a supervisory role in keeping your practice on the right path: It remembers, from right view, how to recognize the right path from the wrong path; it also remembers to stay alert and focused on the task at hand; it motivates right effort by remembering why the right path is worth following, at the same time reminding right effort of what to do to stay on the path. Right mindfulness also incorporates right effort in its own activity of subduing any concerns that would pull the practice off course. Right effort, in turn, tries to keep right mindfulness established, maintaining it and furthering its development (see Chapter Two).

This interplay of mutual support explains why some maps of the practice—such as the seven factors for awakening—place right mindfulness before right effort, whereas others—such as the five faculties and the noble eightfold path—place right effort before right mindfulness.

The supervisory role played by right mindfulness is in line with the Buddha’s observation in AN 10:58 that “all phenomena have mindfulness as their governing principle.” Mindfulness—whether right or wrong—is a factor present in any experience where memories from the past are brought to bear on what is happening within that experience: It supplies a framework for understanding the experience, it can remember motivating reasons for why the framework should be applied, while the framework in turn indicates what action(s) should be performed. If the framework or motivation is wrong, the resulting action is likely to be detrimental.

The Buddha, in including right mindfulness in the path, takes the role that mindfulness plays in any experience where memory is brought to bear on the present and points it in a skillful direction. This is an important point to note. Instead of telling you to abandon past memories so as to approach the present with totally fresh eyes and bare awareness, he’s saying to be selective in calling on the appropriate memories that will help keep you on the path to the end of suffering. And instead of telling you to watch passively as things arise and pass away on their own, he’s saying to keep remembering the need to complete any uncompleted tasks required by the path, and to protect any attainments that have already been attained. In other words, there are some things you have to remember to make arise and to prevent from passing away.

Several similes and descriptions in the discourses give a sense of how mindfulness plays this supervisory role. In Sn 1:4, for instance, the Buddha compares mindfulness to a goad: a sharp implement that a farmer uses to poke a beast of burden that has become distracted from its task—to remind it of its task, to warn it of the dangers of forgetting its task, and to get it moving. In this simile, the beast of burden is persistence. In the same way, mindfulness serves to poke right effort to change its focus from unskillful distractions—such as greed and distress with reference to the world—and to direct it back to the duties dictated by the proper frame of reference.

Other similes for the role of mindfulness are more complex. For instance:

This simile shows how mindfulness brings three sorts of memory to bear on the present moment. Remembering the need to protect the fortress corresponds to remembering motivation. Knowing how to recognize friends from potential enemies corresponds to remembering the proper framework to apply to a given situation. Remembering to admit friends and exclude strangers corresponds to remembering what to do in any given situation in light of that framework. Actually keeping out the potential enemies corresponds to subduing greed and distress with reference to the world.

Another simile indicates that the role of mindfulness is to remember what to look for in the present moment so that adjustments can be made to help the mind settle down pleasantly in concentration.

Of course, the cook in this simile is not simply watching his master. He’s also adjusting his cooking to please him so as to gain a reward of clothing, wages, and gifts. In this way, this simile also illustrates the three types of memory appropriate to right mindfulness: remembering the motivation for seeing things in line with the framework of right view, remembering what is significant to look for in terms of that framework, and remembering what right effort should do in response to what is significant.

C. Right Mindfulness & Right Concentration

The Canon contains a number of similes showing that the state of awareness appropriate for the restraining role of right mindfulness can be either narrowly focused or broadly relaxed, as the need may be. This is important to note, because some modern writers—in an effort to draw a radical distinction between mindfulness and concentration—maintain that mindfulness is broad and receptive, whereas concentration is narrow and exclusive.

Actually, this distinction misrepresents the Canon in two important ways. The first is that it misrepresents the relative breadth of the two qualities. As we learned from the similes of the monkey and the quail, the proper establishing of mindfulness requires that you set limits on the range of your mindful awareness. Other discourses show that when defilements are strong, those limits have to be extremely narrow so that you can stay focused on the problem at hand and avoid the very real dangers of distraction.

Mindfulness in this case reminds the monk that the need to abandon unskillful mental qualities takes precedence above all else, and that he shouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by other issues. This is a time to focus attention exclusively on this task.

Here’s another simile making the same point:

These two similes show that there are times when the dictates of mindfulness can require an intensely focused and narrow state of attention, blocking out all distractions.

At other times, mindfulness can be broad and relaxed, especially when the mind is free from unskillful thinking. When the mind tires even of skillful thinking, this broadened mindfulness prepares the mind to enter into the jhānas: the stages of right concentration.

So mindfulness is not always a broadly receptive state of mind. The relative breadth of its focus has to be elastic, dictated by the strength of restraint needed in the presence or absence of strong defilements.

And it’s ironic that mindfulness is often portrayed as broad in opposition to the supposed narrowness of concentration, for concentration is actually the mental state that the Buddha consistently describes as expansive. This is easily seen in the similes he uses to describe the four jhānas, all of which involve a full-body awareness:

So, to the extent that there is a distinction in the way the discourses represent the relative breadth of mindfulness and concentration, concentration is the quality consistently portrayed as broad and expansive, whereas mindfulness has to shift the breadth of its focus—sometimes broad, sometimes narrow—in line with events.

The need to qualify this distinction, however, brings us to the second problem with the common portrayal of the radical difference between mindfulness and concentration, which is that—instead of drawing a sharp line between these two qualities—the discourses actually portray them as interpenetrating. Just as right mindfulness contains elements of right effort, right concentration contains elements of right mindfulness.

The above passage from MN 19 shows how right mindfulness leads naturally to right concentration. This point is in keeping with the general framework of MN 117, noted above, that right mindfulness cooperates with right view and right effort in developing the first seven factors of the path as requisites for noble right concentration. However, right mindfulness is not only a factor leading to right concentration; it’s an integral part of right concentration itself.

In fact, the Buddha describes the establishing of mindfulness as a type of concentration and recommends developing it in a way that clearly leads through the four jhānas.

The mention of directed thought, evaluation, rapture, and equanimity in this passage is apparently an implicit reference to the four jhānas, for these stages of concentration are elsewhere related both to the establishings of mindfulness and to jhāna in an explicit way.

Given that simply dropping thoughts about any one of the frames of reference would put you in the second jhāna, the implicit message here is that when the establishing of mindfulness is strong enough to allow you to do that without losing focus, it’s already in the first jhāna.

So it seems fairly obvious that both AN 8:70 and MN 125 are describing ways in which the concentration attained with the establishing of mindfulness can be further developed in line with the standard descriptions of the four jhānas. As we will see in Chapter Two, this corresponds to a more advanced level of mindfulness practice that SN 47:40 terms the “development of the establishing of mindfulness.”

The intimate connection between right mindfulness and the practice of jhāna is a point that has to be stressed repeatedly, for some of the cardinal tenets of the modern interpretation of mindfulness are that mindfulness practice is radically different from jhāna practice, that jhāna is not necessary for awakening, and that the modicum of concentration attained through mindfulness-as-bare-awareness practices is enough to qualify as right concentration. Because these tenets fly in the face of the standard definition of the path factor of right concentration, which defines right concentration as the four jhānas (DN 22; MN 141; SN 45:8), there have been many efforts to find passages in the Canon showing that jhāna is not always necessary for awakening, or that right concentration can be defined in other terms. We will examine some of these passages in Appendix Three. Here we can simply note that, when closely examined, these passages don’t support the claims based on them. Right concentration, in the discourses, always means the practice of the jhānas. And as we have seen, these states of concentration are intimately connected with the practice of right mindfulness. Right mindfulness forms the themes on which they stay focused; the practice of right mindfulness, when well-established in line with the satipaṭṭhāna formula, constitutes the first jhāna; when further refined, it can lead through all the jhānas.

So there is no clear line between mindfulness practice and jhāna practice. In fact, they should interpenetrate as much as possible for both mindfulness and concentration to be truly right.

D. Mindfulness, Jhāna, & Release

The path does not end with the practice of jhāna. Instead, it uses jhāna to provide the trio of right mindfulness, right effort, and right view with a foundation for developing all the path factors to an even more refined degree so as to lead to total release.

Jhāna can provide this foundation because the act of mastering strong concentration changes many of the basic dynamics within the mind. As you find more and more that a solid happiness can be found by subduing all greed and distress with reference to the world, your search for happiness focuses less on the world and more exclusively on maintaining mindful concentration at all times. Your desire to produce and consume happiness becomes more focused right here. And because the mind in concentration is so clear and bright, right view can watch this desire and its results more clearly as they occur. In this way, concentration provides an excellent basis for exposing the processes of fabrication (saṅkhāra)—the intentional processes by which the mind shapes experience—as they occur within the levels of concentration itself. When you finally come to realize the limitations even of concentration, right view together with right mindfulness and right effort develop dispassion for the process of fabricating it. Because fabrication depends on passion and desire, this dispassion puts an end to all fabrication. And with that, the mind is released.

Right mindfulness plays a consistent role in this process—not only giving rise to concentration and maintaining it, but also reminding you of the framework, motivation, and duties of right view: to examine the results of your concentration for any traces of stress and, when finding them, to abandon their causes through the subtlest level of right effort.

In this way, even after they have directed all the other factors of the path to right concentration, the trio of right view, right mindfulness, and right effort continue to work in harmony to bring about total release.

Even after attaining total release, arahants continue practicing the four establishings of mindfulness. However, having completed the path, their motivation for practicing right mindfulness has now changed. Because they have nothing more to add to their attainment—and are now totally disjoined from the objects on which mindfulness is based—their fully developed mindfulness finds these four establishings a natural place to settle.

SN 54:11 makes an even stronger claim for the concentration of mindfulness of breathing, which MN 118 equates with right mindfulness: Not only do arahants practice it, even the Buddha used it as one of his favorite meditative dwellings.

This means that right mindfulness functions not only as a factor of the path, but also as a pleasant pastime for those who have fully developed the path and tasted its ultimate fruit.

This doesn’t mean that right mindfulness is identical with unbinding—after all, as Iti 90 points out, right mindfulness is fabricated whereas the realization of unbinding is not—simply that the practice of right mindfulness is compatible with a mind that, through the realization of unbinding, is totally unfettered by defilement and free.