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Chapter Nine

A Structure for Ardency

DN 22 is organized as a “wheel”: a style of presentation in which two or more variables are placed against one another, with all their possible permutations listed one by one. The most famous wheel in the Pāli Canon, of course, is the wheel of Dhamma in the Buddha’s first sermon (SN 56:11), which is quoted above in Chapter Three. In that wheel, the four noble truths are set against the three levels of knowledge appropriate to each—knowledge of the truth, knowledge of the duty appropriate to the truth, and knowledge that the duty has been completed—with the text listing one by one all twelve of the resulting permutations.

Similarly, in DN 22 the four frames of reference for the act of remaining focused are set against three levels of how to apply ardency in the practice.

First, the establishing of mindfulness:

Second, the development of the establishing of mindfulness:

And third, a level of practice described in the following terms:

DN 22 lists these three levels after every exercise included under the four frames of reference. Many commentators have missed the fact that these three levels are distinct, and instead have described them all as a single practice, with the last level understood to be a summary of the practice as a whole. There are, however, several reasons for viewing the three levels as separate.

The first is the most obvious: They are separated from one another by the word or. You do the first or the second or the third.

A second reason is that SN 47:40 lists the first two stages as separate stages, with the second building on the first. The third stage is obviously more advanced than the other two, for instead of having to subdue greed and distress with reference to the world, a meditator on this level has become independent, not sustained by anything in the world.

A third reason is that many of the exercises mentioned under the first stage are incompatible with the practice described in the third. The first-stage exercises make heavy use of verbal fabrication and concepts of “I” and “me”: “I will breathe in experiencing the entire body”; “I am walking”; “I am feeling a pleasant feeling not of the flesh”; “There is sensual desire present within me”; “Mindfulness as a factor for awakening is present within me”; and so forth. In the third stage, however, these concepts are dropped in favor of the simple observation, “There is a body,” and so forth.

In fact, it’s possible to see the three stages as moving in a direction of greater depersonalization as they also move toward subtler application of ardency and right effort. The first stage uses concepts of “I” and “mine”; the second, in looking for patterns of origination and passing away in the pursuit of right concentration, begins to drop those concepts; and the third fully abandons concepts of “I” and “mine” as it simply maintains mindfulness to the mere extent of remembrance of the frame of reference, not clinging to anything in any world inside or out.

This pattern parallels the three levels of right view. Mundane right view employs concepts of beings and worlds (MN 117); transcendent right view deals in more impersonal causal connections described in the four noble truths and their attendant duties; and the highest level of right view (SN 12:15) reduces all arising and passing away simply to the level of stress arising and passing away, which has the effect of reducing the four duties of the noble truths to one: comprehension to the point of letting go.

We have already discussed the first two stages of remaining focused on the four frames of reference in Chapter Two. However, it’s important to note here that DN 22 expands on the first level in two important ways. The first is that it presents a large range of alternative exercises and categories for each of the four frames, which we will discuss in detail below. The second is that it introduces the possibility that these alternatives can be practiced internally, externally, or both.

There are two ways of interpreting what it means to “remain focused externally.” The first is that external focus is a matter of the psychic powers—“knowledge and vision” concerning the bodies and minds of other beings—gained in concentration:

Further evidence that external frames of reference are to be known through psychic powers is that the categories for remaining focused on the mind in the first stage of practice are identical with those listed for the psychic ability to read the minds of others (DN 2; AN 5:28).

The second way of interpreting external focus—and one more pertinent for most meditators—is that it’s a matter of using your normal powers of memory and inference to reflect on the fact that what you are experiencing is common to all beings.

Whether you focus externally through psychic power or through inference, the primary purpose in either case would be to develop a sense of saṁvega for the universality of suffering and stress.

The fact that each exercise or list of categories in the first stage of the practice is followed by the statement that it can be used in the second stage as well—the development of the establishing of mindfulness—shows that each can play a role in the development of right concentration. This is an important point to notice, for as we will see, some writers have depicted a few of the exercises, such as the contemplation of the unattractiveness of the body, as alternatives to jhāna. But when we look carefully at how these exercises are described in discourses aside from DN 22, we’ll see that they don’t have to be interpreted in that way at all.

As for the third stage of practice, this corresponds to the stage of concentration practice in which you remember to apply the principle of non-fashioning to whatever attainment you may have mastered (see the passage from MN 113 in Chapter Seven). In other words, you drop any sense of self around the attainment. In so doing, you are close to full release.

This third stage, then, can lead directly to total unbinding.

Most of the discussion in DN 22, however, focuses on the first stage of practice. In this context it treats the four frames of reference in order, listing various exercises and categories for analyzing each of the four frames: body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities in and of themselves. As we have already noted, many of these exercises and lists of categories make no explicit mention of how ardency functions with regard to them. To fill in this lack, the following discussion will draw material from other discourses to make more explicit the role of ardency in each case.

A. Body

The topic of the body in and of itself covers six exercises: (1) the first four steps of breath meditation; (2) the practice of discerning whatever posture the body is in; (3) the practice of making yourself alert in all your physical activities; (4) the analysis of the body into 31 parts; (5) the analysis of the body into the four physical properties in every posture; and (6) the practice of visualizing a corpse in nine stages of decomposition, and reflecting that your body will unavoidably meet with the same fate. MN 119 lists all six of these exercises under the term, “mindfulness immersed in the body” (kāyagatāsati).

When discussing the first exercise, the four steps of breath meditation, DN 22 adds only two points to what we have already learned from MN 118. First, it adds an analogy for the practice.

The second point added by DN 22 is that this exercise can be developed in all three stages of the practice. This point is repeated for each of the first five exercises, and for each of the nine stages of decomposition listed in the sixth exercise.

The second and third exercises give practice in continuous alertness throughout the waking day. The second tells you to make a point of discerning the body’s posture at all times.

The third exercise suggests a more heightened exercise in alertness in that it tells you not just to “discern” but to “make yourself alert” in every activity.

This third exercise is directly helpful in fostering right speech and right action as factors of the path, for only when you are alert to what you are doing can you successfully exercise restraint over your words and deeds. Because the development of the path comes under the fourth frame of reference, this is an example of how exercises in this first frame of reference relate directly to exercises in the other frames of reference.

Of the activities described in the second and third exercises, only two—talking and falling asleep—automatically entail leaving the first jhāna (SN 36:11). This means that they provide an excellent opportunity for strengthening the momentum of your concentration throughout the day, and also for making you more sensitive to when the mind is and is not in a concentrated state. As we will see, this is one of the exercises listed under the third frame of reference. So this is another example of the direct connection between exercises focused on the body and the activities described in the other frames of reference.

The fourth exercise in this first frame of reference is one we have already encountered in Chapter Seven, where the passage from AN 10:60 describes it as the perception of the unattractiveness of the body. As in the case of breath meditation, DN 22 adds an analogy to illustrate the nature of the practice.

There are two controversies surrounding this practice. The first comes from SN 54:9, in which a group of monks who contemplate the unattractiveness of the body become so disgusted with their bodies that some of them commit suicide. The Buddha learns of this and, calling together the survivors from the group, encourages them to take up the sixteen steps of breath meditation to allay and dispel any unskillful states that may arise in the mind “just as when, in the last month of the hot season, a great rain-cloud out of season immediately disperses & allays the dust & dirt that have been stirred up.”

Now, people who resist the theme of unattractiveness tend to focus on this passage as proof that the perception of unattractiveness is a dangerous and unhealthy meditation theme. However, the discussion of painful practice in AN 4:163, read in conjunction with AN 4:162, shows that there are strong defilements that will respond only to themes of this sort. AN 4:162 identifies painful practice as pertaining to those who are strongly passionate, aversive, or delusional, and who perpetually experience pain and distress born of these defilements. AN 4:163 describes painful practice—which is apparently the practice appropriate for those of this nature—in these terms:

In other words, painful practice is one that focuses on unpleasant themes to bring the unruly mind under control. This means that the theme of the unattractiveness of the body is not to be avoided when needed; simply that it has to be used with discretion, and balanced with the more pleasant practices associated with the breath to keep the mind from going off course.

A second controversy surrounding the practice of focusing on the unattractiveness of the body as a meditation theme comes from a superficial reading of AN 4:163. In contrast to the above description of painful practice, the discourse describes pleasant practice with the standard formula for the four jhānas. Some writers have taken this as proof that there is an alternative path to awakening that does not involve the jhānas, in that the description of painful practice contains no reference to the jhānas at all. We will discuss this point in detail in Appendix Three, but here we can simply note that, according to the description in AN 4:163, both painful and pleasant practice require all five faculties, including the faculty of concentration, to put an end to the effluents. Because the faculty of concentration is defined with the standard formula for the jhānas (SN 48:10), that means that both sorts of practice need jhāna in order to succeed.

The fifth exercise in this first frame of reference is that of analyzing the body, in whatever posture, as being composed of the four physical properties. In Chapter Seven, we encountered two different ways of contemplating the four properties mentioned in MN 62: as models for patient endurance, and as a way of inducing the perception of not-self. Here the description is much shorter:

What’s distinctive about this description of property-meditation is its emphasis on applying this analysis to the body as it’s being experienced in the present, and not in the abstract. However, because we know from MN 62 and other discourses that this contemplation can serve a variety of skillful purposes, we can see that this is obviously a case where the description in DN 22 is not meant to be complete. The discourse simply discusses how to remain focused on the body in this way. How to use ardency in developing the contemplation has to be learned from other sources.

In MN 28, for instance, Ven. Sāriputta shows how the contemplation of the body in terms of properties can be used to develop not only patient endurance and the perception of not-self, but also a sense of urgency and courage in the practice. Taking each property one by one, he first notes that the external instances of the property, even though much vaster than its internal instances in your body, are subject to radical change. So why shouldn’t the internal instances be subject to similar changes? This reflection leads to a sense of not-self with regard to the body. For example, this is what Ven. Sāriputta notes with regard to the fire property:

In the next step, Ven. Sāriputta notes that reflecting on the body as composed of properties helps to depersonalize any painful verbal or physical attacks, allowing you to bear that contact with more patient endurance, and stirring the mind to develop heightened persistence, mindfulness, and concentration.

Finally, Ven. Sāriputta notes that when you have used the contemplation of the properties to focus on developing skillful qualities of mind, this allows you to focus less on the pain of verbal and physical attacks, and more on your success in doing the Buddha’s bidding. If you’re unable to develop skillful equanimity, you feel mentally pained over that fact. This gives rise to a sense of heightened urgency in the practice. Once you’re successful, you feel joy.

As we will see in the next section, these feelings of mental pain and joy regarding your progress on the path are classed as “renunciation-based” feelings or feelings “not of the flesh.” As MN 137 notes, these feelings should be developed to free the mind from ordinary “house-based” feelings, such as the typical response of outrage over physical or verbal abuse. What this means is that MN 28 gives practical advice in how to use contemplation of the properties to accomplish the general principle that MN 137 recommends. In this way, this passage from MN 28 also shows how focusing on the body as a frame of reference can connect directly with using feelings as a frame of reference as well.

So the contemplation of the properties is not meant to stop simply with the analysis of the body. As MN 62 and MN 28 show, you have to use ardency in directing your reflections based on this exercise to reap its full results.

The sixth exercise in this first frame of reference is actually a set of nine—contemplating the body in terms of nine stages of the decomposition of a corpse:

In each case, the meditator—

This exercise, like the fourth, is a painful one. It’s a variation on recollection of death, which we discussed in Chapter Seven. Here the primary emphasis is on developing a sense of dispassion for the body and the pleasures associated with it. This exercise is also a good antidote for pride and for complacency. But as we also noted in Chapter Seven, it can also develop an appreciation for each moment you are able to practice. In this way, it can also lead to a sense of joy.

What’s interesting about this exercise, in comparison with the other five in this first frame of reference, is that it’s not focused simply on the present. It takes knowledge derived from the past and applies it to the future in such as way as to induce dispassion in the present. This highlights the role of mindfulness here as a function of memory: You remember what you have seen of other dead bodies and, extrapolating from them, keep in mind the fact that you’re not exempt from the condition they have fallen into.

This reflection is not meant to stop with passive acceptance. It’s meant as a spur to the practice. Many verses from the Theragāthā and Therīgāthā make this point in vivid terms:

It’s by encouraging this sense of urgency and disenchantment that the contemplation of death, as the Buddha said (AN 6:19), leads ultimately to the deathless.

B. Feelings

Under the topic of feelings in and of themselves, DN 22 provides two lists for categorizing feelings as they occur. The first list simply covers the three kinds of feelings: painful, pleasant, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant. The second list breaks each of these three into two sub-categories: feelings of the flesh (āmisa) and feelings not of the flesh (nirāmisa), arriving at six types of feelings in all. Feelings of the flesh are physical or mental feelings connected with sensuality; feelings not of the flesh are physical or mental feelings not connected with sensuality, and instead associated with the practice of jhāna (SN 36:31). In each case, you’re told to discern when you’re feeling a feeling of whichever type.

Aside from stating that this way of viewing feelings can carry through all three stages of the practice, DN 22 has nothing more to say on the topic. This is apparently one reason for the common interpretation that you’re not meant to do anything to induce one sort of feeling rather than another. You’re simply to watch feelings as they happen to come and go of their own accord. This further has led to the interpretation of satipaṭṭhāna as an open receptivity that “avoids the two extremes of suppression and reaction.”

However, the teaching on dependent co-arising shows that feelings don’t just happen. As MN 101 makes abundantly clear, not all feelings are the results of old kamma. Many are the result of new kamma: what you’re doing right now. And as SN 22:79 shows, even the potential for feeling resulting from old kamma has to be actualized by present fabrication. Every feeling is fabricated for the sake of having a feeling. This means that every feeling contains an intentional element. As a meditator you want to understand this intentional aspect of feelings and see this process of fabrication in action, which means that you can’t view feelings simply as arising on their own. Otherwise you blind yourself to the insight needed for release.

At the same time, just as feelings don’t just happen, they also don’t just disappear. In their role as mental fabrications, they have causal consequences, shaping the mind in ways that can be either skillful or unskillful. So you have to trace not only where the feelings come from, but also where they lead.

Our normal reaction to painful feelings, in particular, is a serious problem. When experiencing physical pain, we often compound it by getting upset about it. The Buddha’s analogy here is of a person shot by one arrow who then shoots himself with a second arrow. Then we try to escape the pain by pursuing sensual pleasure, for we see no other way to escape (SN 36:6). This is detrimental in two ways: We obsess over the feelings—both painful and pleasant—thus defiling the mind; and we often act in unskillful ways to obtain the pleasures we want, thus creating more bad kamma that will lead to further pain down the road.

The Buddha’s solution is to develop an alternative escape from pain in a type of pleasure that doesn’t involve sensuality: the pleasure of jhāna (MN 14). The discussion in DN 22 alludes to this fact in its statement that the practice of remaining focused on feelings in and of themselves can carry into the second stage of practice, the development of the establishing of mindfulness (SN 47:40). This shows that it’s meant to function within the context of the factors of the noble eightfold path—meaning further that it must accompany the practice of jhāna.

The mention of feelings not of the flesh is also an implicit statement of this fact. SN 36:31 defines pleasure not of the flesh as the pleasure experienced in the first three jhānas. Similarly, the neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling not of the flesh is equivalent to the feeling of equanimity not of the flesh experienced in the fourth jhāna (SN 48:38). Now, these feelings don’t simply come on their own. They’re a product of fabrication. They have to be induced. And as the standard similes for the practice of jhāna show, the feelings of pleasure not of the flesh experienced in the first three jhānas aren’t simply induced; they’re spread and suffused until they permeate and fill the entire body.

“Painful feeling not of the flesh” is nowhere defined in the Canon, but we can derive from the discourses two possible ways of understanding it. On the one hand, it could be the sense of mental displeasure experienced while engaging in the contemplation of the unattractiveness of the body or the perception of death, which—as we have already noted—are painful ways to awakening (AN 4:163). On the other hand, a passage from MN 44 suggests that a painful feeling not of the flesh would be the distress that accompanies this thought: “O when will I enter & remain in the dimension that the noble ones now enter & remain in?” In other words, it’s the feeling of distress you experience when contemplating how much you want to attain the goal and you haven’t yet attained it. Another example of this sort of distress would be the reflection from MN 28, quoted above in the discussion of the contemplation of the properties of the body: “It is a loss for me, not a gain; ill-gotten for me, not well-gotten, that when I recollect the Buddha, Dhamma, & Saṅgha in this way, equanimity based on what is skillful is not established within me.”

Painful feelings of this sort are not to be avoided. In other words, you don’t try to abandon your desire for the goal, for without that desire the path wouldn’t come together. You try to learn how to use this desire skillfully as motivation to move further along the path, like the tension in a bowstring that provides the arrow with the force needed to fly. Only on reaching the goal can you abandon the painful feelings based on this desire, in favor of the rapture, joy, and equanimity that come once release has been attained.

So regardless of how you define it, painful feeling not of the flesh doesn’t just happen. It, too, is a product of fabrication—a fabrication based on knowledge that forms part of the path.

With this typology of feelings in mind we can look more carefully at the Buddha’s recommendations for how to regard feelings as factors in a causal process. To begin with, you look at how your practice induces pleasure, and what effect pleasant practice has on the mind. If the effect isn’t negative, the pleasure isn’t to be rejected. You don’t load yourself down with pain simply to show that you can take it. But if pleasant practice does have a negative effect, the duty of ardency is to replace it with a more painful practice.

Conversely, the Buddha’s simile of the well-tuned lute (AN 6:55) show that if too much pain in the practice leads to restlessness, your persistence should be eased.

Here it’s important to note that the Buddha encourages painful practice not for the sake of burning away old kamma. In fact, in an extended discussion in MN 101, he ridicules the idea that painful feelings could have this effect at all. Instead, he encourages you to follow a painful practice, when necessary, to abandon unskillful qualities as they manifest in the present, and to give rise to skillful mental qualities in their stead.

A second way of viewing feelings as factors in a causal process is connected with the active production of feelings not of the flesh. In addition to providing an alternative escape from ordinary pain, the act of developing feelings not of the flesh allows you to gain insight into the process of fabrication that gives rise to feelings, and into the obsessions ordinarily produced by feelings of the flesh. These insights help lead to release from those obsessions.

This shows why feelings of the flesh are not simply to be accepted as they come. If you want to gain insight and release, you have to replace them with feelings not of the flesh to see what obsessions underlie them.

MN 137 makes a similar point in a discussion of mental feelings: joy, grief, and equanimity. It defines these feelings in somewhat different terms from the classification given in DN 22, focusing on the attitude, skillful or unskillful, that produces them. Ordinary “house-based” attitudes regard sensory pleasure as an acquisition or gain, and sensory pain as a loss. More skillful attitudes—based on renunciation—try to see the inconstancy of all things experienced through the senses. This can lead to renunciation-based grief: “O when will I enter & remain in the dimension that the noble ones now enter & remain in?” This is the same sentiment we just encountered as one of the possible meanings of painful feelings not of the flesh. However, when the perception of inconstancy has a deeper effect on the mind, it can lead to refined feelings of renunciation-based joy and renunciation-based equanimity.

Despite the difference in terms—“house-based” and “renunciation-based,” rather than “of the flesh” and “not of the flesh”—the recommendations in MN 137 for gaining escape from house-based grief parallel those in MN 44 for gaining escape from pain of the flesh. Instead of replacing house-based grief with house-based pleasure, you first replace it with renunciation-based grief. You then take that grief as motivation to develop the joy that comes from insight, and then replace that joy with the more peaceful equanimity also coming from insight. So again, the sort of pain that leads to beneficial results is not to be avoided on the path. It’s to be actively cultivated until it yields skillful pleasure and equanimity.

MN 137 then gives instructions on how to progress from ordinary equanimity to equanimity not of the flesh—by developing the formless attainments based on the equanimity found in the fourth jhāna—and then beyond that to the non-fashioning of any sense of self around even the highest levels of equanimity. This leads the practice of remaining focused on feelings in and of themselves from the first through the second to the third level of mindfulness practice.

We have already discussed these instructions in detail in Chapter Two. Here we can simply note how they relate to the fact that DN 22 includes feelings not of the flesh in its discussion of this frame of reference: By inducing equanimity not of the flesh, you’re in a position to see any subtle unskillful mental states, such as the fashioning of a refined sense of self, that can develop around feelings—much more clearly than when simply experiencing feelings of the flesh. Only when you see these subtle states can you abandon them. Only when you abandon them can you gain release. This is why feelings not of the flesh have to be purposely developed as an essential part of the path.

C. Mind

DN 22’s treatment of mind is similar to its treatment of feelings. It simply gives a list of mental states for you to discern when they are present. In this case, however, the states are listed in pairs. With one exception, each pair consists of an unskillful state and its skillful counterpart. As for the exception—a constricted mind and a scattered mind—both members of the pair are unskillful; they’re paired because they represent two extremes between which you have to find a middle way to bring the mind to concentration.

There are eight pairs in all:

An example of the formula repeated for each pair is:

Some of the terms in these pairs need to be defined. SN 51:20 identifies a “constricted” mind as one accompanied by sloth and drowsiness; a “scattered” mind as one stirred up by pleasing sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. The term “enlarged” is used, together with “immeasurable / unlimited,” in the standard description of the awareness generated in the practice of the brahmavihāras (SN 42:8). According to Ven. Anuruddha in MN 127, however, an enlarged mind is not immeasurable. Its range of awareness is larger than the body but still measurable, ranging in distance from the shade of a tree to the earth bounded by the ocean. A “surpassed” mind is apparently one that has been surpassed either in your own experience or when compared to the experience of those whose awakening is unsurpassed.

These pairs are not mutually exclusive. An unconcentrated mind, for instance, could be scattered with passion, aversion, and delusion all at once. A concentrated mind would also count as enlarged, and—depending on context—either surpassed or unsurpassed, released or unreleased. In other words, it might be unsurpassed in the context of your own experience, but surpassed by the mind of someone further along on the path. Similarly, a mind in the first jhāna would be released from sensuality, but unreleased from directed thought and evaluation, and so on.

The progression in the list of possible mind states exhibits a feature similar to the progression in the list of feelings. The first three pairs deal with issues pertinent to the mind in all activities; the last five, with issues pertinent to the practice of concentration. In getting the mind to settle down, the first issue to keep in mind is to avoid the extremes of sloth and sensuality. Then you remember to enlarge your awareness and to make the effort to surpass any preliminary level of concentration so that you can bring it to the stillness of full concentration and release.

The implicit message here, as in the case of feelings, is that you are not simply to watch passively as any of these sixteen mind states arise willy-nilly. Instead, you use these pairs of contemplations to keep in mind the issues relevant to bringing the mind to concentration. This point is implicitly supported by the fact that, as with all the exercises and categories in DN 22, the act of keeping these categories in mind is meant to lead to the second stage of practice, where the establishing of mindfulness is developed through cultivating all eight factors of the noble path, including right concentration.

When we look outside DN 22, we find a wealth of explicit encouragement to bring the mind to balance and to replace unskillful mental states with skillful ones. We have already seen one example in Chapter One, in the passage used to define ardency and compunction (Iti 110). Here are two more:

Often this principle is stated as a matter of great urgency, in which one of the roles of mindfulness is to keep this urgency in mind and to stay narrowly focused on it.

So the eight pairs of mind states listed under this frame of reference are not simply a catalog of states that might happen to present themselves randomly to passive awareness. They’re categories of mind states to keep in mind as you ardently engage in the fabrications needed to bring the mind to concentration and, further, to the ending of the effluents.

D. Mental Qualities

Under the topic of the fourth frame of reference, DN 22 lists five sets of categories to keep in mind: the five hindrances, the five clinging-aggregates, the sixfold sense media, the seven factors for awakening, and the four noble truths. As we have already noted, the four noble truths and their duties form the overarching framework for understanding how right mindfulness should function. The remaining sets of categories fall under these truths and the duties appropriate to them. The hindrances, as a cause of stress, are to be abandoned. The clinging-aggregates, as the primary example of the truth of stress, are to be comprehended to the point of dispassion. As for the sixfold sense-media, the discussion in DN 22 focuses on the fetters that arise in dependence on these media—fetters that as a cause of stress should be abandoned. The seven factors for awakening, as aspects of the path, are to be developed.

What this means is that these categories are intended as frameworks to keep in mind to guide your ardency in trying to fulfill the duties of the four noble truths. DN 22 gives no indication of when a particular framework might be more useful than another, but a few observations might be helpful here. The sixfold sense-media form the framework for the practice of restraint of the senses. The five hindrances and seven factors for awakening are most often treated as guides for what to abandon and what to develop when bringing the mind to concentration. The five clinging-aggregates are a useful framework for inducing dispassion in two circumstances: when you want to analyze any phenomena that would pull you out of concentration into greed and distress with reference to the world; and when you want to develop dispassion for the world of becoming created by the concentration itself. The four noble truths provide an overarching framework for the practice as a whole. As we noted, the description of right mindfulness in MN 117—in which mindfulness circles around the first five factors of the path to bring about right concentration—would count as an application of this framework. It also illustrates how this framework arches over the others in providing guidance in how to bring mindfulness to bear on every part of the path.

It would be impossible to list all the ways in which these frameworks can be put to use. The following discussion is meant simply to provide a few suggestions for further inquiry.

The five hindrances are obstacles to concentration. They are: sensual desire, ill will, sloth & drowsiness, restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty. The discussion of these hindrances under this fourth frame of reference lists five things to notice with regard to each hindrance: when it is present; when it is absent; how it arises; how—once arisen—it is abandoned; and how there will be no future arising of it once it has been abandoned. This last point refers to the stage of the practice when that particular hindrance is gone for good. If we identify the hindrances simply as hindrances to concentration, this stage would be stream entry in the case of uncertainty, and non-return in every other case, for non-return is the level of awakening where concentration is fully mastered (AN 3:85 [Thai: AN 3:87]). If we identify the hindrances with the deeper and subtler fetters that share their names, then uncertainty would be overcome with stream entry; sensuality and ill will with non-return; and restlessness with arahantship (MN 118; AN 10:13).

In either interpretation, this framework can be used all the way from the beginning stages of concentration practice to the transcendent attainments.

The formula for each hindrance follows a standard pattern. Here is the formula for sensual desire:

SN 46:51 gives an overall account of how to use appropriate attention to starve the hindrances.

Many discourses give further instructions for bringing appropriate attention to the potentials that starve specific hindrances. Here are some instructions for dealing with drowsiness:

The five clinging-aggregates form the summary definition of stress under the first noble truth. They are: the form clinging-aggregate, the feeling clinging-aggregate, the perception clinging-aggregate, the fabrications clinging-aggregate, and the consciousness clinging-aggregate. The term “aggregate” (khandha) can also mean “group” or “mass.” Some authors have defined the aggregates as the constituent parts of what makes a person, but this is a mistake, for the Buddha said explicitly that they are not to be seen as “what I am” (SN 22:59). Instead, they are better defined as the elements of experience that form the raw material from which we create a sense of self (SN 22:2): what the Buddha calls “I-making” and “my-making.” Without clinging, these aggregates are neutral. With clinging, they’re stressful (SN 22:48).

SN 22:79 defines the individual aggregates, not with nouns, but with verbs, indicating that all of them—including form (physical phenomenon; the body as felt from within)—are best regarded as activities.

On the surface, this passage doesn’t draw an obvious distinction between the aggregates of perception and consciousness. However, there may be some significance in the fact that consciousness is illustrated with an example from the more passive sense of taste, and perception with an example from the more active sense of sight. Consciousness is somewhat more passive than perception in that its main duty is to register the presence of a phenomenon at the senses; perception is more active in labeling it and giving it a meaning (MN 18).

The Canon contains many instructions for how to comprehend the clinging-aggregates to the point of dispassion. DN 22 recommends which aspects of the clinging-aggregates should be kept in mind when doing this:

In other words, you look for what the aggregates are, how they are caused, and how they disappear. The word “such” in this formula seems to indicate a direct observation of these aggregates as they are happening. SN 22:5 connects this level of direct observation to the practice of concentration:

As Ven. Sāriputta notes in SN 22:85, when a meditator analyzes experience into aggregates in this way, he/she will develop a sense of dispassion for them, seeing them as inconstant, stressful, not-self, fabricated, and murderous. The ability to analyze distractions to concentration in this way would help strengthen the concentration by inducing disenchantment with any possible distraction. And as we have already seen in Chapter Three, in the passage from AN 9:36, this analysis can then be turned on the concentration itself, after it is mastered, to bring about total release.

The sixfold sense-media are the six senses (counting the mind as the sixth) and their respective objects. The senses themselves are called “internal”; their objects, “external.” As DN 22 points out, the framework to keep in mind here consists not only of the senses, but also of the issue of how fetters arise in relationship to the senses.

Here the word “fetter” apparently doesn’t denote the standard list of ten fetters, for several discourses—including SN 35:191–192—connect the sixfold sense-media particularly with the arising of the fetters of desire and passion.

The formula in DN 22 for each of the sense media parallels that for each of the five hindrances. You look for: when the fetter related to that sense is present; when it is absent; how it arises; how—once arisen—it is abandoned; and how there will be no future arising of it once it has been abandoned. And again, as with the hindrances, this last point refers to the stage of the practice when that fetter is gone for good, which means that this framework can be used all the way from the beginning stages of the practice to the attainment of arahantship, where the subtlest passions—for the form and formless phenomena experienced in the four jhānas and the five formless attainments—are abandoned once and for all.

Here is the formula for eye and forms:

The formula doesn’t indicate a particular context for practicing this frame of reference, but when we compare it to other passages in the discourses, it seems to fit best with the practice of restraint of the senses. The discourses contain many descriptions of this practice. The most interesting, from the point of view of the establishing of mindfulness, are those describing this practice as best based on mindfulness immersed in the body.

In Chapter One we have already encountered the simile from SN 47:20, in which mindfulness immersed in the body is depicted as the bowl of oil that a man has to stay focused on while exercising extreme restraint of the senses so that his head doesn’t get cut off. Because, as MN 119 notes, “mindfulness immersed in the body” covers any of the six exercises mentioned under the first frame of reference, this would count as at least one instance in which you would be sensitive to the categories in the fourth frame of reference while staying focused on the exercises listed under the first.

Another passage makes the connection between these two exercises even more explicit:

As we will see at the end of this chapter, when we discuss the relationships among the various frames of reference, there is every reason to believe that the pattern we observed in MN 118—that the last three frames of reference can be practiced while paying attention to the first—applies in DN 22 as well. The fact that restraint of the senses is best based on mindfulness immersed in the body—the stake or post that keeps it from running away—is an explicit illustration of this point.

The seven factors for awakening have already been discussed in Chapter Six. DN 22’s main contribution to this topic is the formula it supplies for each factor. Because these factors are often presented as the skillful converse of the five hindrances, it’s not surprising that the formula here is the converse of that for the five hindrances. You notice when the factor is present, when it is absent, how to give rise to it; and how—once it is arisen—there is the culmination of its development. For example:

Because the last point in this formula refers to the full development of the path, this frame of reference can be applied all the way from the beginning stages of concentration practice up to the threshold of awakening where the path reaches a point of culmination.

Just as SN 46:51 provides instructions for using appropriate attention to starve the hindrances, it also provides similar instructions for feeding the factors for awakening.

Notice the way in which the feeding of some of the factors for awakening is identical to the starving of some of the hindrances. The act of feeding analysis of qualities is identical with the starving of uncertainty; the feeding of persistence is identical with the starving of sloth and drowsiness. The feeding of calm and concentration is nearly identical with the starving of restlessness and anxiety. This overlap is apparently one of the reasons why the seven factors are often presented as the converse of the hindrances.

As we have already noted with regard to rapture at the beginning of Chapter Seven, some of the instructions for feeding the factors for awakening in this passage are fairly opaque. These instructions are best read as a reminder that you have to learn how to observe from your own internal investigation and experience what the potentials for the factors for awakening might be, and to keep those observations in mind to develop them further.

The four noble truths are presented in DN 22 in great detail. When we compare the discussion here to the standard discussion of the four noble truths given in other discourses, two features stand out. The first is that terms left undefined in the standard formula for the first noble truth are here defined with many examples.

Even more important for the practice, though, is the second distinctive feature here: a long list under the second and third noble truths, showing where to focus attention to see craving arising and where to abandon it so that it will cease. As the list shows, the spots where craving arises are the same spots where you can develop the dispassion needed to abandon it. The list of spots is long, but it can be summarized as follows:

All of these spots are factors or sub-factors in dependent co-arising. The first five are the immediate predecessors of craving in the standard sequence of conditions. Craving, of course, is craving itself. Feeling occurs both prior to contact, as a sub-factor of both fabrication and name-and-form, and after contact, as a factor on its own. The remaining factors occur prior to contact: perception, directed thought, and evaluation as sub-factors of fabrication; and intention as a sub-factor of name-and-form.

The message of this list is that craving can be abandoned at any of these spots. This list is thus an illustration of the principle set out in MN 9 and Sn 3:12: that knowledge in terms of the four noble truths can be applied at any spot in the causal sequence to bring it to an end.

The inclusion of directed thought and evaluation in this list also draws attention to the point discussed in AN 9:36, that dispassion for the aggregates can be developed by observing them in their role as constituent factors of jhāna. In fact, if we take craving as identical to desire—as the Buddha does in SN 42:11—then all of the factors of this list can be found in the list of constituent factors that Ven. Sāriputta discerns while practicing jhāna in MN 111: directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure, singleness of mind, contact, feeling, perception, intention, consciousness, desire, decision, persistence, mindfulness, equanimity (under feeling), & attention.

What’s distinctive about the discussion in DN 22 is that it relates all of these factors and sub-factors to the six sense media, i.e., the “world” as defined in SN 35:82. To focus attention right at these factors means to regard them as events, in and of themselves, and not in terms of whatever sense of world might be created out of them. Because the worlds of becoming created by the practice of jhāna—and detected at the sixth sense, the intellect—would come under the word, world, this approach can be used to examine craving at contact not only at the normal sensory level, but also at the level of the mind in right concentration, when you’re in contact with the factors of jhāna.

To see these factors and sub-factors as events—divorced from any meaning that they might have in relation to any world, simply arising and passing away in line with the conditions of ignorance and fabrication—helps to instill a sense of dispassion for them. This dispassion undercuts the tendency for craving to arise right at these events—which means that this frame of reference is especially useful in subduing greed and distress both for the world outside one’s concentration, and ultimately for the practice of concentration itself. In this, it parallels the steps of the fourth tetrad in MN 118, in which the contemplation of inconstancy leads ultimately to the contemplation of relinquishment of all fabricated phenomena, including the path.

E. Four in One

DN 22 doesn’t describe the practical relationship among these four frames of reference. This is in line with the limited range of questions framing the discourse: They focus simply on what it means to keep a particular framework in mind, without explicitly treating the other questions surrounding that framework within the standard satipaṭṭhāna formula. To get some idea of the relationship among these frames of reference, we have to look to other discourses.

In particular, it’s useful to look to MN 118 for insight into this area. Three points from that discourse are worth investigating to see how they might apply here.

When we compare these points from MN 118 to what we’ve observed in DN 22, we find that there are good reasons for seeing the same relations functioning here. This isn’t necessarily the only way to understand the relationships among the four frames of reference in establishing mindfulness, but it is a good place to start in developing an understanding that both penetrates the content of DN 22 and ponders its meaning in its context within the rest of the Canon: the type of penetrating and pondering the Buddha recommends in MN 95 as prerequisites to the practice.

1) With regard to the first point, there are at least three reasons to believe that you can practice the last three frames of reference while staying focused on any of the exercises listed in the first. The first reason is that the observations made in MN 118 relating the sixteen steps to the four establishings of mindfulness apply here as well: the various ways of focusing on the body all come under the topic of “body”; attention to the body would count as the intentional element contained in feeling; mindfulness of the body requires steady mindfulness and alertness; and the abandoning of greed and distress would be accompanied by the mental quality of equanimity, which is the last factor for awakening.

As we noted in Chapter Six, the formula for establishing mindfulness on the body in and of itself —“One remains focused on the body in & of itself—ardent, alert, & mindful—subduing greed & distress with reference to the world”—implicitly involves feelings, mind states, and mental qualities. The act of remaining focused on the body fabricates feelings; alertness and mindfulness are mind states; and the act of subduing greed and distress with reference to the world involves mental qualities. This means that establishing mindfulness on the first frame of reference provides a good opportunity to view the other three frames in action in a way that sees their causal interactions, while at the same time providing a “post or stake” to help keep those interactions from wandering off into distraction.

The second reason for viewing the act of establishing mindfulness on the body in and of itself as a foundation for the other three establishings of mindfulness is that DN 22 gives specific mindfulness exercises only under the first frame of reference; the remaining frames simply list categories of events to discern as they occur. Again, as SN 35:206 notes, the exercise of staying with the body as a frame of reference provides an excellent grounding—a strong stake or post—to keep the mind from getting pulled away by any meanings attributed to feelings or by the content of mental states. Mindfulness of the body keeps your focus firmly grounded in a spot where feelings, mind states, and mental qualities can be observed simply as actions or events without reference to meaning or content.

At the same time, the exercises in the first frame of reference provide an ideal opportunity for giving rise to the skillful feelings, mind states, and mental qualities that are implicitly favored in the lists provided for the last three frames of reference. We have already noted, in our discussion of the exercises under the first frame of reference, how specific exercises focused on the body also relate to the other frames of reference. For example, the practice of developing alertness to all the body’s activities provides a foundation for developing right speech and right action, factors of the path listed under the fourth frame of reference. The same exercise strengthens concentrated states of mind, which are listed under the third. The contemplation of the elements helps to foster feelings not of the flesh, which are listed under the second.

These interrelationships connect directly to the third reason for viewing the act of establishing mindfulness on the body in and of itself as a foundation for the other three establishings of mindfulness: The practice of right concentration necessarily involves all four frames of reference. As we have seen, all the exercises and categories that DN 22 lists under the four frames relate explicitly or implicitly to the practice of concentration. Even the categories of feelings and mind states—which at first glance seem simply to encourage a passive registering of whatever arises—turn out, when viewed in the larger context of the discourses, to be categories of events useful to keep in mind when bringing the mind to concentration. When you concentrate on the body, you have to deal with feelings, mind states, and mental qualities in a way that helps strengthen your focus, for they are all present right there. For concentration to be truly unified, all four frames have to work together. Otherwise, they pull your focus apart.

So, for these three reasons, it seems best to view the last three frames of reference as guides to fruitful ways of directing ardency when you focus on any of the exercises in the first.

2) As for the second point—that the sets of categories listed in DN 22 under the fourth frame of reference are useful primarily for subduing greed and distress with reference to the world—this point applies directly to four of the five sets: the five hindrances, the five clinging-aggregates, the sixfold sense media, and the four noble truths. The discussion under the hindrances explicitly deals with points to keep in mind when dealing with unskillful mental qualities, as does the discussion of the fetters associated with the sixfold sense media. The five clinging-aggregates, as we have seen, are a useful framework for undercutting passion. And as we have seen under the discussion of the four noble truths, DN 22 focuses special attention on the spots where craving arises in conjunction with the sixfold sense media, and where dispassion can be developed to abandon it.

In all these cases, these frameworks are useful for undercutting passion not only when the mind is surrounded with unskillful mental qualities that threaten to derail its concentration, but also when it has reached the stage where it’s ready to go beyond attachment to its mastery of concentration so as to reach total release.

As for the seven factors for awakening, these deal more directly with qualities to develop around the focus of concentration, and less on qualities to subdue or abandon. However, two of its factors—the analysis of qualities, with its focus on the distinction between skillful and unskillful qualities; and persistence, in its effort to abandon unskillful qualities—are directly relevant to the process of subduing. And the list as a whole helps indirectly in subduing greed and distress in two ways: (1) The simple act of developing skillful qualities and finding joy in them, in and of itself, helps to induce dispassion for unskillful qualities. (2) As MN 118 points out, the seven factors for awakening, when combined with heightened concentration and heightened insight—dependent on seclusion, on dispassion, on cessation, resulting in letting go—lead to clear knowing and total release. This is the ultimate abandoning of any possible greed and distress.

This is why the discussion of all these frameworks in DN 22 seems to parallel the role of the fourth tetrad in breath meditation in subduing greed and distress with reference to the world.

3) As for the third point—that each of the four establishings of mindfulness can lead to the cultivation of the seven factors for awakening and, through them, to clear knowing and release: We have noted many times that all four establishings of mindfulness have to be used together in the development of right concentration. Still, individual meditators will find that the emphasis of their focus will shift from one frame of reference to another in this process, and may find one frame more fruitful than others. Their practice will thus be dominated by that frame. But regardless of the frame, the pattern is always the same. As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, the “wheel” format of DN 22 makes the practical point that every exercise listed in the discourse can be developed through three levels: the establishing of mindfulness; the development of the establishing of mindfulness; and the equipoise of non-fashioning, where mindfulness is impersonal, independent of anything in the world. The first two levels entail the cultivation of right concentration based on right view, right effort, and right mindfulness, the same progression of factors found in the seven factors for awakening. The final stage of non-fashioning, independent of anything in the world, adds the elements of seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, resulting in letting go (MN 118) that enable the seven factors to lead to clear knowing and release.

This means that any of the frames of reference listed in DN 22 can be used to develop the seven factors for awakening and can lead, through them, all the way to the goal of ending suffering and stress.

So even though DN 22 doesn’t explicitly describe the relations among the four frames of reference, or their relation to the seven factors for awakening, we can apply the framework provided by MN 118 to gain insight into how these qualities can be coordinated to provide a guide to ardency from the beginning to the end of the path to total unbinding.