CHAPTER ONE 

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION (SATIPATTHANA)

At this centre we practise mindfulness meditation (Satipatth-ana). However before we start practising we
must  know how to practise. We need to have the right information and the right idea about the nature of the practice so that we have the right attitude when we practise.

We meditate on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (body, feelings, mind, and dhamma). As the practice develops we give more and more emphasis to the mind because meditation is the work of the mind.

What follows below should be sufficient to get you started. Later on, Dhamma discussions will take you deeper into the practice. Please read and re-read this guidance slowly and carefully. 

Mind Work

Meditation is mind work, the work of being aware. It is not the work of the body. It is not what you do with your body, the way you sit, walk, or move. Meditation is experiencing the mind and the body directly, moment to moment, with the right understanding. 

When, for example, you put your hands together and pay attention, you will feel and be aware of that sensation – that’s the mind at work. Can you know those touching sensations if you are thinking of other things? You obviously cannot. You have to be attentive. When you pay attention to your body you will notice many sensations. Can you feel the different qualities of these sensations? Do you need labeling in order to bring your attention and awareness to the different sensations? You certainly do not. In fact, labeling will prevent you from being able to observe details. Simply be aware! However, being aware is only one part of meditation.

In addition, you also need to have the right information and a clear understanding of the practice to work with awareness intelligently. Right now you are reading this book in order to understand mind­fulness meditation. This information will work at the back of your mind when you meditate. Reading or discussing Dhamma, and reflecting on how to practice are all mind work, are all part of meditation.

Continuity is vital for this practice, for meditative mind work. You need to remind yourself to be aware all day long. So watch yourself everywhere, all the time; when sitting, walking, cleaning, talking, anything you do – watch it, know it, be aware of what is going on.

Relax

When doing mind work, you should be relaxed and practise without tension, without forcing yourself. The more relaxed you are, the easier it is to develop mindfulness. We do not tell you to ‘focus’, ‘concentrate’, or ‘penetrate’ because it suggests the use of excessive energy. Instead we encourage you to ‘observe’, ‘watch’, ‘be aware’, or ‘pay attention’.

If you are tense or find yourself getting tense, relax. There is no need to make a forceful effort. Right now, are you aware of your posture? Are you aware of your hands touching this book? Can you feel your feet? Notice how little energy or effort you need to know any of this! That is all the energy you need to remain aware, but remember, you need to do this all day long. If you practise this way, your energy will increase over the day. If you use excessive energy, if the mind wastes energy, you will get tired. In order to be able to practise continuously, you just need to keep reminding yourself to be aware. This right effort will allow you to practise in a relaxed way, free of tension. If the mind is too tense or too tired, you cannot learn anything. If the mind and the body are getting tired, something is wrong with the way you are practising. Check your posture; check the way you are meditating. Are you comfortable and alert? Also check your attitude; don’t practise with a mind that wants something or wants something to happen. The result will only be that you tire yourself.

So you must know whether you are feeling tense or relaxed. Check this repeatedly throughout the day. If you feel tense, observe the tension; if you don’t do this, tension will grow (see last paragraph in DAILY ACTIVITIES). Once you feel relaxed, you can meditate more easily.

Right Attitude (yoniso manasikara)

Being relaxed and aware is essential but it is also very important to have the right attitude, the right frame of mind. What does having the right attitude mean? Having the right attitude is a way of looking at things that makes you content, comfortable, and feel at ease with whatever you are experiencing. Wrong ideas, wrong information, or ignorance of the defilements affect your attitude. 

We all have wrong attitudes; we cannot help having them. So do not try to have the right attitude, try to recognize if you have the wrong or the right attitude instead. It is important to be aware when you have right attitudes, but it is even more important to recognize and investigate your wrong attitudes. Try to understand your wrong attitudes; find out how they affect your practice, and see how they make you feel. So watch yourself and keep checking to see what state of mind you are practising with.

 Right attitude allows you to accept, acknowledge, and observe whatever is happening – whether pleasant or unpleasant – in a relaxed and alert way. You have to accept and watch both good and bad experiences. Every experience, whether good or bad, gives you a learning opportunity to notice whether the mind accepts things the way they are, or whether it likes, dislikes, reacts, or judges. 

Liking something means you desire it, disliking something means you have an aversion to it. Desire and aversion are defilements that arise out of ignorance – ignorance or delusion is a defilement too. So do not try to create anything; trying to create something is greed. Do not reject what is happening; rejecting what is happening is aversion. Not knowing that something is happening or has stopped happening is delusion.

You are not trying to make things turn out the way you want them to happen. You are trying to know what is happening as it is. Thinking things should be this way or that, wanting this or that to happen or not to happen is expectation. Expectations create anxiety and can lead to aversion. It is important that you become aware of your attitudes!

It is a wrong attitude to judge the practice and become dissatisfied with the way it is going. The dissatisfaction either arises from the idea that things are not the way we think they should be, from a desire that they should be different, or from ignorance of what right practice is. These attitudes close the mind and hinder the practice. Try to recognize dissatisfaction, to fully accept it, and to watch it very alertly. During this process of observation and exploration of the experience of dissatisfaction, its causes could become clear. Understanding the causes will dissolve the dis­satis­faction and will help you to recognize them if they come up again. You will see more and more clearly the harm dissatisfaction causes to the mind and the body. You will become more mindful of your judgmental attitudes and gradually abandon them. In this way you are developing skills in dealing with defilements.

Wrong attitudes are caused by delusion. We all have them in our minds. All wrong attitudes are the defilements craving and aversion or any of their relatives such as elation, sadness, or worry. Not accepting defilements will only strengthen them. The defilements hinder your progress in meditation and prevent you from living your life fully. They also prevent you from finding true peace and freedom. Don’t look down on the defilements; they will laugh at you!

Look out for the defilements. Get to know the defilements that arise in your mind. Observe and try to understand them. Do not attach to them, reject, or ignore them, and do not identify with them. As you stop attaching to or identifying with the defilements their strength will slowly diminish. You have to keep double checking to see what attitude you are meditating with.

Always bear in mind that mindfulness meditation is a learning process during which you get to know the mind and body relationship. Just be natural and simple; there is no need to slow down unnaturally. You simply want to see things as they are. 

There is no need to make an effort to concentrate. Concentration will naturally grow with practice. Our objective is to become more and more mindful. The more continuous your mindfulness is, the sharper and more receptive the mind becomes. 

Don’t forget: the object is not really important; the observing mind that is working in the background to be aware is of real importance. If the observing is done with the right attitude, any object is the right object. Do you have the right attitude?

Be Aware Intelligently 

Mindfulness meditation is more than just observing things with a receptive mind. You cannot practise it blindly, mechanically, without thinking. You have to use both knowledge and intelligence to bring your practice to life. 

The main tools you need to be aware intelligently are: 

• the right information and a clear understanding of the practice,

• the right motivation or interest, and

• the right thinking, reflection, or inquiry.

Right information and clear understanding of the practice is what you gain from reading relevant texts and from Dhamma discussions. The right motivation or interest is based on clearly knowing why you are practising here and now. Have you ever asked yourself questions like: “Why do I want to meditate?” “What do I expect to gain?” “Do I understand what meditation means?” Right motivation and interest will grow out of your answers to these questions. Right information and right motivation will have a strong influence on the way you think or reflect when practising. They enable you to ask intelligent questions at the right moment. 

Right thinking, reflection, or inquiry is thinking that helps you to practise correctly. If, as a beginner, you are faced with a particular situation in your practice, you should first reflect on what the instruc­tions on dealing with such a situation are, and then try to apply them. If it is not clear to you what is going on, you could also ask yourself questions such as: “What is my attitude?” “Which defilement am I dealing with?” However, make sure you do not think or reflect too much, especially if you are a beginner; your mind might wander off. Such questions or thoughts should only serve to heighten your interest. 

Even if you have the right information, the right motivation and made the right reflections you could still make mistakes. Recognizing mistakes is an important aspect of being aware intelligently. We all make mistakes; it is natural to do so. If you find you have made a mistake, accept and acknowledge it; try to learn from it. 

As your mindfulness becomes more and more continuous, your interest in the practice will grow. Being aware intelligently will help you to deepen your practice, to come to new understandings. Ultimately, it will help you to fulfil the objective of mindfulness meditation: vipassana- insights.

Mindfulness meditation is a learning process; use your awareness intelligently!

Postures / Eating / Daily Activities

Don’t forget to watch yourself from the time you wake up until the time you fall asleep. Whenever you notice that you have not been mindful, check the state of your mind. Try to feel what mood the mind is in. Are you relaxed or not? Then start by observing some obvious sensations on any part of the body. The meditating mind must be simple, not complicated. You can use any sensation as the main object to bring the mind to the present moment. The main or primary object helps you to keep the mind aware, in the present moment. It is something you can always go to when you are not sure what to observe. However, you do not have to stay with that main object all the time. It is perfectly alright if the mind’s attention moves to other objects such as sensations, hearing, even a wandering mind, as long as you are aware that the mind is now aware of these new objects. It is also fine if it knows several objects at the same time. 

In sitting meditation both the mind and the body should be comfortable. Keep checking whether you are relaxed or not. If there is tension, first relax, then check your attitude. If there is resistance, feel the resistance and observe it. Be simple and just watch what is happening. Watch whatever the mind is aware of – your posture, bodily sensations, your breathing, feelings and emotions, the wandering or thinking mind, hearing or smelling. If you are sitting comfortably on your cushion and are busy thinking about something very important without even realizing that there is thinking going on, you are not meditating! When you suddenly realize that this is happening, do not worry about it. Relax, check your attitude, i.e. start this whole exercise again from the beginning.

Be aware that you are walking whenever you walk. You do not need to walk fast or slowly, just walk at a natural pace. You can watch what the mind pays attention to, or just have an overall feel of the sensation of your whole body walking. If the mind settles on particular sensations or body movements, that is alright too. But remember, you do not have to focus on one object continuously; in fact you should avoid doing this if it makes you tense. You can also notice hearing and that you are looking to see where you are going. Try not to look around as it will distract you. However, once your mindfulness has become more continuous, you need to learn to be aware whenever you look at something. This ability to be aware of seeing comes with practice. As long as you are not skilful at this, seeing will tend to distract you, make you lose your mindfulness.

When you do standing meditation you can follow the same basic principles as in sitting and walking meditation. Keep checking for tension!

When you eat, do not hurry. When you are eager to eat you will lose mindfulness. So if you become aware that you are eating quickly, stop eating and watch the eagerness or the feelings that accompany it for a while. You need to be reasonably calm to find out what the process of eating is like. Experience the sensations, the smells, the tastes, the mental states, what you like and dislike. Also notice bodily movements. Do not worry about observing every detail, just remain aware of your experience.

Your personal time and activities are also very important times to be mindful. You tend to lose your mindfulness most easily when you are on your own. Are you aware when you close doors, brush your teeth, put on your clothes, take a shower, go to toilet? How do you feel when you do these activities? Do you notice what you like and what you dislike? Are you aware when you are looking at something? Are you aware when you are listening to something? Are you aware when you have judgments about what you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, think, or feel? Are you aware when you are talking? Are you aware of the tone and loudness of your voice? 

It is important that you regularly check whether you are relaxed or tense; if you don’t, you will not be aware whether you are relaxed or getting tense. When you find yourself tense, watch the tension. You cannot practise when the mind is tense. If you get tense, it indicates that your mind is not working in the right way. Inquire into the way your mind has been working. If you do this often enough during the day you may prevent a buildup of tension. With practice you may also become aware of the reason for your tension. Do not forget to observe tension! If you become tense easily, do lying down meditation once a day. This will also help you to practise awareness in every posture you are in.

Wandering Mind / Sounds

When the mind is thinking or wandering, when a sound keeps catching your attention, just be aware of it. Thinking is a natural activity of the mind. It is natural that, if you have good hearing, you will hear sounds. You are doing well if you are aware that the mind is thinking or hearing. But if you feel disturbed by thoughts or sounds, or if you have a reaction or judgment to them, there is a problem with your attitude. The wandering mind and sounds are not the problem; your attitude that ‘they should not be around’ is the problem. So understand that you have just become aware of some functions of the mind. These too are just objects for your attention. 

Thinking is a mental activity. When you are new to this practice you should not try to watch thinking continuously. Neither should you try to avoid observing thoughts by immediately going to your primary meditation object. When you realize that you are thinking, always pay attention to the thought first and then remind yourself that a thought is just a thought. Do not think of it as ‘my thought’. Now you can return to your primary meditation object.

When you feel disturbed by the thinking mind, remind yourself that you are not practising to prevent thinking, but rather to recognize and acknowledge thinking whenever it arises. If you are not aware, you cannot know that you are thinking. The fact that you recognize that you are thinking means that you are aware. Remember that it does not matter how many times the mind thinks, wanders off, or gets annoyed about something ­­– as long as you become aware of it. 

It does not matter whether thinking stops or not. It is more important that you understand whether your thoughts are skilful, unskilful, appropriate, inappropriate, necessary or unnecessary. This is why it is essential to learn to watch thinking without getting involved. When a thought keeps growing no matter how much effort you put into trying to simply observe it, you are probably somehow involved in the thought. When this happens, when thinking becomes so incessant that you can no longer observe it, stop looking at the thoughts and try to watch the underlying feelings or bodily sensations instead.

No matter whether you are sitting, walking, or going about your daily activities, ask yourself now and again: What is the mind doing? Thinking? Thinking about what? Being aware? Being aware of what?

Pain / Unpleasant Sensations / Emotions

When you experience pains, aches and other bodily discomforts, it means you have a mental resistance to them and therefore you are not ready yet to observe these unpleasant physical sensations directly. Nobody likes pain and if you observe pain while still resisting it, it will become worse. It is like when you are angry with someone; if you look at that person again and again you will become even angrier. So never force yourself to observe pain; this is not a fight, this is a learning opportunity. You are not observing pain to lessen it or to make it go away. You are observing it – especially your mental reactions to it – in order to understand the connection between your mental reactions and your perception of the physical sensations.

Check your attitude first. Wishing for the pain to decrease or go away is the wrong attitude. It does not matter whether the pain goes away or not. Pain is not the problem; your negative mental reaction to it is the problem. If the pain is caused by some kind of injury you should of course be careful not to make things worse, but if you are well and healthy, pain is simply an important opportunity to practise watching the mind at work. When there is pain, the mental feelings and reactions are strong and therefore easy to observe. Learn to watch anger or resistance, tension or discomfort in your mind. If necessary, alternate between checking your feelings and the attitude behind your resistance. Keep reminding yourself to relax the mind and the body, and observe how it affects your mental resistance. There is a direct link between your state of mind and pain. The more relaxed and calm the observing mind, the less intense you will perceive the pain to be. Of course, if your mind reacts strongly to the pain (i.e. if you experience pain as unbearable) you should change your posture and make yourself comfortable. 

So if you want to learn how to deal with pain skilfully, try this: From the moment you start feeling pain, no matter how weak it is, check your mind and body for tension, and relax. Part of your mind will remain aware of the pain. So check for tension again and again, and relax. Also check your attitude and keep reminding yourself that you have the choice to change your posture if you experience too much pain, as this will make the mind more willing to work with it. Keep repeating this until you no longer feel you want to watch the tension, the fear, the desire to get up, or the unwillingness to stay with the pain. Now you should change your posture. 

When you are able to bear with pain, it does not mean that you are equanimous. Most of us start off by trying hard to sit for a fixed period of time, forcing ourselves not to move. If we succeed to sit for that full hour we feel great, otherwise we feel we have failed. We usually try to bear the pain longer and longer, i.e. we work on increasing our threshold of pain. However, in this process we neglect watching the mind and we are not really aware of our mental reactions to the pain. We fail to realize that developing a high threshold of pain does not mean that the mind is not reacting to the pain.

If you stop forcing yourself to sit for a fixed period of time and instead start watching the mental reactions in the ways described above, your resistance to the pain will gradually decrease and your mind will become more equanimous. Understanding the difference between equanimity and being able to bear with pain is really important. Mindfulness meditation is not about forcing but about understanding. Real equanimity is the result of true understanding of the nature of liking and disliking through observation and investigation.

It is best to look at pain directly only if you cannot feel a resistance to it. Keep in mind that there may be a reaction at a subtle level. As soon as you recognize mental discomfort, turn your attention to that feeling. If you can see subtle mental discomfort, watch it change; does it increase or decrease? As the mind becomes more equanimous and sensitive it will recognize subtle reactions more easily. When you look at mental discomfort at a more subtle level you may get to the point when your mind feels completely equanimous. If you look at pain directly and if there is true equanimity, mental discomfort will not arise anymore. 

Remember that you are not looking at the reactions of the mind to make them go away. Always take reactions as an opportunity to investigate their nature. Ask yourself questions! How do they make you feel? What thoughts are in your mind? How does what you think affect the way you feel? How does what you feel affect the way you think? What is the attitude behind the thoughts? How does any of this change the way you perceive pain?

Try to apply the relevant points mentioned above to deal with any other physical discomforts such as itching, and feeling hot or cold. Moreover, whatever skills we learn in dealing with our reactions to physical discomforts can also be applied in dealing with defilements such as emotions of anger, frustration, jealousy, disappointment, or rejection as well as happiness, pleasure, lust or attachment. They and all their relatives – even their distant ones – should be dealt with in similar ways as pain. You need to learn to recognize and let go of both attachment and aversion.

When you investigate such emotions, it is important that you remind yourself that they are natural phenomena. They are not ‘your’ emotions; everybody experiences them. You always need to keep this in mind when you examine the thoughts and mental images that accompany emotions. All thoughts you identify with actually ‘fuel’ the emotions.

However, when the emotion you experience is very strong, you might not be able to look at the accompanying thoughts without getting even more emotional. In such a case, it is usually best to first become very clearly aware of and look at the pleasant or unpleasant feelings and sensations that accompany the emotion. But if you find even looking at these feelings and sensations too overwhelming, you could turn your attention to a neutral or pleasant object, for example your breath or a sound. Doing this will skilfully distract the mind and stop it from thinking – or will at least reduce thinking. ‘You’ will no longer be so involved in the ‘story’ and therefore the emotion will subside. But do not completely ignore those feelings and sensations; take a look at them every now and then!

When a strong emotion has subsided, or when you are looking at a weak emotion, you will be able to look at the feelings, the thoughts plus the bodily sensations. The better you understand how they all interrelate, the more skilfully and effectively you will be able to handle any kind of emotion.

Don’t forget to check your attitude: Check to see whether you really accept the emotion or whether you have a resistance towards it. Any unnoticed resistance to and any unnoticed identification with the emotion will ‘feed’ it, will make it grow bigger (snowball effect). Remember that the emotions do not need to go away at all. The objective is to know what the emotions feel like, to know what you are thinking when there are emotions, and to understand their ‘nature’ and the mind’s behaviour.

Continuity of Awareness

You need to be aware of yourself continuously, whatever posture you are in, from the time you wake up until you fall asleep. Do not let your mind become idle or run freely. It is important that the mind keeps working, i.e. keeps being aware. Whatever you do, it is the awareness that is important. Continuity of awareness requires right effort. In our context, right effort means to keep reminding yourself to be aware. Right effort is persistent effort. It is not energy used to focus hard on something. It is effort which is simply directed at remaining aware, which should not require much energy.

You do not need to know every detail of your experience. Just be aware and know what you are aware of. Ask yourself often: “What am I aware of now?” “Am I properly aware or only superficially aware?” This will support continuity of mindfulness. Remember: it is not difficult to be aware –  it is just difficult to do it continuously!

Momentum is important to strengthen your practice and this can only be achieved with continuity of mindfulness. With continuous right effort, mindfulness will slowly gain momentum and become stronger. When mindfulness has momentum, the mind is strong. A strong mind has right mindfulness, right concentration, and wisdom.

Make a consistent effort. Keep reminding yourself to be mindful and your mindfulness will become more and more continuous.

Why?

At this point you might feel overwhelmed by all the information that you have been asked to bear in mind while you meditate. Why do you need to know so much before you even start practising? Giving you all this information, all these suggestions and all this advice basically serves one purpose only: to give you the right view or the right understanding that helps you to meditate with the right attitude. When you have the right under­standing you will naturally apply the right effort and develop right mindful­ness and wisdom. The infor­mation you have accumulated and understood forms the basis for the views that you hold, and these influence the way the mind naturally operates in any situation.

Essence of the Practice

Develop a right understanding of the practice.

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Practise continuously; it is absolutely essential for the development of your practice.

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Relax!

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Have the right attitude; accept your experience just as it is.

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Be aware intelligently.

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Recognize the defilements.