"Foundations of Mindfulness" means actually, "setting up" of mindfulness or "firmly established mindfulness" or "mindfulness firmly established". The Pāli word "satipatthāna" is translated as foundations of mindfulness but we must understand that it means setting up of a firm mindfulness or establishing a firm mindfulness. So, the practice of establishing firm mindfulness is called the "foundations of mindfulness." In this discourse, Buddha said that there were four foundations of mindfulness. When you practice Vipassanā meditation at a retreat like this, you practice all these four foundations of mindfulness, but you practice them at random and not one after another in the order given in the Discourse. That is because when you practice Vipassanā meditation you have to be mindful of the object at the present moment. You cannot afford not to be mindful of the object at the present moment. The object at the present moment can be any one of these four. Sometimes the body, sometimes feelings, sometimes consciousness, and sometimes dhamma objects. You have to take these objects as they come, you have no choice. That is why sometimes Vipassanā meditation is called "choiceless awareness". That means you have no choice, you just have to take what is presented to you. So you practice these four foundations of mindfulness at random when you practice Vipassanā meditation.
Here in the summary the Buddha taught us how to practice the four foundations of mindfulness. So what are the four
"Herein, a monk dwells contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending and mindful, overcoming or removing covetousness and grief in the world." It is a very short sentence but it has many meanings.
"Contemplating the body in the body": That means when a monk practices mindfulness of the body he is precise. He contemplates the body in the body and he does not contemplate the feeling in the body or he does not contemplate the person in the body and so on. He contemplates the body in the body. In order to have a precise object the Buddha repeated the words "body, feeling, consciousness and dhamma" in these sentences. So that means he is precise in his mindfulness of the body, feelings, consciousness and the dhammas. When he practices body contemplation he is ardent, he is clearly comprehending and he is mindful. With regard to the word "ardent" I do not know what other meaning it carries in English. This word is the translation of the Pāli word "ātāpī".
Sometimes we lose something when we translate from one language to another. The word "ātāpī" comes from the word "ātāpa". "Ātāpa" means "heat of the sun." Heat of the sun can heat up things so that things become withered and even they may burn. So in the same way the effort heats up the mental defilements or burns them up. So it is called "ātāpa" in Pāli and one who has ātāpa is called ātāpī, the "ī" denoting possession. So one who possesses ātāpa is called ātāpī. When we read the Sutta in Pāli and when we read the word ātāpī we have that in our mind, we see the effort burning up the mental defilements. When you translate this word into English as "ardent" you lose that image. So ātāpī means he/she makes real effort, not a slack effort, he makes a real effort to be mindful and to clearly comprehend.
When Buddha, still a Bodhisatta, sat down under the Bodhi tree to practice to become the Buddha he made a very firm resolution in his mind. "May my skin, sinews and bones remain, and may my flesh and blood dry up, but I will not desist from or give up this superhuman effort until I reach Buddhahood. I will not get up from this seat until I reach Buddhahood, I will make every effort to achieve my aim." Such an effort is called the "right effort." So to make the right effort means you ha…
《The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: A Summary》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…