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Mindfulness is not Sati?
patbb
Veteran
http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/mindfulness-is-not-sati/
article explaining that a better translation, or better definition for Sati may be: we could very well render samma sati in the noble eightfold path as “right noting” or “right witnessing” or “right attention”.
i would not have know what to make of this, but while reading the article, I remembered a few posts from a forum member here that left quite an impression on me...
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showpost.php?p=103880&postcount=47
thoughts?
article explaining that a better translation, or better definition for Sati may be: we could very well render samma sati in the noble eightfold path as “right noting” or “right witnessing” or “right attention”.
i would not have know what to make of this, but while reading the article, I remembered a few posts from a forum member here that left quite an impression on me...
this post is located here:Hi guys,
Thought I'd weigh in here and tell you how you can get stream entry. Become aware of the Stages of Insight. I used the practice of Mahasi's noting. I previously did many years of the Goenka method but I found that with the inclusion of noting all phenomenon as they arose within the mind and body, that I was able to objectify it all, including the sensations/images that made up the illusion of Self, of "I". Become aware of how the sum of these sensations and mental images "blip" in and out very rapidly over any other bare sensate experience creating the illusion of "I" am observing this, these are "my" sensations.
Start objectifying the "I".....ask yourself what is it? Where is it? What is it doing? See how those sensations and images are just the three characteristics...there is no duality....there is only object. When you start objectifying the "I" and seeing it for what it is...just a dance, a flow of sensations and mental images, so anicca, so anatta, so dukkha.......You cannot get rid of the sensations of "I"...but they can be seen for what they are....just sensations like all the rest on the body....subject will become object....All this will become easier to do once you get to the Equanimity of Formations stage, The 11th stage in the Progress of insight. To get there, all you need to do is continue meditating long enough but correctly.
Remember to become aware with bare awareness or through noting of ALL the subtle states that prop up the "I".... anticipation, boredom, spacing out, space, intention, fascination etc...EVERYTHING must be seen as just the three characteristics. Objectify it all! There really is no "I" there. The job is to see it for what it really is. Just a sum of mental images and sensations.
Keep meditating, using whatever technique to see everything arise and pass away.....get up to Equanimity of formations...don't crave it...craving holds you back....note the craving...include it in the meditation...note everything....you might get up to high equanimity but fall back down into the re-observation stage...get back up and fall down again....This is part of how you get stream entry. U Ba Khin gave the analogy that you need to swing on the rope to get to the other side of the bank of the river. But you have to swing back and forth, each time getting some more height...until you can just let go to reach the other side. Keep swinging! Keep practicing but remember to be aware of the totality of the experience. Note it or just bare awareness of it....eventually you will get to the point where it becomes automatic and then out of the blue...you might experience a very brief moment where the mind turns off and then turns back on...you wont remember what it was as consciousness ceases to function in that brief moment. Then you will get a bliss wave some seconds after, and you'll ask yourself what was that?...if you were aware of something happening. Anyway, there is more to say, but I'll leave it at that.
Keep Swinging on the rope!!!!!
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showpost.php?p=103880&postcount=47
thoughts?
0
Comments
here is my preemptive "DOH!"
To be honest, "noting", "witnessing" or "attention" doesn't really make much sense to me in light of the wording of the Satipatthana Sutta (which, depending on how to parse the Pali grammar can mean either "Establishing Mindfulness" or "The Foundations of Mindfulness"). Sati is a noun and not a verb. You can't really "establish" a noting or witnessing or attending, nor does it really make sense to speak of "foundations" for such things.
The article you link to talks of the kind of "noting" that goes on in Vipassana practice (based mostly on the teaching of the Burmese teacher Mahasi Sayadaw), which has had a huge influence on the way meditation has been taught in the Western world. In this context, the word "mindfulness" has simply come to mean "nonjudgmental/nonreactive moment-to-moment attention." This is definitely a part of meditative practice and of practice life, but this is not the samma-sati of the Buddha.
That sort of mindfulness helps us day-to-day in noticing and letting go of unnecessary patterns that cause suffering. Beyond the act of attending to experience moment-to-moment without judgment, the Satipatthana Sutta and the Anapanasati Sutta outline a plan of bringing that attention to very specific phenomena in a systematic way for a very specific goal: disengaging from the tendency to cling, becoming disenchanted with the world, thus freeing one from the cycle of samsara. (This goal, I should note, isn't necessarily shared by most people who wish to learn meditation. Most people in the West come to meditation workshops/retreats and the like simply to help relieve stress/anxiety/depression, etc.) The "correct/right awareness/presence of mind" the Buddha tries to get his monks to establish is really an awareness of the qualities of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and not-self. I wrote a somewhat longwinded explanation of this in this post here a while back.
Why?
How is establishing the practice of attending different from the establishing attention? It's just a grammatical difference, not a semantical one. I think noting, witnessing, and attending computes perfectly with mindfulness.
The Satipatthana Sutta does of course go beyond merely explaining sati, as it deals with the concrete practice and methods involved in samma sati.
Cheers, Thomas
ETA: Just for the record, I actually do like "mindfulness" as a translation of sati.
I was just wondering if "sati" was pronounced "Sat-e" or "Say-Tee".
It helps to remember that Pali is an Indo-Aryan language. Only English speakers pronounce the "a" as "ay".
Cheers, Thomas
Sati is recollection. It means to remember.
There is nothing to redefine or improve.
But what needs to change is our own lack of clear seeing.
Meditators only see awareness; they only see 'the light' and become blinded by it.
They do not see the underlying 'mindfulness' functioning that keeps the mind in a state of awareness or non-judgmental seeing.
:smilec:
Mindfulness is to maintain one's mind in a certain state. It is to remember to maintain the mind in the state of Dhamma. The Buddha instructed as follows:
:smilec:
Such translations as above, miss the essence, because of the ordering of the words.
Most meditators think sati is to look at things, to pay attention or to "contemplate".
The essense of sati is to keep the mind free from covetousness and distress; to remember to be free from covetousness and distress.
This part of the definition most Buddhists overlook.
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When the Mahasi teacher teaches you to 'note' what is occuring & arising, your mind remembers to 'note' what is occuring due to sati.
Sati is not the 'noting'. Sati is to remember to note; to remember the instruction.
For adept practitioners, sati is to remember to apply the factors of the Noble Path, as clearly advised in MN 117.
:smilec:
Excellent point. I like the way Thanissaro puts it in "The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness":