In the past few weeks, we have been talking about the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eight Fold Path contained in the Fourth Noble Truth, the path out of suffering. The seventh path factor is Mindfulness.
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
Tonight we’ll begin our exploration of one the Buddha’s major teachings which falls within this path factor of mindfulness known as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. It has also been referred to as the four abodes or dwelling places of mindfulness.
The Buddha made a rather bold assertion here. Bhikku Bodhi writes in The Noble Eightfold Path that these four foundations form, according to the Buddha, “the only way that leads to the attainment of purity, to the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, to the end of pain and grief, to the entering upon the right path and the realization of Nibbana.”
The First Foundation: Mindfulness of the Body
The first Foundation of Mindfulness, Mindfulness of the Body, explores our experience through the most tangible or gross (gross as is large or most obvious) aspect of experience - our bodies and physical form. The other three Foundations - feeling tone, mind and mental events, and the dharmas which means both the truth of the world and the Buddha’s teachings - explore the more mental and progressively subtle experiences. We’ll look at those more deeply in coming weeks.
There were several practices that the Buddha introduced to his monks for Mindfulness of the Body.
Breath Awareness Practice
The one we know the best is breath awareness, mindfulness of breathing. The Buddha taught this practice in sixteen steps starting with the investigation of whether this breath is a long breath or whether it is a short breath. As practitioners learned to discern the length of the breath, they learned to observe the breath without attempting to change it - simply allowing it to arise and noting the length of the breath. As their practice deepens, they observe the breath over the entire length of the breath as we have been practicing. Sometimes teachers call this the four stages of the breath - from the in-breath to the pause/change to the out-breath to the rest at the end of the out-breath. Then practitioners use this practice to calm the bodily function, progressively allowing the breath and all the processes associated with it to become more subtle. Steps five through sixteen direct the practitioner toward more advanced and subtle practices with breathing that calm the entire body and mind and allow for progressive letting go and liberation.
Other Mindfulness of the Body Practices
Other practices of Mindfulness of the Body include investigating the 32 body parts - a practice designed perhaps for the wandering minds of monks of teen and young adult years whose fantasies might drift toward young women. The 32 body parts promotes a dispassionate look at the composition of the body including all the various bodily fluids with the idea of interrupting the fantasies and breaking the enchantment with the body in the young monks.
A practice we are familiar with involves practicing with the body sitting, standing, walking and lying down. These four postures encourage practicing with the body in all of its activities - encourage continuity of practice.
Another practice involves contemplating the body in terms of the four elements to discover how like the entire world the body is - composed of the earth element, water, wind, and fire.
The Body Scan
The Body Scan is not included in the Buddha’s original teachings of Mindfulness of the Body. Many people ascribe it to Jon Kabat-Zinn who developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). However, it is thought that it originated either from a Myanmar master U Ba Khin or he preserved it from earlier teachers. https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/5-personen/analayo/buddhistantecedentsbodyscan.pdf
Nevertheless, the body scan has been extensively studied by various researchers and has been found uniformly to be one of the most effective practices for relieving tension and reducing stress. "Time spent engaging in the Body Scan was associated with increased psychological well-being and greater levels of two components of mindfulness—non-reacting to stress and observing thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations." https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/body_scan_meditation
More on the Sixteen Steps of Mindfulness of Breathing
For a taste of how the practice of Mindfulness of Breathing deepens through the sixteen steps and leads progressively toward enlightenment, you might want to try some of Bhikku Analayo’s guided meditations on breath awareness. I found them very enlightening up through the fourth guided meditation. Beyond that they are interesting and enlightening but pretty dense. They can be found here: https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/resources/offerings-analayo/breathing-audio/
The other resource you might find of interest is Larry Rosenberg’s Breath by Breath which explores in depth the sixteen steps of the breath awareness practice taught by the Buddha as the “only way that leads…to overcoming sorrow and lamentation.” The sixteen steps are divided into four tetrads (four lines each) with each tetrad corresponding to one of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
I have included the first tetrad from the Buddha’s teachings here.
1. Breathing in a long breath, I know I am breathing in a long breath. Breathing out a long breath, I know I am breathing out a long breath.
2. Breathing in a short breath, I know I am breathing in a short breath. Breathing out a short breath, I know I am breathing out a short breath.
3. Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body. Breathing out, I am aware of my whole body.
4. Breathing in, I calm my whole body. Breathing out, I calm my whole body.
https://stillwatersanghamn.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/the-16-steps-to-mindfulness-of-breath/
As Shaila Catherine writes in The Lion’s Roar Aug. 2022,
"The practice of mindfulness of the breath gradually exposes all areas where attachments might fester—to the body or meditation object, mental functions, mind, or insight knowledge….
As the Buddha declared in the Anapanasati Sutta, 'When mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated, it fulfills the four foundations of mindfulness. When the four foundations of mindfulness are developed and cultivated, they fulfill the seven factors of enlightenment. When the seven factors of enlightenment are developed and cultivated, they fulfill true knowledge and deliverance.’” https://www.lionsroar.com/all-you-need-is-breath/