TWENTY EXCERCISES FROM THE SATIPATHANNA SUTRA

from the lectures given by Thich Nhat Hahn, in June of 1990

The four domains of observation (body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind) form one. This kind of distinction is just a means to facilitate practice.  In fact we cannot divide like that because feeling, the second domain of contemplation, for example, is also mind.  Mind implies perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. The four should be considered as one. 

In our practice we have to have a willingness to go deep into experience, to become one with it.  In this regard,the right attitude for one who wants to practice meditationis to abandon two kinds of attitudes.  The first is craving, or an attitude of grasping.  The other is to reject our experience.  If you reject the world, you reject yourself because the world is a manifestation of our consciousness.

In this sutra, the repetition of the words "body in the body", "feeling in the feeling", "mind in the mind", and "objects of mind in the objects of mind" is very important, crucial, because we should not observe it, contemplate it as something that exists outside of ourselves.  We should rather be one with our experience.  

The basic attitude is one of non-duality (meaning) you do not identify yourself with one part of your consciousness, and you do not disassociate yourself from another part of your consciousness.  

Take them all with equanimity. The body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind are ourselves.  Whether they are pleasant or non-pleasant, they are you.  

We should stay with our experience with a very lucid mind so that we can transform it.

The sunlight embraces everything with the presence of sunlight.  Everything is transformed.  Mindfulness acts like the sunlight.

The seventeenth excercise:  The observation of our internal formations.

An internal formation is some feeling, some craving, some anger that is crystalized, and that falls into the depths of our consciousness.

The Sanskrit word 'samyojana' is translated sometimes as 'fetters', and it can also be translated as internal formation, internal crystalization, internal knots.

The purpose of this excercise is to contemplate in order to untie these internal knots.

A samyojana (such as attachment) can begin as something sweet, but later on the power of destruction is very great. Suddenly you cannot eat, you cannot enjoy food as usual.You cannot do your studies as usual because the internal formation is so strong in you.  Day and night, in class or at home, you just think of it, of the object. (craving, worry, fear, anger)

An internal formation can also be produced if you see something painful, and is very difficult to forget. (A seed can be planted in you.)

A samyojana is something that sleeps in you, day and night, that tries to manifest; something that you are aware of, or even that you are not aware of.

When you first have an internal formation, it is still young, and easier to deal with.  But if you are not mindful (with anger or craving) the contact between eyes and form (for example) will cause it to be strengthened.
When a samyojana happens a second time, it is not like the first time.

If we do not deal with samyojanas when they are weak, young, then two or three years will pass by and then sometimes we feel that the samyojanas are too big, too strong, and that we are no longer able to deal with them.  If we underestimate our internal formations there will be a time when we will not be able to deal with them anymore.  So we have to pay attention to this.

If we practice mindfulness right in the beginning, it will be very easy.  If someone says something to you, and then you may get a samyojana for all your life.  But if you are aware, you try to sort it out, to transform it.

We should look into ourself to see what kind of elements we have in us, in order to do the work of transformation.

And the knots may not have been planted by ourselves, but by our father, our grandfather, our grandmother.  There are things for which our anscestors, our society are co-responsible.  When we practice mindfulness, we see their roots.  We see that others may have been a victim - a victim of transmission.  If we deplore, we have to deplore both, and if we forgive, we have to forgive both.

So it is very important to practice; to breathe and to be aware of the feeling you have, because the feeling might point to a kind of knot, a kind of samyojana that is in you. You are aware of it, and you know the way to transform it.

The substance of all these samyojanas, these knots, is ignorance, avidya is the substance in it; illusion, delusion.  Because you don't know the nature of these things that is why a knot is formed in you. 

Suppose someone says something mean to you, and if you don't know the nature of that, you don't know that the person is suffering a lot.  Because you don't know that, you are affected by what he is saying, and therefore a seed, of samyojana, is planted in you.  Therefore, every samyojana has avidya, the lack of understanding as its substance.

The eighteenth excercise:  Dealing with the kind of internal formations that have been repressed.

If we know that a part of ourself is not acceptable we may try unconsciously not to pay attention to that.  We try to bury that within ourself.  Craving, anger, fear (of sickness, death), complexes of insecurity, of inferiority, of superiority, feelings of guilt, these can be buried deep within ourselves.  But they have the power to influence your life.  They try to express themselves in an indirect way.

An internal formation, an internal knot has the power to direct you, to control you, to urge you, to push you to do this or that, even if you don't want to.  

So, (for example), you don't want to be mean, you don't want to be angry at him, you don't want to do these things, and yet you do it because the internal formations in you are so strong, and they are running, they are directing your life.  Our freewill is restricted.  We cannot resist doing these things.  And therefore we have to be careful everytme a knot is formed in our consciousness.

We need intelligence and a lot of mindfulness in order to recognize the presence of these factors within ourselves.

When feeling uneasy, take hold of that, follow your breath, look deeply, and you may have the chance to pull the rope and to see the roots of it.  Cultivating mindfulness is a way to strengthen your concentration, your power of looking so that we can recognize the symptoms of our samyojanas in order to go to their roots.

From time to time, some feeling of anxiety, fear, or uneasiness will arise in us.  At that time meditating instead on something else, such as non-self, impermanance, ect., is using buddhist topics not to practice buddhism.
At times we'll do anything rather than look at, be withthe suffering.  If you really want to practice in order to transform the samyojanas you have to accept the suffering. We have to be ready to welcome these things into mind consciousness.
When these feelings appear it is the moment when we have to practice not suppressing our feelings, and to let them come so that we can look at them and recognize the deep roots of these things in our consciousness.

We should tell ourself that we are ready to suffer, to be sad, we are ready to be angry, because mindfulness is here. The buddha is sponsoring this visit.  So, with mindfulness, with good concentration, you just breathe in and out and smile at your guest.  "Please come."  "Please come."
And you let your anxiety, your fear, your anger come up because mindfulness is there to attend to them, to take care of them.  And we take care of these things with all our intention, with non-violence, and with the utmost tenderness, because these things are ourselves.

To breathe, smile, and recognize something for what it is, (to say hello to it) makes it lose its strength.  Even if you don't know the deep roots of it yet, there will be a kind of discharge, its energy will be lost- not completely, 
but if you practice looking at it, if you are not afraid of it, it will reveal itself more until one day you can recognize its roots.

To see its roots is a very important step.  You can call it insight.  But insight alone cannot do the complete work. With that insight you continue the work of transformation. You go deeper and deeper, and with your contemplation of impermanance, of non-self, maitri, karuna, you are able to tranform that formation entirely.