An introduction to the Four Foundations of Mindfulness

excerpt of a teaching by Lama Lhundrup in Dhagpo Kundrol Ling, November 2001,
revised with the help of Lama Mingyur and Lama Dorje Drölma

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I. Establishing mindfulness of body

The basic instruction of the Buddha on mindfulness of body is: "Regard the body as body." It means to regard whatever is body, whatever has form, as being simply a physical form and not my body, my form, not to identify with the body, but just to regard it as body, an agglomeration of physical constituents. To see what the experience of these physical constituents is like is the next step of this meditation.

The initial instructions for this mindfulness could be condensed into the question: "What do the senses perceive?" This refers to the five physical senses (without the mental sense): whatever can be experienced through touching (inner physical perception), hearing, smelling, tasting, and seeing.

There are many ways to develop mindfulness of the body. All are meant to lead to non-identification with the first skandha of body or form. The most important of these methods is the meditation on the breath. But first we will give the list of other meditations which can be done according to the Buddha:

• meditation on the impermanence of all body feelings and of all forms including the contemplation of the causes of their appearance and dissolution

• meditation on the non-attractiveness of the body which is made up of many, not very attractive parts like bones, blood, flesh, tendons, mucus, excrements etc.

• meditation on the fact that the body is composed of the elements earth, water, fire, and wind which leads to an understanding of the interdependence of physical phenomena

• the traditional contemplation of the charnel grounds, where one contemplates corpses in different stages of decay: very fresh, one hour old, a few hours old, a day, three days, a week, a month, down to the last dust after years of decomposition. And at every step one should remind oneself: "My own body is of the same nature as this body. As soon as the breath stops, it will not be any different from these corpses, since it is also a composed phenomena." The contemplation of what one sees in the charnel ground or what one imagines in one's visualisation should at every step be brought in connection with one's own body to which one clings so much. One should become completely aware of the conditioned, impermanent nature of this body.

All of these meditations are also mentioned by Gampopa in the Precious Ornament of Liberation. They are important remedies for desire and ignorance. Further meditations to develop mindfulness of body are:

• meditation on feelings of well-being and joy in the body using physical meditation experiences

• meditation on how the body is subject to climatic influences, to heat and cold, to hunger and thirst, sometimes feeling heavy, sometimes light etc.

• mindfulness while moving with the body, walking, sitting down, lying, eating etc.

It is actually very important to be mindful of our physical movements. If we are not even mindful of our body, how mindful will we be of our mind? Physical movements are few and actually quite slow, while mental movements are many and extremely quick. The point of practising mindfulness of body is to develop the capacity to refrain from unwholesome acts with body and speech, to settle the mind and to gradually arrive at a mindfulness of mind itself which is the chief of all actions, the starting point for all creation of karma. Mindfulness of the body is definitely more easy to practise than mindfulness of mind.

Mindfulness of breathing

• The Buddha taught extensively about mindfulness of breath. Body mindfulness in relation to breath means to be aware of breathing in when breathing in, and to be aware of breathing out when breathing out. To know that one is a short breath and another is a long breath.

• Mindfulness of breathing further includes to experience fully what the Buddha called the "breath-body". This is a term which refers to the whole body of subtle energy movement, the circulation of the inner breath as one is meditating the outer breath. We do not limit ourselves to watching the breath at the nose or as it makes the abdomen rise. We extent our awareness of breathing to include the whole body. The whole breath-body is breathing. In this way one should use the meditation on breath to calm down physical clinging. One can also calm down physical sensations with this mindfulness. Up to here this belongs to mindfulness of the body.

• The Buddha further taught mindfulness of breath as including all four foundations of mindfulness. He showed that while being mindful of the breath one can be mindful at the same time of the sensations, the feelings arising in relation to all six senses. As one is connected with the breath one can also be mindful of the different meditative absorptions with their experiences of physical joy, mental joy, end of analysis, and so on. This is also classified as mindfulness of feelings. But to be mindful of them does not mean to cultivate them, it just means to be aware and not to cling. The use of these states is only to open up our innate wisdom which will help us to go beyond them.
• While meditating on the breath one can also be mindful of the mind. This includes, according to the Buddha, first of all to fully experience the mind (to be in full contact with the various states of mind, not to be distracted); secondly, to increase the joy of one's mind, thirdly to focus the mind and fourthly to liberate the mind.
• Being mindful of Dharmas linked to mindfulness of breathing includes meditation on impermanence, on renunciation, on the coming-to-the-end of clinging and on complete letting go.

All of this was taught in the Anapanasati Sutra, where it is indicated that the breath can actually serve as the key method to develop all four foundation of mindfulness.

For the interested practitioner we include here some oral Instructions of Gendun Rinpoche on mindfulness of breathing :

Do I want to dream or do I want to be present?

If we summarise Trungpa Rinpoche's teaching on the mindfulness of body, we should ask ourselves: "Do I want to dream or do I want to be present?" If you want to dream, don’t practise mindfulness of body, it might wake you up. However, if you want to be present, practise mindfulness of body. Being mindful of the body means to really come in contact and establish a direct connection with our body. It means to sit on the earth and walk on the earth instead of being in our clouds of imagination.

There is a certain simplicity of physical presence which installs itself and lets us find the way out of our concepts. Our complex, conceptual, always thinking mind is calmed down by feeling the simple presence of walking or of being here on the cushion. It means to relax into the body and to just sit or walk or breathe without wanting anything special, without wanting to go anywhere. It is not the destination that counts but being or walking itself. That's enough. Buddha gives us the permission to just be.

Here, on the first level of mindfulness, there is not yet an intention to analyse or understand something, there is just this basic presence which gives rise to an openness. And this is very helpful! It can also be helpful when you cannot fall asleep at night. You practise a bit of mindfulness of breathing – and relaxation is coming, openness, and it will be more easy to fall asleep, because the agitated subtle energies calm down due to the mindfulness of breathing.

So, Chögyam Trungpa says: When we contact this feeling of having a very stable ground, our practice becomes linked to what and where we really are. Then, on this very stable ground of being in contact with what really happens, we can open up – we can open up to the surroundings, and also to other practices. But first we need this stability, a feeling of coming home. Thich Nhat Hanh compares it to a child coming home after a long time of absence. To find back home is already a big step ahead on our path.

Continuing our practice of mindfulness of body in the vajrayana...

Also in our vajrayana practices we work a lot on mindfulness of body. The aim here is to lead us to a complete integration of body, speech and mind, and to come to an understanding of the deeper reality of these three. The training begins with mindfully turning a mala in synchronisation with our mantra recitation. We prostrate with our body at full length being fully aware of the outer movement, doing it just the way it should be, and develop at the same time the mindfulness of its inner meaning of going for refuge etc. The body is used as a support to always find back into a virtuous state of mind or into contemplation or meditation. We offer mandalas or perform mudras at the same time as we are reciting and visualising. In meditation we train in the correct posture and we are using mantras and doing recitations. (In this fourfold classification mindfulness of speech also belongs to mindfulness of body, because it is an outer act.)

Mindfulness of the body also means to be in tune with our body, not to abuse it, but to remark when we are tired, stiff or cold etc., and to adjust our practice accordingly through changes of position, food, drink, clothes, heating, cooling, rest, sleep, exercise, and so on. To be a yogi actually also means to know what our body wants to tell us. We should generate an attitude of sensitivity, warm-heartedness and non-violence towards our body while not falling into laxity and self-cherishing attitudes. Our body is not simply the slave of our practice but actually a very subtle tool to develop awareness. In vajrayana we even say that is the seat of enlightenment.

When visualising ourselves as a Buddhaform (yidam) we practise mindfulness of body on a still more subtle level. We refer to a deeper reality of "body" in order to bring us to an awareness of the transparent, non-substantial nature of body and form, and to let go of identifications with this normal physical body. Here, our mindfulness is directed to reality as a Buddha sees it, and it will extend our practice of mindfulness beyond all limiting concepts of what we usually consider as "body". All of this is the integration of basic body awareness into the heightened awareness of vajrayana. It is the natural continuation of the experiences of down-to-earth body mindfulness which becomes more and more tuned in to the subtleties of being. When Body is experienced as the subtle reflection of all that happens within and around, it is perceived as the mirror of the whole universe, it reveals its truly sacred dimension. Everything and everyone is seen as contained in that supreme Body of the yidam-divinity.

Mindfulness of body finally leads us to the understanding that all phenomena, all forms, all ‘bodies’, are free of inherent existence, empty, completely pure, interdependent and transparent – just like reflections on a pure mirror or on clear, unmoving water. This is the true, final simplicity of "just being", which is the key to mindfulness of body right from the very beginning.

Question: Can we also apply this teaching on mindfulness of body to thoughts?

Answer: Yes. There is actually no difference between outer, physical form and inner form, mental representations or thoughts. As you meditate on the body, you realise that the body is not outside of the mind. And as you meditate on form, you realise that form is not outside, but that there is no difference between thoughts which are purely mental and thoughts which seemingly have an outer support. This is one of the understandings arising due to meditation on mindfulness of the body: the separation line between thoughts, body and outer surrounding dissolves. We can find no more limits to this constantly changing, completely inter-related phenomenon which we call body. Inside–outside becomes completely transparent and indistinguishable. That’s why meditating on the body can be the source of all realisations.

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