Joseph Goldstein on Satipatthana Sutta

Lecture one - 11/18

"Ardent, clearly-knowing, and mindful, free from desire or discontent about the world."

"And one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world."

JG: "This lines is our entire practice."
Independent: Mind not dependent on any arising experience

"One should make an end to suffering by abandoning desires for pleasant feelings, aversion to unpleasant, and ignorance of the neutral."

Tanya - Desire, craving, thirst. Three kinds:

1. Thirst for sense pleasures. "A lot of great literature is about this thirst."
Can be lusts, 6 sense-doors, or fantasies in meditation.
Or even in small moments - e.g., looking up to see who coughed.
When we become entranced, we get identified with the desire: "I want." And then we're no longer seeing the empty, insubstantial nature of things.
Catalog consciousness - wanting to want.
No clinging to anything seen, heard, or encountered.
Is also thirst for pleasant meditative states - 'body of light,' etc.
"It doesn't matter to what we don't cling."

2. Thirst for renewed existence.
Originally about being reborn in heaven-realms.
Smaller version: leaning forward into the big moment. One breath to get to the next.
"It's about not-holding-on, not about getting something."
Ramana Maharshi: Try to be less, not more.
Creating sense of self by imagining future situations; cycles of hope and fear.
Expectation = The desire for something else to be happening.
Expectation tries to control.
Aspiration = Receive what the moment presents with a context of overarching intention, but no repeated expectations.
Mind free of craving disengages the gears of attachment.
Reminder: "It's already here."
"Nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to have."

3. Thirst for non-existence. How can I get out.
Ironically, this nourishes & is nourished by sense of self.
Who is it who wants not to exist anymore?

Self is like the big dipper. It's not really there.


Lecture two - 11/23

Buddha: Mindfulness of the body is the simplest and most direct way to defeating Mara, and the main way to nibbana.

Body becomes "suitable basis" for direct realization of awakening.
Mindfulness of the body is the "best friend."

Buddha's breath-instructions are a bit different in specifics:
- Long/short breath noting
- Feel in "whole body"
- Train in calming body with breath

Bodhicitta - Heart and mind of wisdom.
Intention of practice to benefit all beings.


Lecture three - 12/1

How is the Dharma learned by "when walking, know you're walking" ?
- Continuity of awareness
- Out of thoughts
- Reveals a lot about state of mind
- Staying with it to overcome difficult mindstates
- Leads to realization of the three characteristics (duhkha, anicha, anatta)

Don't have to be in "meditation grad school" to be awake.
Don't need special circumstances or mind states.

Rushing as "toppling forward" - anticipation. This is not about speed or slowness.
"In-order-to" mind
Even a slight sense of destination, even if not rational
Can move quickly with no rushing. Being settled back in body.

Use body posture to be mindful.
Staying in one posture gives us a tangible anchor while in fear or some other difficult state.
Be with mindstates wherever and whenever

Impermanence: Observe when we move, esp. if you note every move made in a single move. What is going on just in moving from sitting to standing? Thousands of moves.

Duhkha: We almost always move to alleviate some suffering.
Moving when sitting, going to sleep, eating.
How much of what we do is to alleviate suffering?

Anatta: Selfless nature of mind-body process.
Impersonal nature of postures. Feeling of "being walked" or "being breathed"
There's no one doing anything -- just the play of namarupa (mind-body)
"Empty phenomena rolling on."

Open, empty, groundless nature of Awareness itself -- what is it? And how can we experience it ourselves?

Frame in passive voice: "Standing is being known."
This is a useful door to what awareness is and isn't.
Sensations of moment arising and effortlessly being known.
It's being known, and yet no one is doing anything. Mystery of Awareness.
Known by what? "That's the kicker."
When we look, we can't find it.
"This is not mine, this is not I, this is not myself."

Purificiation of view: When we see that in each moment, there is knowing & the object.
Purify mind of obstructive, unskillful states.
All the time - Ananda became enlightened getting into bed.
The mind can relinquish grasping. When walking, just walk.

Lecture four - 12/8

Experience the body as Four Elements.

(JG: Elements still remarkably useful for describing our felt sense of the body, even as our scientific understanding has progressed.)

Earth: Hardness, softness, stiffness
Water: Fluidity, cohesion (binding other elements)
Fire: Hot & cold, lightness, aging process
Air: Movement, extension, pressure/relaxation, vibration

Why is this important?
Elemental understanding of body like looking through a microscope. "Lens of high-powered mindfulness."
Body experienced subjectively as an energy field. Away from the concept of "leg" to actual experience of sensations appearing in space.
When we're on the level on concepts, we're not seeing the changing nature of things. Concept of "leg" is permanent, but actual experience is not.
Sense of body as solid and substantial disappears.
Flow of continual change.

Exercise: Spend a day just experiencing movement and touching.
[J gets very floaty here; Joseph gets v. trippy in magic stories.]

Out of conceptual, into experiential.

Conceit = Sense of I. One of the last defilements to be uprooted.
Contemplation of elements is an antidote
See thoughts, mindstates, etc., as play of elements.
"Misappropriation of public property"

Seeing things as they are by dropping down to level of elemental change.
(Elements = Matter/Energy in Buddha-ese)
Flowing, fluid energy field.

Beyond the concept of Being.

Relative truth: Conventional world of subject & object
Ultimate truth: No subject/object separation. No thing at all.

No I -- No Self -- No Being

A different version of Plato's cave:
1. Engrossed in movie
2. Sees it as light on screen
3. No screen, light is unmanifest

"The Big Dipper" depends on how you look at it.

"Don't worry. Nothing happens."

Note: Don't get attached to concept of emptiness. "Nothing really matters." That is actually an attachment.

Union of relative and ultimate.
Bodhicitta unites compassion and emptiness.