Keep Mindfulness with You

Sati (mindfulness) is like a dam holding back the current of evil. Greed, anger, delusion, envy, wrong view: none of these can flow into the mind if mindfulness stands guard over it. So the mind has a protection, and that protection is mindfulness.

Mindfulness is like a gatekeeper. It guards and protects, not letting evil flow into the mind. Besides keeping unwholesome states from flowing into the mind, mindfulness also has the duty of keeping and protecting virtue and goodness, so that they do not slip away from the heart.

When we must face separation from what we love and hold dear, if mindfulness is keeping watch, sorrow and lamentation will not arise. Why did my mother leave me? Why did my father leave me? There is no need to moan and rave, because mindfulness is keeping watch over us. When mindfulness governs us, we recall: I am subject to birth; I cannot escape birth. I am subject to ageing; I cannot escape ageing. I am subject to death; I cannot escape death. I must be parted from all that I love and hold dear. I am the owner of my kamma: if I do good, I will receive good; if I do evil, I will meet that evil.

Suffering of body and suffering of mind are states that beings do not want to meet and do not want to reach. How can we end bodily and mental suffering? The way is to train mindfulness, to develop mindfulness. As long as there is a body, there is bodily suffering; as long as there is a mind, there is mental suffering. If a person develops mindfulness to the full, they reach the final passing of the aggregates, nibbāna. After nibbāna there is no body and no mind, and one is certainly free of bodily and mental suffering.

The Buddha discovered the truth that mindfulness exists in the stream of life of all beings, but beings have no method for developing mindfulness or making it strong. The defilements, all that is unclean, bury mindfulness, so that it loses its role in how we live. We end up living without mindfulness, just breathing the days away. Even while alive, such a person may as well be dead, because they live without mindfulness to govern them.

Firm Memory Is the Proximate Cause of Mindfulness

How does mindfulness arise? Mindfulness has firm memory as its proximate cause: remembering the teachings. So a person who holds the Buddha’s teachings as their store of knowledge, or who has listened to much Dhamma, read much, studied much, recited it until it comes fluently to the lips and is familiar to the heart, recalling it until the image appears, a person who remembers the teachings, has the advantage. When facing any problem, mindfulness does its work of retrieving that knowledge and telling us how we should think, how we should settle the mind, or how we should act toward it. Mindfulness recollects firmly on its object, meaning it keeps the mind with what is wholesome and good, and retrieves the knowledge needed to investigate and discern clearly. If mindfulness can retrieve that knowledge quickly, it shows that mindfulness is strong.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Are the Proximate Cause of Mindfulness

In the whole world there is nothing that cannot be a foundation, a basis for mindfulness. Everything can be brought to mind as a basis for mindfulness to arise. Satipaṭṭhāna (the foundations of mindfulness) is the method for making mindfulness arise. The foundations or bases on which mindfulness arises are divided into four:

1. The body (kāyānupassanā satipaṭṭhāna), namely:

   • breathing in and out
   • the four postures: standing, walking, sitting, lying down
   • clear comprehension in seven situations: going forward, going back, looking ahead, looking around, bending, stretching, wearing robes, carrying the bowl, eating, drinking, chewing, tasting, defecating, urinating, standing, walking, sitting, falling asleep, waking, speaking, keeping silent
   • the nine charnel-ground contemplations: a corpse one day dead, two days, three days… until the bones crumble to dust scattered over the ground

   The point is that every body in this world, whether living or not, counts as body.

2. Feelings (vedanānupassanā satipaṭṭhāna): feeling pleasant, painful or neutral (sukha-vedanā, dukkha-vedanā, upekkhā-vedanā), both feelings tied to the defilements and feelings not tied to them.

3. The mind (cittānupassanā satipaṭṭhāna): a mind with lust, a mind free of lust, a mind with aversion, a mind free of aversion, and so on. All are bases for mindfulness to recollect.

4. Dhammas (dhammānupassanā satipaṭṭhāna): establishing mindfulness to observe and contemplate phenomena, namely the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the twelve sense bases, the seven factors of awakening and the Four Noble Truths.

In the Buddha’s final exhortation, he said:

“Handa dāni bhikkhave āmantayāmi vo, vayadhammā saṅkhārā, appamādena sampādetha, ayaṃ tathāgatassa pacchimā vācā.

Monks, all conditioned things are impermanent. All of you, attain completion through heedfulness. These are the last words the Tathāgata spoke.”

Attain completion through heedfulness. Heedfulness (appamāda) here is a name for mindfulness: guarding the mind so that it does not lust after objects that invite lust, guarding the mind so that it does not resent objects that invite resentment, guarding the mind so that it is not infatuated with objects that invite infatuation, and so on. Guarding the mind like this needs mindfulness to watch over how we live. Then lust, resentment and deluded infatuation will not arise. That is why mindfulness is desirable in every place and at every time.

It sums up all the teachings the Buddha gave over forty-five years, gathered into heedfulness: living without ever losing mindfulness.