• • •
Satipatthana Sutta: This is the original Buddhist text usually translated into English as The Foundations of Mindfulness.
the Sutta: a shorthand term for the Satipatthana Sutta.
sutta: an original sermon, talk, or discourse from the Buddha.
the Pali Canon: the huge collection of original sutta and
monastic rules compiled in the Pali language about twenty-
five-hundred years ago. The Sutta is the tenth in an important
S O M E U S E F U L T E R M S | 1 5
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 15
10/24/19 15:35
collection of 152 sutta called The Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha.
satipatthana: the mind-training method taught in the Satipatthana Sutta.
the Theravada: the school of Buddhism found in Southeast
Asia and Sri Lanka that is closest to the Pali Canon. The adjec-
tive is “Theravadin.”
the Mahayana: the later schools of Buddhism found in Tibet,
China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. These have their own
scriptures independent of the Pali Canon. The Theravada and
Mahayana are philosophically antagonistic to each other,
like Catholic and Protestant, and are geographically isolated
by the Himalayas.
vipassana: literally “insight” or “inquiry.” This is a modern Burmese form of meditation based on the Sutta. It is the
source of the popular ten-day Vipassana retreats now found
throughout the world.
sampajjana: the accurate understanding of something. Evaluation and good judgment. An integral aspect of sati (mind-
fulness).
passaddhi: a state of body-mind stillness attained in meditation. Tranquility and the absence of anxiety or desire.
1 6 | B R A I N T R A I N I N G W I T H T H E B U D D H A
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 16
10/24/19 15:35
upekkha: a state of equanimity and philosophic detachment.
The ultimate goal of most Buddhist practice.
zazen: the name for Zen sitting meditation.
shikantaza: the practice of “just sitting” (and “not thinking”) that goes with the Soto Zen form of zazen. The Modern Mindfulness model derives more from shikantaza than from sati-
patthana.
emptiness: an alert, thought-free state of mind, most com-
monly attained in zazen. It is associated with stillness, passiv-
ity and a nonreactive openness to sensory experience.
Open Monitoring: the practice of monitoring the passing phe-
nomena of the moment without focusing on anything in par-
ticular. A non-reactive, “just watching” state encouraged by
Modern Mindfulness.
MBSR: mindfulness-based stress reduction. The eight-week
training program in Modern Mindfulness that is the gold
standard for research.
S O M E U S E F U L T E R M S | 1 7
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 17
10/24/19 15:35
P a r t O n e
The First Foundation:
Mindfulness of the Body
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 18
10/24/19 15:35
1
The Standard
Meditation Practice
How does a monk live contemplating the body? He
goes to the forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty
hut . He sits down cross-legged, holds his body erect,
and focuses on the breath in front of himself .
—Satipatthana Sutta
The words “mindfulness” and “meditation” are often regard-
ed as interchangeable, but can these activities occur sepa-
rately? Can we meditate without being mindful, or be mindful
without meditating? To help distinguish these two terms, I will
start with an explanation of ordinary sitting meditation.
What people actually do when they meditate is very sim-
ple, and remarkably similar for nearly everyone. Meditating
could be an innate biological function, like language or musi-
cal appreciation, that we are all capable of, given the right
circumstances. The basic procedure, or the rootstock, is so
uniform across cultures and eras that I call it “the Standard
Meditation Practice.”
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 19
10/24/19 15:35
This is how you do it (I’ll now address you as a student): You sit in a chair—or on the floor, or you lie down—with your
eyes closed for fifteen minutes or more. This is not sufficient
in itself. You still need to “do” something with your mind. You
now focus in a gentle but deliberate, exploratory fashion on
your breath or on your body in some way. This is the mental
function we call “selective, sustained attention.” In Pali, this
aspect of mindfulness is called vitakka-vicara (see chapter 14).
While focusing on your body, you are bound to notice
unrelated thoughts periodically, but you try to engage with
them as little as possible. You “notice” them but try not to
“process” them. This trouble-shooting function is called
“peripheral monitoring” or “distraction control,” and it is a
key attentional skill. It is just as important as sustaining focus
on the body. No one can meditate well unless they also learn
to manage peripheral thoughts economically.
Within ten minutes your body is bound to relax, even
with intermittent focus. It will usually take an extra five min-
utes for your mind to settle. You are instinctively gravitat-
ing toward a place of inner balance. This is a homeostatic set
point: the lowest degree of arousal and muscle tone possible
without falling asleep. If you remain moderately alert and in
control, as you should, your mind will also become much qui-
eter than usual.
Occasionally you will go further than this. Your body
will become extremely calm, and your mind will fall silent
for shorter or longer periods. All anxiety and desire has
vanished. When this occurs, we call it a state of “body-mind
stillness.” The Pali term for this is passaddhi, which is also
translated as “tranquility.”
2 0 | B R A I N T R A I N I N G W I T H T H E B U D D H A
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 20
10/24/19 15:35
This is the core of nearly all meditation practices: sitting still, eyes closed, focusing continuously on the body and
monitoring peripheral thoughts for fifteen minutes or more.
With practice you gradually improve your ability to remain
focused and to weaken the process of active thought. These
are the two essential skills in any meditation practice: sus-
tained attention to the body and the control of thought.
These are like the skills necessary for driving a car. They
are not complicated, but you can’t approach body-mind still-
ness without them. They form the backbone for a huge range
of practices. Yoga, Vipassana, Transcendental Meditation,
mindfulness-based stress reduction, Tibetan, and Zen prac-
tices tick all of those boxes.
Of course meditation can be far more elaborate. It is easy
to add mantra, visualization, special postures and rituals,
or spiritual beliefs and aspirations to the Standard Medita-
tion Practice. People do benefit from styles they find con-
genial. Likewise,
many people find it useful to have at least
one or two psychological props in place to meditate well: for
instance a candle, a statue, incense, or a special cushion or
piece of furniture.
I estimate that 90 percent of regular meditators do what is
essentially a Standard Meditation Practice. Furthermore, 90
percent of the body-mind benefits of any meditation proba-
bly come from the Standard Meditation Practice component
within it. The ideological packaging that makes up the extra
10 percent is far more prominent, but the Standard Medita-
tion Practice is always the workhorse.
Whenever we think of meditation, something like the
Standard Meditation Practice comes to mind, even for
T H E S TA N D A R D M E D I TAT I O N P R A C T I C E | 2 1
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 21
10/24/19 15:35
nonmeditators. Tai chi, yoga, prayer, positive thinking, chanting, and reflections on spiritual ideas can also be regarded as
meditations, but we usually think of them under their own
designations. I also train people to meditate with eyes open,
in various activities, and for very short periods as described
in my book The 5-Minute Meditator, but I know this is con-
sidered to be peculiar and “nonstandard.” For most people, if
you’re not sitting down with closed eyes for several minutes
you can’t be meditating.
The Standard Meditation Practice is the universal para-
digm. Stripped to its essence, “meditating” means “focusing
continuously on the body.” To do this means not pursuing your
usual thoughts and not relating to the outer world. This pri-
mary emphasis on the body is reflected in the Satipatthana
Sutta. Its large first section is called “Mindfulness of the Body,”
and it presents many different ways of focusing on the body.
TRANQUILITY AND MINDFULNESS
Let’s now make a distinction. Buddhism talks about “tran-
quility” practices (Sanskrit: samadhi) and “mindfulness”
practices (Pali: sati). The Standard Meditation Practice is a
tranquility practice. Novice-level samadhi practice leads
to a relaxed body with some degree of mental stillness and
emotional calm. Expert-level samadhi practice leads to the
four stages of absorption or trance called jhana in the Pali
Canon (see chapter 18). “Mindfulness meditation” ( sati) is
not vastly different from tranquility meditation. It just adds
a higher quality of observation to the meditation.
Mindfulness is metacognitive. This means that you
don’t just mechanically meditate and gradually feel better.
2 2 | B R A I N T R A I N I N G W I T H T H E B U D D H A
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 22
10/24/19 15:35
You also observe how you are meditating. This conscious perception of physical and mental phenomena leads to fine,
intuitive adjustments that subtly accelerate the process.
Sati also contributes to spin-off “insights” or bright ideas
that are unlikely to occur in pure tranquility meditations.
To meditate on the breath is a Standard Meditation Prac-
tice ( samadhi). However, we are also being mindful ( sati) whenever we monitor what else is happening. When we
check the quality of our focus, or resist distractions, or relax
unnecessary tension, we are being mindful ( sati) within a
tranquility practice ( samadhi). The Buddha said that to be
mindful means that we know what is happening as it hap-
pens and can describe it to ourselves (see chapter 15).
Mindfulness, like any form of attention, has an import-
ant error-detection function. We notice the discrepancies
and imbalances between where we actually are (slightly
tense and worried, for example) and where we want to be.
This recognition helps the body’s homeostatic systems
adjust toward the ideal. (“Loosen that shoulder. Soften the
breath. Abandon that thought.”) In other words, sati refines
and accelerates the physiological movement toward still-
ness. If you just sit, and wait, and count the breaths with
little reflection, your progress toward tranquility will be
much slower and may not seem worth the amount of time
involved.
We can make another distinction. Tranquility medita-
tion is goal-directed. It aims for an ideal state of body-mind
stillness— passaddhi, discussed in more detail shortly—that
is usually dependent on long, seated meditation. When we
are mindful, however, we notice what is happening in the
T H E S TA N D A R D M E D I TAT I O N P R A C T I C E | 2 3
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 23
10/24/19 15:35
moment, which is hardly ever that perfect or ideal. Mindfulness ( sati) has a different orientation: to see and evaluate
things accurately, while they are actually happening. And
we can become mindful in an instant.
So can we be mindful without sitting down and meditat-
ing for several minutes? Of course we can. “To be mindful”
in common usage—to pay attention to what we are doing—
has no Standard Meditation Practice component at all. In
mental health counselling, cognitive behavioral therapy
develops a high degree of “mindfulness of thought” with-
out a hint of meditation. Likewise, acceptance and com-
mitment therapy recommends very short interventionist
bursts of mindfulness as required. And, going back to the
Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha said that we should be
able to evaluate and fine-tune our thoughts, emotions, and
behavior at any time and in any activity. Even in Buddhism,
mindfulness is not reliant on the practice of sitting down
to meditate. So why do a formal meditation practice at all?
Although the principles are easy to understand, prac-
tice is essential for improvement. Attending seminars, or
reading books on the subject, or even teaching it to clients,
will increase our knowledge of mindfulness but not our
ability to do it. The inertia of habit guarantees that we
can’t improve our level of skill in any domain without
deliberate, self-monitoring practice over time. Learning to
relax quickly and consciously is a physical skill. Learning
to control attention and thought is a cognitive skill. Doing
a formal sitting meditation is a good way to practice both
at once.
2 4 | B R A I N T R A I N I N G W I T H T H E B U D D H A
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 24
10/24/19 15:35
BODY-MIND STILLNESS, OR PASSADDHI
A Standard Meditation Practice naturally gravitates toward a
homeostatic ideal of inner stillness. This is a state in which the
body is optimally relaxed: low muscle tone and low arousal.
The body is no longer restless or primed for movement, and
the mind is as calm and quiet as possible. The Buddha said that
this inner stillness— passaddhi, in Pali—is the antidote to the
mental hindrance that he called “agitation and worry.” In other
words, stillness dissolves anxiety.
This physical stillness matures into a mental silence. A
&n
bsp; well-directed, focused mind is not at the mercy of random
thought, and the inner chatter really can stop for long peri-
ods. This mental control and inner stillness supports the
delightful sense of space or freedom that meditators often
report. A meditator may even say, “My mind was completely
empty,” but the reality is more nuanced.
The mind can feel very calm, but it is never empty or per-
fectly still. Our minds can no more stop completely than can
our digestive or immune systems. The mind is obliged to
continuously monitor sensory data and to process what has
happened in the immediate past, even when we are asleep.
In other words, thinking never stops. Physical stillness and
inner silence is the state of optimal baseline cognitive func-
tioning, but it is not complete vacancy.
Given these provisos, why is body-mind stillness ( passad-
dhi) worth pursuing? Why is it so important to be able to sit
down, do nothing, and be quiet? It is quite hard to do: Just
ask any schoolchild. It is akin to boredom, and it doesn’t seem
very productive. It turns out that being calm, centered, and
mentally controlled is foundational for many life skills.
T H E S TA N D A R D M E D I TAT I O N P R A C T I C E | 2 5
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd 25
10/24/19 15:35
Most of the psychological benefits of mindfulness start
here. To sit still for long periods means learning to be “nonre-
active.” A meditator learns to stop the compulsive inclination
toward thought or action. He can notice an emerging thought
without elaborating on it. He can notice a physical impulse
(for instance, toward food, drugs, or anger) and let it fade. He
can notice pain or a bad mood dispassionately and accept its
presence, rather than trying to fix it.
In meditation, this mental quality is often described as
a “just watching” state, or as “nonjudgmental acceptance,”
or as the “observer mind.” This leads to a sense of emotional
detachment and objectivity toward what is happening. Psy-
chologists regard this lowering of reactivity, and the retrain-
ing of it as a habit, as crucial for emotional health. And all
these good results rely on the control of attention.
Body-mind stillness, emotional detachment, and the
observer mind are values implicit in the Standard Meditation
Brain-Training-with-Buddha_3P.indd Page 3