Prepared by
John D. Hughes, Dip.App.Chem., T.T.T.C., GDAIE,
Anita Hughes, RN Div.1,
Evelin Halls, Dip.For.Lang.Corres.
Pennie White, B.A. Dip.Ed.
Abhidhamma Class No. 22, 19 November 2002
Sati
(wakefulness of mind, not floating away, memory)
Glossary:
Mindful: taking thought or care, having remembrance, minded, inclined to do something (synonyms: alert, alive to, attentive, aware, careful, chary, cognisant, conscious, heedful, regardful, respectful, sensible, thoughtful, wary, watchful).
Saddha (Pali language word): confidence, trust, and non-fogginess.
Sati (Pali language word): memory, recognition, consciousness, intentness of mind, wakefulness of mind, mindfulness, awareness, alertness, lucidity of mind, self-possession, conscience, self-consciousness, attentiveness, bare attention, focused, not moving away from, not floating away).
Sila (Pali language word): morality
Patthana (Pali language word): foundation or leading factor.
Sati (or mindfulness) is one of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment (Satta Bojjhanga).
Sati is also a member of the five spiritual faculties as well as a member of the five spiritual powers.
Complete sati is not taught in Australian schools. It is not part of any State or Commonwealth curriculum.
Mindfulness (sati) is different to concentration (samadhi).
Sati centres on being aware of what is here and now presenting itself to our senses, whereas samadhi is centred on developing concentration.
Sati is like a watchdog that ensures the proper reciprocal, balanced relationship between faith and wisdom, and between energy and concentration.
To practice sati as part of Buddha Dhamma, saddha (confidence, faith, and non-fogginess) has to be established first. Saddha is the leader of the 25 sobhana cetasika.
Sati is the second of the sobhana cetasika to appear when we practice.
Sati is defined in The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary as memory, recognition, consciousness, intentness of mind, wakefulness of mind, mindfulness, alertness, lucidity of mind, self-possession, conscience, self-consciousness. We also relate to sati as attentiveness, focused, not moving away from.
The importance of mindfulness, in all our dealings is clearly indicated by the words of the Buddha: “Mindfulness,... I declare is essential in all things everywhere. It is as salt is to the curry.”
We practice mindfulness to be clear about what we are doing. It sharpens and focuses our perceptions and senses.
We stress that saddha and sati must arise in every action we take at our Centre.
The chief characteristic of sati is ‘not floating away’, not to let things go unnoticed. Sati can also be thought of as ‘not moving away from’. To practice sati there has to be awareness of a subject of attention.
If a meditator begins with Mindfulness of Breathing then he or she begins by being aware of the breath as it passes in and out of the nostrils. In the beginning the meditator is simply aware through the sense of touch of what the breath feels like as it enters the nose.
As he or she continually develops his or her mindfulness of the breath in this way his concentration develops and he or she begins to actually perceive the breath as if it is a small light resting against his or her face.
He or she continues to develop his or her concentration further until this light grows white and then becomes bright and clear like a bright star.
Then as he or she continues to be mindful of this bright light, which is called a “nimitta” or sign of concentration, he or she eventually is able to attain fixed concentration to such an extent that his or her mind does not wander, but remains continuously aware of the nimitta (The Practice Which Leads To Nibbana (Part1) by Pa Auk Sayadaw).
To find this out, we sit in the Hall of Assembly in silence (maybe one to two hours).
When a person is not mindful enough, he or she does not remember what he or she sees or hears; it is like empty pots and pumpkins floating away on the water current.
Buddha reminded his disciples every day not to forget wholesome deeds and to be always mindful to fulfil one’s pledge to strive for liberation from all miseries.
The Discourse on the Application of Mindfulness is called the Satipatthanasutta in the Pali language. We have gratitude to the translator I. B. Horner and The Pali Text Society for making available the Satipatthanasutta in English in the Middle Length Sayings I, 1987.
In this sutta, the Buddha says:
“There is this one way, monks, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrows and grief, for the going down of sufferings and miseries, for winning the right path, for realising nibbana, that is to say, the four applications of mindfulness.”
If one is mindful at the six-sense doors to note what one observes just as ‘seeing, seeing’ or ‘hearing, hearing,’ one can stop defilements from entering the mind.
In this sense, sati is compared to a gatekeeper who stops thieves and robbers from entering the city.
Mindfulness (sati) is fourfold: mindfulness consisting in contemplation of the body; feeling; mind; and mental objects.
Sati is the seventh link of the noble Eightfold Path.
Having Right Mindfulness, as motivation, writers aspiring to chronicle Buddha Dhamma and give such chronicles as Dhamma Dana (the highest gift), need to tread Lord Buddha's path by holding a pledge, to commit others to development of their sati as their standard for cultivation of a civilised life style.
If we translate sati as mindfulness meaning "to watch one's steps" then you and I may not stumble or miss a chance in the pursuit of our aims.
Practising sati develops higher orders of logic – up to 12th order logic can be attained in Buddhist practice. This is a higher order than is attainable by any other means.
Obviously, to study anything well into higher orders of understanding, mindfulness is all helpful.
Putting this in another way, knowable things can be mastered by mindfulness.
In Buddha's teachings, sati is linked with clear comprehension of the right purpose or suitability of what you want to do or how you want to act.
In the end stage, you know what is Path and what is not Path without doubt.
Mental clarity comes to be by the way of mindfulness that is called in Pali, satipatthana magga.
The word magga means path.
Bare attention tidies up and regulates the mind by sorting out and identifying the various confused strands of mental process.
After many victories have been won by using mindfulness on a problem, and fears are identified, then your self-esteem becomes very much better.
We include in all educational opportunities and development projects the participation by the marginalised, the abandoned and the oppressed human beings and empower them with dignity and hope bearing in mind that religions’ universal teachings of love and compassion are far too seldom practised.
We ask them to bring sati to all our projects.
We wish to generate more light than heat in discussions about those issues.
May you meet with sati regularly in the present moment.
May you gain confidence that your sati develops of maturity.
References
Buddhaghosa, Venerable (nd) The Path of Purification, Bhikkhu Nanamoli (trans), Singapore Buddhist Meditation Centre, I 26, p 11.
Davids and Stede (Editors) (1979) The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, The Pali Text Society, London, p 672, 675.
Horner, I. B. (translator) (1987) ‘Discourse on the applications of Mindfulness (Satipatthanasutta)’ in Middle Length Sayings (Majjhima Nikaya), Pali Text Society, Vol I, pp 70-84.
Little, William (Editor) (1973) The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p 1327.
McLeod, William T, (Editor) (1984) The New Collins Thesaurus, Collins, London and Glasgow, p. 428.
Mon, Dr. T. M. (1995) The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma, Publisher: Mehm Tay Zar Mon, Yadanar Min Literature, Yangon, pp 86-87.
Pa Auk Sayadaw, compiled and translated by U. Dhamminda, The Practice Which Leads To Nibbana (Part1), uploaded as BDDR Online Volume 12 No. 8. at http://www.bddronline.net.au
Piyadassi, Venerable (1998) The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (Satta Bojjhanga), Inward Path Publisher, Penang, Malaysia, p 2, 8.
Santina, Peter Della (1998), The Tree of Enlightenment, Taiwan, The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation.