Are the Satipathana suttas not original? (DN22, MN10)

Bhante@sujato
In your opinion what is contemplation on Dhamma?
What is the contemplation of Citta?
What is the difference of above two?
Very short answer is suffice.

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For the tag to work you need to add spaces in between things.

I think bhante @sujato 's translation of MN118 may help you:

And how is mindfulness of breathing developed and cultivated so as to fulfill the four kinds of mindfulness meditation?
Whenever a mendicant knows that they breathe heavily, or lightly, or experiencing the whole body, or stilling the body’s motion—at that time they’re meditating by observing an aspect of the body—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.
For I say that the in-breaths and out-breaths are an aspect of the body.
That’s why at that time a mendicant is meditating by observing an aspect of the body—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.

Whenever a mendicant practices breathing while experiencing rapture, or experiencing bliss, or experiencing these emotions, or stilling these emotions—at that time they meditate observing an aspect of feelings—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.
For I say that close attention to the in-breaths and out-breaths is an aspect of feelings.
That’s why at that time a mendicant is meditating by observing an aspect of feelings—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.

Whenever a mendicant practices breathing while experiencing the mind, or gladdening the mind, or immersing the mind in samādhi, or freeing the mind—at that time they meditate observing an aspect of the mind—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.
There is no development of mindfulness of breathing for someone who is unmindful and lacks awareness, I say.
That’s why at that time a mendicant is meditating by observing an aspect of the mind—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.

Whenever a mendicant practices breathing while observing impermanence, or observing fading away, or observing cessation, or observing letting go—at that time they meditate observing an aspect of principles—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.
Having seen with wisdom the giving up of desire and aversion, they watch over closely with equanimity.
That’s why at that time a mendicant is meditating by observing an aspect of principles—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.

That’s how mindfulness of breathing, when developed and cultivated, fulfills the four kinds of mindfulness meditation

https://suttacentral.net/mn118/en/sujato

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Isn’t this Four Noble Truths?

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No it isn’t .

It’s very specific to the context of were one finds himself/herself once the previous steps have been fulfilled.

It’s related to the four noble truths as it relates to the ennobling task of practicing right mindfulness and developing the respective awakening factor.

At least that’s how I make sense of it.

:anjal:

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observing impermanence - Dukkha Satya
or observing fading away - Samudaya Satya
or observing cessation - Nirodha Satya
or observing letting go - Magga Satya
This is how I understand it.

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Cool. Makes sense.
This topic is related:

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On the topic of the Satipaṭṭhāna Mūla, I had started this little project awhile back:

https://satipatthanamula.com/

I didn’t want to post it until it was finished, but I’m not sure when I’ll have the time. It’s a work in progress.

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It is interesting how this particular sutta(s) was so added to. Since the topics that can be deduced to have been added (such as breath meditation, noble truths, etc) appear elsewhere in many suttas, one might speculate that this was a conscious or unconscious effort to provide a single overview of meditation practice.

The claim about this being the (direct/whatever) path is presumably unique to the sutta. How early is that? And is is in the parallels ?

And what about these passages. Are they in the parallels?

And so they meditate observing an aspect of the body internally, externally, and both internally and externally. They meditate observing the body as liable to originate, as liable to vanish, and as liable to both originate and vanish. Or mindfulness is established that the body exists, to the extent necessary for knowledge and mindfulness. They meditate independent, not grasping at anything in the world. That’s how a mendicant meditates …
SuttaCentral

That basic message about observing origination and vanishing is clearly not unique, but perhaps this is a somewhat unique expression of it?

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Not necessarily.
It depend on your objectives.
There is Magga and Magga Satya.
If you are talking about Magga it is about Jhana.
If you are talking about Magga Satya it is Vipassana.
Noble Eightfold Path factors are not mutually exclusive.
If you are teaching you can teach them as mutually exclusive but if you practice they all are mutully inclusive.
Medical student may learn heart and lungs as two separate things but in practice they are inter related.

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And if one breathes aware of delight, how does that fit into this given that delight is the root of suffering?

Neither nandi or delight show up in MN118, but DO awareness of delight/suffering has proven quite useful and centering. Since it is not mentioned, there is some concern that such meditation might lead astray.

:pray:

Satipatthana is primarily samatha; i.e. the basic purpose of it is to get into jhana. This is not an inference: it is stated explicitly in the suttas. (MN 44: "the four satipatthanas are the basis for samadhi = cattāro satipaṭṭhānā samādhinimittā)

Is not Samma Samadhi the eighth step in the Noble Eightfold Path? MN 44 verse simply says that the four satipatthana are the way to cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path. That involves mainly vipassana, not just samatha.

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most of the frequently used pali words associated with happiness,
can have a positive or negative usage. For example, kāma-chanda is lustful-desire, but chandha-samadhi-padhana (desire fabrication exertion in samadhi development) is one of the 4 iddhi pada. Similarly kāma-sukha is bad, but sukha in 4 jhanas is wholesome. So don’t get hung up thinking a certain word has only a positive or negative connation. Even kāma and rāga, have rare instances where they’re used in a wholesome sense.

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There is a Sutta to support that Buddha allowed monks to be deleight in meditation.

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I too am very confused. Should we put our energy on studying the Anapanasati sutta instead?

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The best way to handle this is to compare your own experience with all the Sutta.
I generally read everything and listen to every body but make up my own mind.
When you have concrete ideas about the teaching you form views then you clinging to your view.

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Unable to read printed matter, I was very grateful to find Bhante Sujato’s videos on the
Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta
.

Distress ceased, practice continues.

:heart::pray:
.

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That dhammawheel thread has been troubling me since I read it. I am still distressed. :frowning:

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Listening to Bhante Sujato’s talks, it dawned on me that all these suttas are helpful both in their own right as well as together in their collective diversity. What had distressed me was the imagined existence of a single canonical source :eyes:, when in fact all of these suttas comprise common canonical atomic elements arranged and collected in a process that evolved contextually according to the needs of different cultures. Bhante Sujato’s joke about “Greatest Hits” summed it up quite nicely and provided a healing perspective for practice. It became a potato po-tah-toh thing for heeding but not distressing.
:pray:

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Others could probably answer better, but my take anyway is that, with all the satipatthana-related suttas and parallels, it’s pretty likely there was an original satipattana sutta, but just probably a bit more slimmed down than the current Pali version with less body techniques (anatomical parts meditation seems common to all and corpse and elements meditations seem common enough in the sources too). It isn’t as if the extra further techniques are pulled out of thin air anyway; they are from elsewhere in the canon and there’s a certain logic to their inclusion (the first tetrad of breath meditation does make a lot of sense). I’m not sure it’s all that big a deal if some of these techniques are in or out (all seem perfectly good to me, included or not; maybe the original was simply a fairly terse satipatthana summary, maybe a bit too terse, which some of those later couldn’t resist fleshing out a bit).

Maybe there’s significance in the dhammas section being likely a fair bit slimmer as well (with just the seven enlightenment factors and probably hindrances also). However, the seven enlightenment factors are very prominent in the anapanasati sutta also (developing these seem to be a core purpose of anapanasati) so their prominence cannot be controversial here either. My take would the fact that the seven enlightenment factors are shared in all versions and the hindrances by most makes a good case that these are the most central initial dhammas to focus on. Maybe once a good level of samadhi has been cultivated (6th enlightenment factor), some of the other dhammas (aggregrates, sense-spheres, 4 noble truths) are more liable to be penetrated (on a satipatthana second round :slight_smile: ).

On solidity of the canonical texts, Buddhism is fortunate compared to many other religions. The Jains seem to have lost a lot of their early texts. Christians have to make a lot of inferences from rather a small amount of text (mostly the four gospels and Acts). The Buddhist EBTs are big and there’s a lot of shared overlap between the various parallels (so there’s a lot we can fairly confidently trace back to fairly early). On the downside, it would have been nice if there were some really early meditation and practice manuals (not really a written culture I suppose and the emphasis seems to have been on preserving the Buddha’s word rather than techniques of the time). But I guess we are still lucky to have some meditation manuals from some centuries afterwards.

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Considering most Buddhist practices I have followed base them selves off this sutta it is rather disappointing. It felt like a punch to the face to read that about the Satipatthana sutta.

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