Buddha states in mindfulness of body that body is made up of impurity. Below video of autopsy shows such as fat, liver, lungs, heart, intestines, stomach, gall bladder, spleen, blood, body hair, rib cage, muscles, kidneys etc.
Monks in Thailand go to hospital morgues and see the body dissected. For example in the Bangkok hospital on Monday morning there will be tens of corpses available resulting from motorcycle accidents and fires which happened over the weekend. This gives a completed picture of life, which even in Thailand where cremations are seen in public parks, unless an effort is made to focus on impermanence, only one side of life is usually apparent.
This should should lead to the categorization and separation of conventional reality from ultimate reality:
"There is the case, monk, where a monk has heard, ‘All things are unworthy of attachment.’ Having heard that all things are unworthy of attachment, he directly knows every thing. Directly knowing every thing, he comprehends every thing. Comprehending every thing, he sees all themes[2] as something separate. [3]—SN 35.80
These days not living in the time of the Buddha, practitioners should experience these things directly or through the internet, that is appropriate attention.
“Monks, there are these two conditions for the arising of right view. Which two? The voice of another and appropriate attention. These are the two conditions for the arising of right view.”—AN 2 125-6
@Biren With due appreciation for your post, a preferred title would substitute the word ‘corpse’ for body.
And perhaps drop the word ‘female’ in the title, as your well-made point applies equally for both genders.
Recently in Belgium, a woman was brutally attacked by a group of males and subjected to repeated stabbing whilst being sexually assaulted. She survived only to suicide a short time later. It’s just that women’s bodies have been and still are subjected to frequent and horrific violence and on first seeing your title, it struck me as presenting an unfortunate portrayal.
I agree with Anne that the title can be drastically improved to avoid the connotations of violence to women’s bodies.
It’s also worth noting that we should contemplate the repulsive internally first - i.e. in our own bodies. This is useful to remember because quite frequently people think that asubha contemplation is only for sensual lust but contemplation of body parts is most useful for our own lust for our present and future bodies.
As it seems to be most frequently men who post such things using women’s bodies for asubha, a problem arises that it objectifies women’s bodies and can seem like women and their bodies are to blame for men’s lust . This is wrong.
Contemplation of our own bodies is useful because it doesn’t externalise or “outsource” the problem of lust for bodies and future births but shows us where the true problem lies and it’s only in us that a solution can be found…
For whom may feel so inclined and interested in deepening meditation on death and the reality of our final mundane destination, I suggest Ajahn Sona Cemetery meditation book that you can find here Disclaimer : this is a very very strong material and I advice to approach only if you feel ready and slowly.
This is incorrect. Because it’s a bodily rather than a mental experience, a learner finds it much easier to derive benefit from the contemplation of dissections and other material forms of impermanence and they should pursue the external practice:
“In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or externally on the body in & of itself, or both internally & externally on the body in & of itself."—MN 10
The reason ‘internally’ is placed first is that the body is always available as a meditation subject.
If one finds the wording of ‘female corpse’ requiring further editing, i would wonder how serious one is about Buddha’s word, or if extraordinarily under estimated the difficulty of the path.
Whilst asubha is mentioned in the Anapanassati Sutta it is only mentioned in brief and not given the full exposition we find in the Sathipathana suttas.
There you will see at the beginning of the asubha section the instruction is:
Furthermore, a mendicant examines their own body, up from the soles of the feet and down from the tips of the hairs, wrapped in skin and full of many kinds of filth…
Puna caparaṁ, bhikkhave, bhikkhu imameva kāyaṁ uddhaṁ pādatalā, adho kesamatthakā, tacapariyantaṁ pūraṁ nānappakārassa asucino paccavekkhati: MN10
Later the Buddha gives the instructions you mention above, internally and externally etc but even this list gives an indication of where we should start.
It’s worth noting that the instructions given for the postures and the four elements also begin with one’s own body.
This is the same approach taken with the asubha pericope in other places where it appears in the suttas.
Thank you for bringing this up. I’ve heard a story about a doctor who worked in the ICU. So he’d deal with all sorts of gruesome accidents. And he’d happily go and have a burger for lunch after seeing people’s limbs turned into mush. It didn’t affect him at all. But then one day, he decided to do his own bloodwork as nobody else was available. And he fainted right away. Just thought I’d share as this anecdote seems to illustrate the importance and power of considering the nature of one’s own body first.
