What is meant by "principles?" in the Kandaraka Sutta

Discussion
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"They meditate observing an aspect of principles—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of desire and aversion for the world.”

From: SuttaCentral Kandaraka Sutta

I’m guessing they are referring to the state of the mind, but just wanting to clear this up for myself in what it means specifically. I really need to read some books on the 4 foundations of mindfulness to shore this up for me.

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PS Bhante @sujato @Vimala wonder if it could be made that links of suttas from SC showed the name in the thumbnail or hyper link name when posting so that it doesn’t just show Sutta Central to the eye, even though the link is to the proper Suttas. Would be useful I think to see what Sutta is linked at a glance. Above I typed in Kandaraka Sutta afterwards manually.

2 Likes
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This refers to the dhammas which have manasikara (attention) as their source (SN 47.42), and specifically in this context to good qualities which culminate in nibbana as: five strenghts, five faculties, seven factors of awakening, etc.

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Yes, this is still an issue that we are working on. There are some problems with the correct data being fed to sharing sites.

5

Actually "aspect of principles " is a reference to the mental objects which is the fourth Satipattana.
With Metta