What this chapter covers: This chapter explains meditation on the ten kinds of foulness (asubha) — contemplation of corpses in various stages of decay. Each type of corpse serves as a meditation object that leads to the first level of deep absorption (jhana) by countering sensual desire. The chapter gives detailed practical instructions for approaching the meditation object, developing the mental sign, and reaching absorption, along with important safety warnings.
The Ten Types of Foulness
Ten kinds of foulness were listed after the totality devices as meditation subjects. These are all corpses — bodies without consciousness — in different states of decay:
- The bloated — a corpse swollen up like a bellows filled with air
- The livid — a corpse with patchy discolouration: reddish where flesh shows, whitish where pus has gathered, and mostly blue-black as if draped in dark cloth
- The festering — a corpse oozing pus from broken places
- The cut up — a corpse that has been sliced open in two
- The gnawed — a corpse chewed on by dogs, jackals, and other animals
- The scattered — a corpse with parts strewn about: a hand here, a foot there, a head somewhere else
- The hacked and scattered — a corpse that has been slashed in a criss-cross pattern on every limb and then scattered
- The bleeding — a corpse smeared with trickling blood
- The worm-infested — a corpse crawling with maggots
- A skeleton — either a single bone or a whole framework of bones
These names also apply to the meditation signs that arise from each type, and to the deep absorptions reached through those signs.
How to Practise: The Bloated (General Instructions)
The detailed instructions for the bloated corpse apply to all ten types. Only the specific differences are noted for each of the remaining nine.
Finding a Teacher
A meditator who wants to develop deep absorption through the bloated corpse should first approach a qualified teacher, as described in the earth device chapter. The teacher should explain the full method: how to travel to find the meditation object, how to note surrounding landmarks, the eleven ways of examining the sign, how to review the path there and back, and how to reach absorption.
When You Hear About a Corpse
When you hear that a bloated corpse is lying at a village gate, on a road, at a forest edge, at the base of a rock, under a tree, or on a charnel ground, don’t rush there immediately.
Why not? The place may be dangerous — wild animals or hostile spirits could be present, and you might risk your life. The route might pass by a village, a bathing place, or a field where you could encounter an attractive person of the opposite sex. The corpse itself might be of the opposite sex, which is unsuitable: women should use a male corpse, men a female one is not appropriate. A freshly dead body might even look beautiful, threatening your commitment to purity. But if you judge, “This is not difficult for someone like me,” then go ahead.
Informing Someone Before You Go
Always tell the senior elder or a well-known monk before you leave.
Why? If terror seizes you at the charnel ground — if you see or hear frightening things from wild animals or non-human beings, or if something else afflicts you — the person you told can look after your belongings and send help.
There is also the danger of robbers. They may use the charnel ground as a hideout. If they are being chased, they might drop stolen goods near you and run. When pursuers arrive, they could accuse you of being the thief. The monk you informed can then explain your purpose and clear your name.
Setting Out
Set out eagerly, happy and joyful — like a prince on the way to his coronation, or like a poor man going to dig up a hidden treasure.
If you are going mainly to test your mental control, announce your departure publicly. If you are going primarily for the meditation itself, go alone. Keep your basic meditation subject in mind. Carry a walking stick to fend off dogs. Establish mindfulness firmly, keeping your senses turned inward and your mind from wandering outward.
Noting the Path
As you leave the monastery, note which gate you use and which direction you head. Define the path as you go: “This path goes east… here it turns left… here right… here is a stone, there a termite mound, there a tree, there a bush, there a creeper.” This careful noting of the route is essential for later.
Approaching Downwind
Do not approach from upwind. If the corpse smell hits your nose, your head may ache, you may vomit, or you may regret coming. Approach from downwind instead. If the downwind path is blocked by a mountain, ravine, thorns, or water, cover your nose with the corner of your robe.
Where to Stand
When you arrive, don’t look at the corpse right away. First check your position. Stand where the object appears clearly and your mind is at ease. Avoid standing directly downwind (the smell distracts you) or too directly upwind (spirits dwelling there may be annoyed).
Stand at a moderate distance — not too far (the object won’t be clear) and not too close (you may get frightened). Don’t stand too near the head or feet, or you won’t see the full picture evenly. Stand opposite the middle of the body, at a comfortable viewing distance.
Noting Surrounding Landmarks
Before focusing on the corpse, carefully note every landmark nearby — any rock, termite mound, tree, bush, or creeper. Define each one: is it high or low, small or large, dark or light, long or round? Then pair each landmark with the corpse in your mind: “Here is a rock; here is the sign of foulness. Here is the sign of foulness; here is the rock.”
This serves a critical purpose. If fear arises later, these landmarks are your anchor against panic. (More on this below.)
Recognising Its Individual Nature
Next, bring to mind the corpse’s specific quality — its own particular state of being bloated — which is unlike anything else. Define it by its individual nature: “the inflated, the bloated.”
The Eleven Ways of Examining the Sign
Examine the sign in six primary ways:
- By colour: “This is the body of someone who was dark-skinned, light-skinned, or golden-skinned.”
- By mark: Don’t define it as male or female. Instead note: “This was someone in the first phase of life, the middle phase, or the last phase.”
- By shape: Define the bloated shape of each part — head, neck, hands, chest, belly, navel, hips, thighs, calves, feet.
- By direction: “The lower body is below the navel, the upper body above it.” Or: “I am standing in this direction; the corpse is in that direction.”
- By location: “The hand is in this spot, the foot here, the head there, the middle of the body here.” Or: “I am in this location; the corpse is in that one.”
- By delimitation: “This body is bounded below by the soles of the feet, above by the tips of the hair, all around by the skin. The space so bounded is filled with thirty-two pieces of corpse.” Or define the boundaries of each part.
Background Note: A female corpse is not suitable for a male meditator, nor a male corpse for a female meditator. The repulsive aspect does not register properly when viewing the opposite sex — instead it can become a trigger for the wrong kind of excitement. As the commentary on the Middle-Length Discourses puts it: “Even when decaying, a woman invades a man’s mind and stays there.” The sign should only be examined in a body of the same sex.
If the counterpart sign has not yet appeared after these six, examine the sign in five additional ways:
- By joints: Define the fourteen major joints — three in each arm, three in each leg, one at the neck, one at the waist.
- By openings: The hollows of the armpits, between the legs, the stomach cavity, the ear hollows. Also note whether the eyes and mouth are open or closed.
- By concavities: Any sunken place — the eye sockets, inside the mouth, the base of the neck. Or: “I am standing in a low spot; the body is on raised ground.”
- By convexities: Any raised place — the knees, the chest, the forehead. Or: “I am standing on high ground; the body is in a low spot.”
- All round: Work over the whole body with awareness. Then fix your mind on whichever part appears most clearly, repeating: “The bloated, the bloated.” If no part stands out, and the belly is the most prominently swollen, fix your mind there.
Developing the Learning Sign
Stand at a moderate distance from the body. Open your eyes, look, and take in the sign. Then close your eyes and bring it to mind. Do this over and over — a hundred times, a thousand times — thinking: “Repulsiveness of the bloated, repulsiveness of the bloated.”
When the image comes into focus equally well whether your eyes are open or closed, the learning sign (uggaha-nimitta) is properly established.
Returning to Your Lodging
If you cannot complete the practice on the spot, return to your lodging alone, in the same careful way. Note the return path just as you noted the outgoing one. When you walk or sit, orient yourself toward the direction of the corpse. If that’s not possible due to obstacles, simply turn your mind in that direction.
Why the Landmarks Matter: Overcoming Fear
Background Note: Of all thirty-eight meditation subjects in the traditional texts, none is as frightening as this one. Some meditators even lose their absorption because of the sheer terror it can produce.
When you return to the charnel ground — or even when the image arises in meditation — the dead body may appear to stand up, threaten you, and chase you. Your mind may reel with panic, and your hair may stand on end. This is where the landmarks become essential.
Stand firm. Establish mindfulness and calm yourself like this: “No dead body gets up and chases anyone. If that stone or that creeper beside it were to move toward me, then the body might too. But since the stone doesn’t move, neither will the body. This appearance is born of my own perception — created by my own mind. Today the meditation subject has appeared. Do not be afraid.” Laugh it off and redirect your mind to the sign. This is how you will succeed.
Why Review the Path
Reviewing the path keeps the meditation subject on track. If the sign vanishes — because you had to answer someone’s question on the way back, or attend to monastery duties, or because the corpse itself has changed state — you can recover it.
Sit in your quarters, close your eyes, and mentally retrace the entire journey: “I went out through this gate, took the path heading east, turned left at the stone, right at the tree, arrived at such a place, stood facing such a direction, noted such landmarks, and saw the sign of foulness in this way. I returned by such a path and am now sitting here.”
As you review this, the sign becomes evident again — as if placed right in front of you. The meditation subject finds its track once more.
The Rarity of This Meditation Object
Of all meditation subjects, none is as hard to come by as this one. A bloated corpse lasts only a day or two before becoming a livid corpse. Someone practising with the four elements can examine their own body at any time. Someone using the breath can observe air at their own nostrils. Someone using a totality device can make one at leisure. But a corpse in a particular state of decay is fleeting. So guard the sign like a poor man who has found a priceless treasure.
In your quarters, day and night, keep your mind anchored: “Repulsiveness of the bloated, repulsiveness of the bloated.” Bring the sign to mind and strike at it with focused thought, over and over.
The Learning Sign and the Counterpart Sign
- The learning sign appears as a hideous, dreadful, frightening sight.
- The counterpart sign appears like a person with big limbs lying down after a full meal — much less terrifying.
Reaching Absorption
When the counterpart sign arises, the five hindrances are abandoned:
- Sensual desire is suppressed because attention has turned away from sense objects
- Ill will is abandoned through letting go of approval and resistance
- Dullness and drowsiness are overcome through energetic effort
- Restlessness and worry are calmed through devotion to peaceful states
- Doubt about the teacher, the path, and its results is overcome through direct experience
At the same time, the five factors of deep absorption become present: directed thought, sustained thought, joy, tranquillity and bliss, and mental unification. First comes access concentration (the threshold), then the first deep absorption itself. Mastery is developed as described in the earth device chapter.
Only the first level of deep absorption is possible here — not the second or higher. Because the object’s hold on the mind is weak (it is repulsive, after all), consciousness can only stay steady through directed thought. Without that active steering, the mind cannot maintain focus. It is like a boat in a turbulent river that can only stay on course by means of its rudder.
Yet despite the object being repulsive, it arouses joy and happiness — through seeing its benefit: “Surely in this way I shall be freed from ageing and death,” and through the relief of abandoning the hindrances. This is like a rubbish collector who feels happy thinking “Now I shall earn good wages,” or a sick person who welcomes bitter medicine knowing it will bring relief.
The Livid
The same general instructions apply. Examine the livid corpse and bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the livid, repulsiveness of the livid.”
- The learning sign appears blotchy and patchy in colour.
- The counterpart sign takes on whichever colour is most dominant.
The Festering
Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the festering, repulsiveness of the festering.”
- The learning sign appears as though pus is trickling from it.
- The counterpart sign appears motionless and still.
The Cut Up
A cut-up corpse can be found on a battlefield, in a forest used by robbers, on a charnel ground where criminals are executed, or in the jungle where people have been killed by lions and tigers.
If the separated parts all come into focus at once, that is good. If not, don’t touch the parts with your own hand — handling them breeds familiarity, which undermines the meditation. Have a monastery attendant or someone else put the parts together in one place. If no one is available, use a walking stick to arrange them with only a finger’s width between the pieces.
Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the cut up, repulsiveness of the cut up.”
- The learning sign appears as though cut in the middle.
- The counterpart sign appears whole and intact.
The Gnawed
Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the gnawed, repulsiveness of the gnawed.”
- The learning sign appears chewed on in various places.
- The counterpart sign appears whole.
The Scattered
Get the scattered parts assembled (or assemble them yourself with a stick) so they are only a finger’s width apart. Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the scattered, repulsiveness of the scattered.”
- The learning sign shows the gaps between the parts.
- The counterpart sign appears whole.
The Hacked and Scattered
Found in the same places as the cut up. Assemble the parts in the same way. Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the hacked and scattered, repulsiveness of the hacked and scattered.”
- The learning sign shows the criss-cross wounds clearly.
- The counterpart sign appears whole.
The Bleeding
A bleeding corpse is found when blood trickles from wounds on a battlefield, or from burst boils and abscesses, or from stumps where hands and feet have been cut off. Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the bleeding, repulsiveness of the bleeding.”
- The learning sign appears to move like a red banner flapping in the wind.
- The counterpart sign appears still and quiet.
The Worm-Infested
After two or three days, a mass of maggots oozes from a corpse’s nine openings. The mass lies beside the body like a heap of grain or boiled rice, as large as the body itself. This can happen with any corpse — dog, jackal, human, ox, buffalo, elephant, horse, or python. The sign can be taken from any of these.
Background Note: The Elder Cula-Pindapatika-Tissa developed his meditation sign from the carcass of an elephant in the Kaladighavapi reservoir.
Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of the worm-infested, repulsiveness of the worm-infested.”
- The learning sign appears as though the maggots are moving.
- The counterpart sign appears still, like a ball of cooked rice.
A Skeleton
A skeleton may have flesh and blood still clinging to it, held together by sinews, or it may be bare bones. Go to where one lies in the way already described. Note the surrounding landmarks and examine it through the eleven ways.
Important: If you look at a skeleton only by its white colour, it won’t appear as repulsive. Instead it will seem like a version of the white totality device. You must look at it specifically as “a skeleton” — focusing on its repulsive aspect.
Define it by its mark according to hand, foot, head, chest, arm, waist, thigh, and shin. Define its shape as long, short, square, round, small, or large. Examine direction, location, and delimitation as before — but here, define the boundaries of each individual bone. Reach absorption by focusing on whichever bone appears most clearly.
If the sign still does not arise after examining it in all eleven ways, fix your mind on the frontal bone of the skull.
This meditation works with a whole skeleton frame or even with a single bone. Bring it to mind as: “Repulsiveness of a skeleton, repulsiveness of a skeleton.”
- For a single bone, the learning sign and the counterpart sign look similar.
- For a whole skeleton frame, the learning sign shows the gaps between bones, while the counterpart sign appears whole and complete.
- The learning sign should be dreadful and terrifying, even for a single bone. The counterpart sign brings happiness and joy because it carries access concentration with it.
Background Note: This is demonstrated by the story of the Elder Maha-Tissa: when he merely glanced at a woman’s teeth, her entire body appeared to him as a collection of bones (see Chapter 1). The sign arose spontaneously because of his developed practice.
Which Type Suits Which Temperament
The Divine Ruler with ten hundred eyes Did praise the one who has the Ten Great Powers, Who, fair in fame, made known as cause of absorption This foulness of ten kinds in such a wise. Now, knowing their description and the way To tackle each and how they are developed, There are some further points that will repay Study, each with its special part to play.
Anyone who reaches deep absorption through any of these ten types goes free from sensual craving. Their greed is so well suppressed that they resemble a fully awakened being without greed.
The ten types correspond both to the state a corpse happens to be in and to specific tendencies within the greedy temperament:
- The bloated suits someone greedy about physical shape, since it shows how the body’s shape becomes disfigured
- The livid suits someone greedy about skin colour and complexion, since it shows how colour deteriorates
- The festering suits someone greedy about body scent (perfumes, fragrances), since it reveals the foul smells of this “open sore” — the body
- The cut up suits someone greedy about the body’s apparent solidity, since it reveals the hollow space inside
- The gnawed suits someone greedy about fleshy features like the breasts, since it shows how fine accumulations of flesh come to nothing
- The scattered suits someone greedy about graceful limbs, since it shows limbs strewn about in disarray
- The hacked and scattered suits someone greedy about the body as a beautiful whole, since it shows the entire body broken apart
- The bleeding suits someone greedy about elegance from jewellery and ornaments, since it shows repulsiveness when smeared with blood
- The worm-infested suits someone greedy about ownership of the body (“this body is mine”), since it shows the body shared with countless families of worms
- A skeleton suits someone greedy about fine teeth, since it reveals the repulsiveness of the bones underneath
When you find a corpse, simply note what state it has reached and practise accordingly: “Repulsiveness of the bloated,” “Repulsiveness of the livid,” and so on, depending on what you have found.
The Body’s True Nature
The characteristic of foulness is one and the same across all ten types: impurity, stench, disgust, and repulsiveness. And this foulness belongs not only to dead bodies but to living ones as well.
Consider the body’s actual nature. It is a collection of over three hundred bones, joined by one hundred and eighty joints, bound by nine hundred sinews, covered with nine hundred pieces of flesh, wrapped in moist inner skin, and enclosed in outer skin. It has openings everywhere that constantly dribble and leak like a pot of grease. It is home to colonies of worms and a breeding ground for disease.
From the eyes seeps discharge. From the ears, wax. From the nostrils, mucus. From the mouth, food residue, bile, phlegm, and blood. From the lower openings, excrement and urine. From ninety-nine thousand pores, stale sweat oozes out. Flies buzz around it constantly.
Without tooth-cleaning, bathing, grooming, and clothing, even a king wandering from village to village would be no different from a rubbish collector or an outcast. There is no difference between a king’s body and a beggar’s body when it comes to its impure, stinking, nauseating nature.
Yet by brushing the teeth, covering the private parts with layers of cloth, rubbing on scents and salves, and decking it with flowers and ornaments, the body is polished up into something people take as “I” and “mine.” Men delight in women and women in men, never perceiving the true foulness hidden beneath these surface decorations. But in the deepest sense, there is not a single spot on this body — not even the size of an atom — that is worth lusting after.
Consider this: when any part falls off the body — a hair, a nail, a tooth, saliva, mucus, excrement, or urine — people will not touch it. They are ashamed and disgusted. Yet while that same thing remains attached to the body, they find it perfectly agreeable, even desirable. They take it as pleasant, as lasting, as “self” — because they are wrapped in the darkness of ignorance and stained by attachment.
They are like the old jackal who saw a red blossom on a flame tree in the forest:
There was a jackal chanced to see A flowering flame tree in a wood; In haste he went to where it stood: “I have found a meat-bearing tree!” He chewed the blooms that fell, but could Of course find nothing fit to eat. He took it thus: “Unlike the meat There on the tree, this is no good.”
A wise man will not think to treat As foul only the part that fell, But treats as foul the part as well That in the body has its seat. Fools cannot in their folly tell; They take the body to be fair, And soon get caught in Evil’s snare Nor can escape its painful spell. But since the wise have thus laid bare This filthy body’s nature, so, Be it alive or dead, they know There is no beauty lurking there.
And further:
“This filthy body stinks outright Like ordure, like a privy’s site; This body men that have insight Condemn, as object of a fool’s delight.
“A tumour where nine holes abide Wrapped in a coat of clammy hide And trickling filth on every side, Polluting the air with stenches far and wide.
“If it perchance should come about That what is inside it came out, Surely a man would need a knout With which to put the crows and dogs to rout.”
Conclusion
A capable meditator should take up the sign of foulness wherever it is evident — whether in a living body or a dead one — and develop the meditation subject all the way to absorption.
This is the sixth chapter, “The Description of Foulness as a Meditation Subject,” in the section on the Development of Concentration in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.