Mindfulness of Death, the Body, Breathing, and Peace (Chapter 8)

What this chapter covers: This chapter explains the final four recollections: mindfulness of death, mindfulness of the body (the thirty-two parts), mindfulness of breathing (the most important meditation subject in the entire system), and recollection of peace (nibbana). It provides complete practical instructions for each, including the eight ways to contemplate death, the detailed method for analysing the body’s thirty-two parts, the full sixteen-step method for breath meditation from counting through to liberation, and how to recollect the qualities of nibbana.

Mindfulness of Death

What “Death” Means Here

Death (marana) means the interruption of the life faculty within a single existence. This does not refer to the final liberation of an awakened being, nor to the momentary dissolution of mental states, nor to everyday expressions like “dead tree” or “dead metal.”

There are two kinds of death:

Timely death — which comes when one’s merit is exhausted, when one’s natural life span runs out, or both
Untimely death — which comes when a powerful past action cuts short a life that would otherwise continue, or through accidents such as assaults with weapons

Mindfulness of death means keeping the interruption of the life faculty clearly in mind.

How to Develop It

Go into solitary retreat and direct your attention wisely: “Death will take place. The life faculty will be interrupted.” Or simply: “Death, death.”

Be careful how you approach this. If you think about the death of someone you love, grief arises. If you think about the death of an enemy, gladness arises. If you think about the death of a stranger, no sense of urgency arises — like a corpse-burner seeing yet another dead body. If you think about your own death with the wrong attitude, anxiety arises — like a timid person seeing a murderer with a raised dagger.

None of these responses is useful. Instead, look at beings who have died — people who were once seen enjoying good things — and reflect on their death with mindfulness, a sense of urgency, and knowledge. Then direct your attention: “Death will take place.”

For some people, this alone is enough. Their hindrances are suppressed, mindfulness settles on death as its object, and the meditation reaches access concentration.

The Eight Ways of Contemplating Death

If that does not happen, contemplate death in these eight ways:

1. Death appears like a murderer with a raised sword

Just as a murderer approaches with a sword thinking, “I shall cut off this man’s head,” so death approaches. It comes along with birth and takes away life.

From the moment of conception, a being travels toward death and never turns back — not even for a moment. Like the sun, which from the moment it rises moves only toward its setting. Like a mountain torrent that rushes forward and never flows back.

“Right from the very day a man Has been conceived inside a womb He cannot but go on and on, Nor going can he once turn back.”

And while we travel on, death is as near as drying up is to streams in summer, as falling is to ripe fruit, as breaking is to clay pots tapped by a mallet, as vanishing is to dewdrops touched by the sun.

“The nights and days go slipping by As life keeps dwindling steadily Till mortals’ span, like water pools In failing rills, is all used up.”

“As there is fear, when fruits are ripe, That in the morning they will fall, So mortals are in constant fear, When they are born, that they will die. And as the fate of pots of clay Once fashioned by the potter’s hand, Or small or big or baked or raw, Condemns them to be broken up, So mortals’ life leads but to death.”

“The dewdrop on the blade of grass Vanishes when the sun comes up; Such is a human span of life; So, mother, do not hinder me.”

2. Death as the ruin of success

No success endures out of reach of failure. All health ends in sickness. All youth ends in aging. All life ends in death.

Background Note: The Emperor Asoka — whose very name means “Sorrowless” — conquered the entire earth and gave away a hundred million in generosity. Yet when his merit was exhausted and his body breathed its last, even Asoka felt sorrow in the face of death.

“As though huge mountains made of rock So vast they reached up to the sky Were to advance from every side, Grinding beneath them all that lives, So age and death roll over all, Warriors, priests, merchants, and craftsmen, The outcastes and the scavengers, Crushing all beings, sparing none. And here no troops of elephants, No charioteers, no infantry, No strategy in form of spells, No riches, serve to beat them off.”

3. Death by comparison with others

Compare yourself with those who had far more than you — and still died.

Those of great fame: Kings like Mahasammata and Mandhatu, whose fame spread mightily — all fell into death’s power. What can be said of those like me?
Those of great merit: Jotika, Jatila, and others who lived with enormous merit — they all came to death. What can be said of those like me?
Those of great strength: Vasudeva, Baladeva, Bhimasena — renowned throughout the world for their mighty strength — they too went to death. What can be said of those like me?
Those of great supernormal power: The Elder Moggallana, foremost in miraculous powers, who rocked a heavenly palace with the point of his great toe — even he, like a deer in a lion’s jaw, fell in the jaws of death. What can be said of those like me?
Those of great understanding: The Elder Sariputta, whose wisdom was so great that no being but the Buddha was worth his sixteenth part — even he fell into death’s power. What can be said of those like me?
Independently awakened ones (Paccekabuddhas): Those who crushed all defilements by their own strength and stood alone like the rhinoceros’s horn — even they could not evade death. What can be said of those like me?
Fully enlightened Buddhas: Even the Blessed One, whose body was adorned with the thirty-two marks of a great man, whose qualities of virtue, concentration, and wisdom were perfected in every way, who had no equal — even he was quenched by death’s rain, as a great fire is quenched by a downpour. What can be said of those like me?

4. The body is shared with many

The body is shared with eighty families of worms. Creatures live feeding on the outer skin, the inner skin, the flesh, the sinews, the bones, and the marrow. The body is their maternity home, their hospital, their graveyard, their privy, and their toilet.

The body is also subject to hundreds of internal diseases, as well as external dangers — snakes, scorpions, and countless accidents. As the Buddha said, a practitioner should reflect each evening: “In many ways I can risk death. A snake may bite me, a scorpion may sting me. I might stumble and fall, or the food I have eaten might disagree with me. I might die of that.”

5. Life is fragile

Life depends on breathing evenly — when the air that goes out does not come back in, or the air that goes in does not come back out, a person is dead. Life depends on the four postures occurring evenly. Life depends on cold and heat being balanced. Life depends on the four elements being in balance. Life depends on getting food at the right time.

Any of these can fail at any moment.

6. Death is signless — unpredictable

There is no sign that foretells when death will come:

Life span has no sign: There is no rule about how long one must live. Beings die as embryos, as infants, as children, or at any age.
The sickness has no sign: There is no rule about what disease will kill. Beings die of eye disease, ear disease, or any ailment.
The time has no sign: There is no rule about when death must happen. Beings die in the morning, at noon, or at any hour.
Where the body drops has no sign: Those born in a village may die outside it. Those born on land may die in water.
The next destination has no sign: Some die in a heavenly world and are reborn as humans. Some die as humans and are reborn in heavenly worlds. The world goes round the five destinies like an ox harnessed to a mill.

7. Life’s extent is limited

Human life is short. One who lives long lives about a hundred years. The Buddha said:

“The life of humankind is short; A wise man holds it in contempt And acts as one whose head is burning; Death will never fail to come.”

The Buddha also said that a practitioner who thinks, “Let me live a night and a day to practise the teaching” — or even “Let me live long enough to chew and swallow four or five mouthfuls” — is dwelling in negligence. But one who thinks, “Let me live as long as it takes to breathe in and breathe out” — that practitioner is dwelling in diligence. Life is not certain even for the time it takes to swallow a few mouthfuls.

8. Life lasts only a single moment

In the deepest sense, the life of a being lasts only for a single moment of consciousness. Just as a chariot wheel touches the ground on only one point of its rim, so life exists only in one conscious moment.

“Life, person, pleasure, pain — just these alone Join in one conscious moment that flicks by. Ceased aggregates of those dead or alive Are all alike, gone never to return. No world is born if consciousness is not Produced; when that is present, then it lives; When consciousness dissolves, the world is dead: The highest sense this concept will allow.”

What Level of Concentration Is Attained

As the meditator contemplates death through any of these eight ways, mindfulness settles on death as its object, the hindrances are suppressed, and the factors of deep absorption (jhana) appear. However, because the object involves things with individual characteristics and because it awakens a sense of urgency, the meditation reaches only access concentration — not full absorption.

The Benefits

A practitioner devoted to mindfulness of death is constantly diligent. They gain disenchantment with all forms of existence. They overcome attachment to life and avoid hoarding. The perception of impermanence grows, followed by the perceptions of suffering and not-self. At the time of death, they die undeluded and fearless. And if they do not reach the deathless in this life, they are headed for a happy destination.

Mindfulness of the Body: The Thirty-Two Parts

Introduction

This meditation subject is never taught except when a Buddha has arisen in the world. It is outside the range of any other teaching tradition. The Buddha commended it in many ways:

“When one thing is developed and repeatedly practised, it leads to a supreme sense of urgency, to supreme benefit, to supreme mindfulness and full awareness, to a happy life here and now, and to the realisation of clear vision and liberation. What is that one thing? It is mindfulness of the body.”

“They savour the deathless who savour mindfulness of the body. They have missed the deathless who have missed mindfulness of the body.”

The Practice Text

“A practitioner reviews this body, up from the soles of the feet and down from the top of the hair and contained within the skin, as full of many kinds of filth: In this body there are head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidney, heart, liver, midriff, spleen, lungs, bowels, entrails, gorge, dung, brain, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spittle, snot, oil of the joints, and urine.”

No one who searches through this entire body — from the soles of the feet upward, from the top of the head downward, and from the skin inward — ever finds anything beautiful in it. No pearl, no gem, no saffron, no camphor. Only various malodorous, offensive, drab-looking sorts of filth.

The Seven Skills in Learning

A beginner should learn this meditation subject from a qualified teacher. The teacher should explain the sevenfold skill in learning:

Verbal recitation — Recite the parts out loud, forwards and backwards
Mental recitation — Recite them silently in the mind
Colour — Define the colour of each part
Shape — Define the shape of each part
Direction — Know whether each part is in the upper or lower direction (above or below the navel)
Location — Know where each part is situated in the body
Delimitation — Know the boundaries of each part (what borders it above, below, and around), and know that each part is distinct from every other part

The Five Groups

The thirty-two parts are divided into groups for verbal recitation, practised forwards and backwards:

The Skin Group (5 parts): Head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin

The Kidney Group (5 parts): Flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidney

The Lungs Group (5 parts): Heart, liver, midriff, spleen, lungs

The Brain Group (5 parts): Bowels, entrails, gorge, dung, brain

The Fat Group (6 parts): Bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat

The Urine Group (6 parts): Tears, grease, spittle, snot, oil of the joints, urine

The recitation should be done forwards and backwards — for example, “Head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin” and then “Skin, teeth, nails, body hairs, head hairs.” Each new group is added to the previous groups in the backward recitation.

This should be done a hundred times, a thousand times, even a hundred thousand times. Through verbal recitation the meditation subject becomes familiar, and the parts become as evident as the fingers of clasped hands or a row of fence posts.

The Thirty-Two Parts in Detail

Each part is defined by its colour, shape, direction, location, and delimitation, and then its repulsiveness is examined by colour, shape, odour, habitat, and location.

Here are some key examples:

Head hairs: Black in colour. Shaped like long round measuring rods. Located in the upper direction, on the inner skin that covers the skull. They are repulsive: finding a hair in a bowl of rice is disgusting. Their odour, unless masked by oil or scent, is offensive. They grow in the sewage of pus, blood, urine, and dung — like pot herbs growing on village sewage.

Skin: White under the outer cuticle. It covers the entire body. The skin of the toes is shaped like silkworms’ cocoons. The skin of the back is like hide stretched over a plank. The skin of the face is like an insects’ nest full of holes.

Bones: There are exactly three hundred bones (not counting the thirty-two teeth). They are all white. The toe bones are shaped like small seeds. The thigh bone is like a badly trimmed axe handle. The spine bones are like lead pipes stacked on top of each other. The rib bones together look like the outspread wings of a white cock.

Heart: Shaped like a lotus bud turned upside down. Smooth outside, rough like a loofah gourd inside. In a person of understanding, it is slightly expanded. In a person without understanding, it is still only a bud.

Stomach and gorge: The stomach is where food, bile, phlegm, and wind collect. It is the dwelling place of thirty-two families of worms. When there is no food, the worms leap up and pounce on the heart flesh. The whole contents ferment, froth, and bubble into utterly stinking muck.

Oil of the joints: This slimy substance lubricates the hundred and eighty joints. If it is weak, the bones creak when getting up or sitting down. If plentiful, movements are smooth and painless.

The Tenfold Skill in Giving Attention

Follow the order — Do not skip parts, like climbing a ladder step by step
Not too quickly — Like a man who rushes a journey and remembers nothing
Not too slowly — Like a man who dawdles and never finishes
Ward off distraction — Like watching your step on a narrow cliff path
Surmount the concept — Move beyond the mere names “head hairs, body hairs” and establish your mind on the actual repulsiveness
Successive leaving — Eventually drop parts that do not become clear, and work on those that do
Absorption in each part — Absorption can be attained in any single part
Develop higher consciousness — When the mind is sluggish, arouse it with the investigation, energy, and joy factors of awakening. Like a goldsmith who blows on gold from time to time, sprinkles water from time to time, and looks on from time to time
Develop inner coolness — When the mind is agitated, calm it with the tranquillity, concentration, and equanimity factors of awakening
Balance energy with concentration — Link energy with concentration by mastering the seven factors of awakening: know when to arouse the mind and when to calm it

The simile of the monkey: Imagine a monkey living in a grove of thirty-two palm trees. A hunter shoots an arrow at the first tree and shouts. The monkey leaps from palm to palm until it reaches the last. The hunter follows and shouts again. The monkey returns. Eventually, after being chased back and forth, the monkey seizes one palm shoot in the middle and refuses to leap again. In the same way, the meditator’s mind eventually settles on one part and does not wander further.

The Learning Sign and Counterpart Sign

When the meditator has defined all the parts and gives attention to their repulsiveness in the five aspects (colour, shape, smell, habitat, location), all thirty-two parts eventually become evident simultaneously — like a man observing a garland of thirty-two coloured flowers on a single string.

If attention is extended outwardly, other beings appear as mere assemblages of parts, stripped of their appearance as “beings.”

The learning sign is the appearance of the parts as to their colour, shape, direction, location, and delimitation
The counterpart sign is their appearance as repulsive in all aspects

What Absorption Level Is Attained

Absorption arises, but only the first level of deep absorption (first jhana) — the same as described for the meditation on foulness. A single first jhana arises for one who reaches absorption in one part. Multiple first jhanas arise for one who reaches absorption in multiple parts.

Background Note: The Elder Mallaka was an obtainer of thirty-two first jhanas in the thirty-two parts. If he entered one by night and one by day, he could go through them all over a fortnight. If he entered one each day, it took him over a month.

The Benefits

A practitioner devoted to mindfulness of the body conquers boredom and delight, fear and dread. They can bear cold and heat and threatening bodily feelings. They can attain the four levels of deep absorption based on the colour aspect of the parts, and can penetrate the six kinds of direct knowledge.

So let a man, if he is wise, Untiringly devote his days To mindfulness of body which Rewards him in so many ways.

Mindfulness of Breathing

Introduction

This is the most important meditation subject in the entire system. The Buddha praised it highly:

“This concentration through mindfulness of breathing (anapanasati), when developed and practised much, is both peaceful and sublime, it is an unadulterated blissful abiding, and it banishes at once and stills unwholesome thoughts as soon as they arise.”

Unlike other subjects such as the meditation on foulness, which is peaceful only through penetration but has a gross or repulsive object, mindfulness of breathing is peaceful and sublime in every way — both in its object and in its penetration.

The Sixteen Bases

The Buddha described the practice with sixteen steps, grouped in four sets of four (tetrads):

First Tetrad — Contemplation of the Body:

Breathing in long, he knows: “I breathe in long.” Breathing out long, he knows: “I breathe out long.”
Breathing in short, he knows: “I breathe in short.” Breathing out short, he knows: “I breathe out short.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in experiencing the whole body.” He trains: “I shall breathe out experiencing the whole body.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in calming the bodily formation.” He trains: “I shall breathe out calming the bodily formation.”

Second Tetrad — Contemplation of Feeling:

He trains: “I shall breathe in experiencing happiness.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in experiencing bliss.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in experiencing the mental formation.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in calming the mental formation.”

Third Tetrad — Contemplation of Mind:

He trains: “I shall breathe in experiencing the manner of consciousness.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in gladdening the manner of consciousness.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in concentrating the manner of consciousness.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in liberating the manner of consciousness.”

Fourth Tetrad — Contemplation of Mental Objects:

He trains: “I shall breathe in contemplating impermanence.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in contemplating fading away.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in contemplating cessation.”
He trains: “I shall breathe in contemplating relinquishment.”

Finding a Suitable Place

This meditation subject is the foremost practice of all Buddhas and their great disciples. But it is not easy to develop near villages full of noise — noise is a thorn to deep absorption. Go to the forest, the root of a tree, or an empty place.

The mind has long been scattered among sense objects. It is like a wild calf reared on a wild cow’s milk. Take it away from sense objects and tie it to the post of the in-breaths and out-breaths with the rope of mindfulness. The mind may dash about at first, but being unable to break the rope, it will eventually settle down — just as the wild calf settles by the post.

“Just as a man who tames a calf Would tie it to a post, so here Should his own mind by mindfulness Be firmly to the object tied.”

Sit with legs folded crosswise and body erect, with the eighteen backbone segments resting end to end. This prevents the skin, flesh, and sinews from twisting, which would cause painful feelings that disturb concentration.

The Complete Method: Eight Stages

The practice unfolds through eight stages:

Counting (ganana)
Connection (anubandha)
Touching (phusana)
Fixing (thapana)
Observing (sallakkhana)
Turning away (vivattana)
Purification (parisuddhi)
Looking back (patipassana)

In brief: counting is just counting, connection is following along, touching is the place touched by the breaths, fixing is absorption, observing is insight, turning away is the path, purification is fruition, and looking back is reviewing.

Stage 1: Counting

Begin by counting the breaths. Do not stop short of five or go beyond ten, and do not break the series. Stopping short of five makes the mind feel cramped. Going beyond ten makes the mind take the numbers as its object instead of the breaths. Breaking the series creates doubt.

At first, count slowly, like a grain measurer. He fills his measure, says “One,” empties it, removes any rubbish, and refills it, saying “One, one” until he moves to “Two, two” and so on. Count by pairs: one complete in-breath plus one complete out-breath counts as “one.” Do not count each half-breath separately. Count “One, one” up to “Ten, ten.”

When the breaths become evident, count more quickly, like a skilled cowherd. He sits at the gate, prodding his cows as they come out, counting rapidly: “Three, four, five” up to ten.

Then, knowing that the breaths keep moving quickly, count them just as they reach the nostril opening, without following them inside or outside the body: “One, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”

As long as the meditation is connected with counting, the mind becomes unified through that counting — just as a boat in a swift current is steadied by a rudder.

How long should you count? Until mindfulness remains settled on the breaths without counting. Counting is simply a device for cutting off distraction.

Stage 2: Connection

After counting, follow the breaths with mindfulness without counting. But do not follow them from their beginning (the navel), through their middle (the heart), to their end (the nose tip). If you chase the breath inside and outside, the mind gets distracted and the body becomes disturbed.

Instead, stay in one place — the nose tip or the upper lip — and observe the breaths as they arrive there.

The simile of the man who cannot walk: A man rocking a swing sits at the foot of the post. He sees both ends and the middle of the swing plank coming and going. But he does not move from his place. In the same way, sit with mindfulness at the nose tip and observe the breaths as they come and go. Do not move to follow them.

The simile of the gatekeeper: A gatekeeper does not examine people inside and outside the town. He examines each person as they arrive at the gate. In the same way, the breaths that have gone inside or gone outside are not your concern. They are your concern only as they arrive at the nostril gate.

The simile of the saw: When a man saws a tree trunk, his mindfulness stays where the teeth touch the wood. He does not follow the teeth as they approach and recede — though they are not unknown to him. In the same way, establish mindfulness at the nose tip or upper lip. Do not follow the breaths as they come and go — though they are not unknown to you.

“Sign, in-breath, out-breath, are not object Of a single consciousness; By one who knows not these three things Development is not obtained. Sign, in-breath, out-breath, are not object Of a single consciousness; By one who does know these three things Development can be obtained.”

Stages 3-4: Touching and Fixing

There is no separate practice of “touching” apart from “fixing.” When you count the breaths where they touch the nostril, you practise counting and touching together. When you give up counting and follow the breaths with mindfulness at that same place, and consciousness becomes absorbed, you practise connection, touching, and fixing together.

How the Sign Develops

When you give attention to this practice, eventually the meditation sign arises. After counting, when the gross in-breaths and out-breaths become still, both body and mind become light — the body feels as if it were ready to leap into the air.

When the gross breaths have ceased, consciousness takes the sign of the subtle breaths as its object. As those cease, it takes the sign of successively subtler breaths.

The simile of the gong: When you strike a bronze bell with a big iron bar, a loud sound arises first. When the loud sound fades, consciousness takes the faint sound as its object. When that fades, consciousness continues with the sign of even fainter sounds. The breaths work the same way.

Other meditation subjects become clearer at each higher stage. This one does not. It becomes more subtle at each stage, until the breaths are no longer noticeable.

When the Breaths Disappear

When the breaths become unmanifest, do not get up and leave. Do not go to ask the teacher, “Is my meditation lost?” By disturbing your posture, you would have to start over.

Instead, stay seated and temporarily take the place normally touched by the breaths (the nose tip) as your object, until the breaths reappear.

Consider: “Where do breaths exist? Where do they not?” They do not exist in one inside the womb, in someone drowned in water, in unconscious beings, in the dead, in someone attained to the fourth jhana, in those born into fine-material or formless existence, or in those who have attained the cessation of perception and feeling.

Then tell yourself: “You are certainly not any of those. The breaths are actually there. You just cannot discern them because your understanding is dull.” Fix your mind on the place normally touched, and continue.

The breaths strike the nose tip in a long-nosed person and the upper lip in a short-nosed person.

Background Note: Mindfulness of breathing is difficult — a field where only the minds of Buddhas and their great disciples are truly at home. Unlike other subjects that become more evident with continued attention, this one becomes more subtle. Strong mindfulness and understanding are essential — like a fine needle needed for fine cloth, and an even finer tool needed to bore the needle’s eye.

The simile of the ploughman and his oxen: A ploughman lets his oxen go to graze and rests in the shade. When he wants them back, he does not follow their tracks through the forest. He goes straight to the drinking place where they always gather, and waits. When they arrive, he secures them with his rope and goad. In the same way, do not chase the breaths. Go to the place they always touch — the nose tip — and wait. They will return.

The Learning Sign and Counterpart Sign

When the sign appears, it is not the same for everyone. To some it appears as a light touch like cotton or silk. The commentaries say:

The learning sign appears like cotton, like a peg of heartwood, like a braid string — with a sense of the physical breath
The counterpart sign appears like a star, a cluster of gems, a cluster of pearls, a lotus flower, a chariot wheel, the moon’s disk, or the sun’s disk

The difference is due to differences in perception. Just as one sutta appears to different practitioners like a mountain torrent, a line of forest trees, or a cool fruit tree, so this single meditation appears differently to different people.

Three things must be clearly distinguished: the consciousness that has the in-breath as object, the consciousness that has the out-breath as object, and the consciousness that has the sign as object. Without keeping these three clear, the meditation reaches neither access nor absorption.

When the sign appears, the hindrances are suppressed, mindfulness is established, and consciousness is concentrated in access concentration.

Developing the Sign into Full Absorption

Do not examine the sign’s colour or analyse its characteristics. Guard the sign carefully — as a queen guards the child in her womb who is destined to become a Wheel-turning Monarch, or as a farmer guards ripening crops.

Avoid the seven unsuitable things (unsuitable abode, and so on)
Cultivate the seven suitable things
Practise the tenfold skill in absorption
Bring about evenness of energy

Through this, four-fold and five-fold deep absorption (jhana) is achieved on that same sign, in the same way as with the earth totality device.

Understanding the First Tetrad

Steps 1-2: Long and short breaths. “Long” and “short” refer to the extent the breath travels over time. In elephants and snakes, the breaths slowly fill a long extent. In dogs and hares, they rapidly fill a short extent. Among humans, some breathe long and some short. The meditator simply knows each breath as it is.

Step 3: Experiencing the whole body. This means making known the beginning, middle, and end of the entire in-breath and out-breath. Some meditators find the beginning plain but not the middle or end. Others find only the middle or only the end plain. The goal is to be like the meditator for whom all stages are plain.

Step 4: Calming the bodily formation. The “bodily formation” is the in-breaths and out-breaths themselves. Before meditation, body and mind are disturbed and the breaths are gross. As meditation deepens, the breaths become progressively more subtle:

Before discerning: gross
At first jhana access: subtler
In the first jhana: subtler still
In the second jhana: subtler still
In the third jhana: subtler still
In the fourth jhana: so exceedingly subtle that they reach cessation

“The mind and body are disturbed, And then in excess it occurs; But when the body is undisturbed, Then it with subtlety occurs.”

Understanding the Second Tetrad (Contemplation of Feeling)

Step 5: Experiencing happiness. Attain one of the two lower jhanas where happiness (piti) is present. While actually in the jhana, happiness is experienced through the object. After emerging, comprehend that happiness with insight as liable to destruction.

Step 6: Experiencing bliss. Bliss (sukha) is experienced through three jhanas.

Step 7: Experiencing the mental formation. The “mental formation” is feeling and perception. This is experienced through all four jhanas.

Step 8: Calming the mental formation. The gross mental formation is progressively calmed, just as the bodily formation was.

Understanding the Third Tetrad (Contemplation of Mind)

Step 9: Experiencing consciousness. Consciousness is experienced through all four jhanas.

Step 10: Gladdening consciousness. Inspire the mind with gladness through the happiness present in jhana, or through insight into that happiness.

Step 11: Concentrating consciousness. Place the mind evenly on its object through jhana or through the momentary concentration that arises during insight.

Step 12: Liberating consciousness. Liberate the mind from the hindrances through the first jhana, from applied and sustained thought through the second, from happiness through the third, from pleasure and pain through the fourth. Or through insight: liberate it from the perception of permanence through contemplating impermanence, from the perception of pleasure through contemplating pain, from the perception of self through contemplating not-self.

Understanding the Fourth Tetrad (Contemplation of Mental Objects)

This tetrad deals with pure insight. The first three tetrads deal with both serenity and insight.

Step 13: Contemplating impermanence. The five aggregates are impermanent because their nature is to arise, decay, and change. Impermanence is the momentary dissolution of these aggregates — their non-existence after having been.

Step 14: Contemplating fading away. “Fading away” has two meanings: the momentary dissolution of formations (fading away as destruction), and the unconditioned (nibbana), which is absolute fading away. Insight and the path see both.

Step 15: Contemplating cessation. The same twofold meaning applies.

Step 16: Contemplating relinquishment. Relinquishment also has two meanings: giving up (abandoning defilements by substituting their opposites) and entering into (inclining toward nibbana by seeing the danger in what is formed). Both insight and path knowledge accomplish this — insight by substitution, the path by cutting off.

Completing the Practice

Stage 5: Observing (Insight)

After achieving four-fold and five-fold jhana, the meditator makes that jhana familiar through mastery in five ways, then embarks on insight. Emerging from absorption, they see that the in-breaths and out-breaths arise dependent on body and mind — just as a bellows produces wind through the bag and the man’s effort. They define the breaths and the body as “materiality,” and consciousness with its associated states as “mind.”

Stage 6: Turning Away (The Path)

Having defined mind and matter, the meditator finds their conditions, overcomes doubt about the three times, attributes the three characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and not-self, abandons the ten imperfections of insight, reaches contemplation of dissolution, becomes dispassionate toward all formations, and is liberated.

Stage 7: Purification (Fruition)

The meditator reaches the four noble paths in succession and becomes established in the fruition of full awakening (arahantship).

Stage 8: Looking Back (Reviewing)

The meditator attains the nineteen kinds of reviewing knowledge and becomes worthy of the highest offerings.

What Absorption Level Is Attained

Mindfulness of breathing produces the full four-fold and five-fold deep absorption (all four jhanas), not just the first jhana as with mindfulness of the body or foulness. It serves as the complete basis for the entire path from access concentration through to full awakening.

The Benefits

The great beneficialness of mindfulness of breathing should be understood in these ways:

Peacefulness: It cuts off the mind’s restless running here and there. It is peaceful, sublime, and an unadulterated blissful abiding.
The root condition for liberation: The Buddha said: “Mindfulness of breathing, when developed and practised much, perfects the four foundations of mindfulness. The four foundations of mindfulness perfect the seven factors of awakening. The seven factors of awakening perfect clear vision and liberation.”
Knowing the final breaths: The Buddha told Rahula: “When mindfulness of breathing is developed, the final in-breaths and out-breaths are known as they cease, not unknown.” A practitioner who reaches full awakening through mindfulness of breathing can always define their remaining life term.

Background Note: There are three kinds of “final” breaths. Final in becoming: breaths occur only in the sense-sphere existence, not in fine-material or formless existence. Final in jhana: breaths occur in the first three jhanas but not in the fourth. Final in death: the breaths that cease together with the death consciousness. This last kind is what the Buddha meant.

Here is an illustration of how precisely a practitioner of breathing meditation knows their life: After reciting the monastic code on a full-moon day, an elder stood on the walking path, calculated his remaining vital formations, and said to the community: “I shall now show you one attaining final liberation while walking.” He drew a line on the path, walked to the far end, and on his return, attained liberation at the exact moment his foot touched the line.

So let a man, if he is wise, Untiringly devote his days To mindfulness of breathing, which Rewards him always in these ways.

“Whose mindfulness of breathing in And out is perfect, well developed, And gradually brought to growth According as the Buddha taught, ‘Tis he illuminates the world Just like the full moon free from cloud.”

Recollection of Peace

How to Develop It

One who wants to develop the recollection of peace should go into solitary retreat and recollect the special qualities of nibbana — the stilling of all suffering — as follows:

“In so far as there are things with individual essences, whether formed or unformed, fading away is pronounced the best of them — that is, the disillusionment of vanity, the elimination of thirst, the abolition of reliance, the termination of the round, the destruction of craving, fading away, cessation, nibbana.”

“Fading away” here does not mean merely the absence of greed. It is the unformed reality (nibbana) which is called:

Disillusionment of vanity — because on reaching it, all kinds of conceit and pride are undone
Elimination of thirst — because on reaching it, all craving for sense pleasures is quenched
Abolition of reliance — because on reaching it, reliance on the five cords of sense desire is abolished
Termination of the round — because on reaching it, the cycle of existence through the three planes is terminated
Destruction of craving — because on reaching it, craving is entirely destroyed and ceases

Background Note: The word nibbana (nirvana) derives from a negative prefix plus the root meaning “to blow.” Its original meaning was probably the extinction of a fire by ceasing to blow on it — like a smith’s fire. It was extended to the going out of any flame. By analogy, it was applied to the extinction of the five-aggregate process at an awakened being’s death. Nibbana is not the extinction of a self or a living being — such a view would be the wrong view of annihilation.

Nibbana should also be recollected by its other qualities as given by the Buddha: the unformed, the truth, the other shore, the hard-to-see, the undecaying, the lasting, the deathless, the auspicious, the safe, the marvellous, the intact, the unafflicted, purity, the island, the shelter.

What It Produces

As the meditator recollects peace in these ways, the mind is not obsessed by greed, hate, or delusion. The hindrances are suppressed and the factors of deep absorption arise in a single moment. However, because of the profundity of nibbana’s qualities, and because the meditator is recollecting various qualities, the meditation reaches only access concentration, not full absorption.

This practice comes to success most fully in a noble disciple (one who has directly seen nibbana). But even an ordinary person who values peace can bring it to mind, because even by hearing about nibbana the mind gains confidence.

A practitioner devoted to this recollection sleeps in bliss and wakes in bliss. Their faculties are peaceful, their mind is peaceful. They have conscience and moral shame. They are confident, respected, and honoured by their companions. And even if they penetrate no higher, they are headed for a happy destination.

So that is why a man of wit Untiringly devotes his days To mind the noble peace, which can Reward him in so many ways.

This is the eighth chapter, “The Description of Recollections as Meditation Subjects,” in the section on the Development of Concentration in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.