The Buddhist practice of mindfulness has four foundations: Mindfulness of body (in Pali, kayasati), of feelings or sensations (vedanasati), of mental states (cittasati), and of mental objects or qualities (dhammasati). This article will look at the fourth foundation.

A literal translation of the Pali word dhammasati is “mindfulness (sati) of dhamma (or, in Sanskrit, dharma).” To understand this foundation, we need to begin with a look at dharma.

Dharma is a Sanskrit word that is used to mean a lot of different things. In its broadest sense it means something like “natural law.” In Buddhism, it is often used to mean “teaching of the Buddha.” It also can refer to the nature of existence or to phenomena as manifestations of reality, and these last two meanings are closest to the dhamma of dhammasati.

See “What Is Dharma in Buddhism?” for a more detailed explanation of dharma.

Expanding Our Awareness

The four foundations describe a process that begins, traditionally, with mindfulness of the breath. From there one practices mindfulness of the body, of sensations and emotions, and of mental states.

This practice is a whole-body-and-mind experience without conceptualization. In other words, mindfulness is being fully aware and present with the body or with feelings. It is not “thinking about” these frames of reference or concocting ideas about them. Further, there is not “my” body or feelings; there is just body or feelings.

The foundations are frames of reference for mindfulness — body, feelings, mind. But mindfulness of dharma suggests an awareness of everything. How do we do that?

Many teachers explain this foundation as a mindfulness of phenomena. Put another way, it is mindfulness of the experience of the phenomenal world.

The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche explained the fourth foundation as “basically the recognition of the interdependent relationship of our mind and the phenomenal world. It is working with the relationship of each individual phenomenon existing around us as the object of our experience.” What does that mean?

Me and Everything Else?

It’s important to understand that the “phenomenal world” is not something that is “out there,” separate from us. The Buddha taught that everything inter-exists. All phenomena, including us, are conditioned and defined by all other phenomena. This is because that is.

Individual things — from teapots and toasters to living beings — are experienced as mental objects. We “know” them as we know them because of how our brains and senses respond to stimuli and also because we’ve been taught from birth to recognize things in a particular way. This is the interdependent relationship of the mind and the phenomenal world.

Very basically, mindfulness of dharmas is a pure awareness of whatever there is. If there is birdsong, there is birdsong. It is not you listening to birdsong. Nor is the birdsong coming from “out there” somewhere. The experience of birdsong is right here.

The Wheel of Samsara

In the Satipatthana Sutta of the Pali Tipitika (Majjhima Nikaya 10), the Buddha begins his teaching on the fourth foundation by advising his disciples to be mindful of the Five Hindrances. Naming each of the five — sensual desire, ill will, sloth, resltnessness, and uncertainty — he counseled being aware of whether the hindrance is present, and if present how it arises, and how it ceases.

Then the Buddha spoke of the Five Skandhas, calling them the “aggregates of clinging.” He advised his disciples to be aware of the skandhas and the corresponding senses organs and objects. The monks and nuns also were taught to contemplate the factors of enlightenment and the Four Noble Truths.

Many Buddhist teachers advocate mindfulness of what binds us to samsara. In particular, be aware of the twelve links of dependent origination.

The Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says that Right Mindfulness is at the heart of the Buddha’s teaching. “When Right Mindfulness is present, the Four Noble Truths and the other seven elements of the Eightfold Path are also present” (The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, p. 59). This is particularly true of the mindfulness of dharma.

Wisdom

In Mahayana Buddhism, the fourth foundation of mindfulness is awareness of sunyata, or emptiness, which is also the basis of wisdom. This much-misunderstood doctrine teaches us that all phenomena are empty of self-essence as well as inter-existing. The distinction we see between this and that is something we are projecting; it is not intrinsic to the things and beings around us. So, in a sense, a particular phenomenon exists as a mental object, not as a thing-in-itself. See also the Two Truths.

[This is an article I wrote for the Buddhism section of About.com. However, since About.com has removed it from their servers, all rights revert to me.]

This teaching has led to many misunderstandings, mostly because people cling to views about views. Let’s take a look.

The Metaphysical Misdirection

In several places in the Pali Tipitika, the Buddha declined to answer certain questions. Sometimes, as in the Sabbasava Sutta, he said also there were some questions that aren’t helpful to reflect upon.

Theravadin monk and scholar Thanissaro Bhikkhu says that many of these questions probably were those being hotly debated by philosophers of the Buddha’s day — “Is the cosmos eternal? Is it not eternal? Is it finite? Is it infinite? Is the body the same as the soul? Is the body one thing and the soul another? Does the Tathagata exist after death? Does he not exist after death? Both? Neither?” And after each recitation of such questions, the Buddha would explain that such questions ensnare the questioner in “a fetter of views.”

Some people have interpreted these discourses to mean that the Buddha was not interested in metaphysics. Metaphysics is a word used to mean a lot of things, but primarily it refers to philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality. But many of the Buddha’s teachings are about the nature of reality; on its face, the metaphysics argument makes no sense (see “Buddhism and Metaphysics“).

How Do We Know?

There are several other possible reasons why the Buddha had reservations about some kinds of questions. Some questions might be unanswerable because they are based on mistaken assumptions. For example, the question “is the soul the same as the body” assumes there is a soul.

“Does the Tathagata exist after death” assumes that we all understand what existence and death are, not to mention Tathagata. But usually we don’t. The master teachers tell us that when our understanding ripens, and our understanding of existence and death deepens, we see that the question is meaningless.

Throughout his teaching the Buddha urged his disciples to drop intellectual views and conjecture and instead cultivate direct insight through practice of the Eightfold Path. But for a lot of us, intellectual views and conjecture are the only way we know how to know, and the biggest challenge we face in practice is learning new ways to know.

The Trap of Certitude

Views also become a fetter when they cut off further seeking. Once we are certain we know something, we’re closed off from learning more. Indeed, we humans tend to block out new information that contradicts what we think we know.

And certitude is no guarantee of truth. There’s a saying I heard once — A man with one watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never sure. In this case, wisdom lies with uncertainty.

In Zen Buddhism, teachers refer to beginner’s mind or don’t know mind as a mind that is open to new perspectives.The late Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, “In beginner’s mind we have many possibilities, but in expert mind there is not much possibility.

Keep in mind also the first two of Thich Nhat Hanh‘s Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism:

“Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.

“Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others’ viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout our entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.”

Many Forms of Clinging

Of course, as long as we live we’re going to have views, and that’s all right. Views are only a problem when we attach to them and are unwilling to let them go. (See also “Why Do Buddhists Avoid Attachment?”)

This brings us to another way “clinging to views” is misunderstood. The Buddha taught his disciples not to cling even to his teachings. He compared Buddhist doctrines to a raft that should be abandoned once the other shore is reached.

Some interpret this to mean the doctrines aren’t that important. If we’re not to cling to them, maybe it’s better to avoid them altogether, right? However, often “avoiding” is just another form of clinging.

The Theravadin monk and scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi writes, “Too often this kind of slippery reasoning provides simply a convenient excuse for adhering, at a subtle level of the mind, to ideas which are fundamentally antithetical to the Dhamma. We hang on to such ideas, not because they are truly edifying, but in order to protect ourselves from the radical challenge with which the Buddha’s message confronts us.”

To paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh — while the written doctrines may not be absolute truth, they are an essential guiding means. Without that guidance, our old assumptions — assumptions to which we cling without realizing it — go unchallenged. Without that guidance, and the challenge to our assumptions, we are likely to remain lost in a wilderness of views.