by Tang Huyen

In June 2006, Tang Huyen posted to talk.religion.buddhism in reply to a thread on the definition of mindfulness. He had been quoted Gunaratana's "just doing" formulation; he replied with the canonical sutta passage on mindfulness of the body, the Schmithausen Sanskrit parallel for the three crucial terms, and then a personal phenomenological account. The post closes with a refusal to limit mindfulness to any fixed form.

There are standard lists of items to be mindful of in the early
canon, for example: to be mindful of the body, of feelings,
of thoughts, of objects-of-mind. One particular example is:

"Herein, monks, a monk fares along contemplating the body
in the body, ardent, clearly conscious (of it), mindful (of it)
so as to control the covetousness and dejection in the world.
And how, monks, does a monk fare along contemplating
the body in the body? Herein, monks, a monk who is
forest-gone or gone to the root of a tree or gone to an empty
place, sits down cross-legged, holding his back erect,
arousing mindfulness in front of him. Mindful he breathes
in, mindful he breathes out. Whether he is breathing in a
long (breath) he comprehends: 'I am breathing in a long
(breath)'; or whether he is breathing out a long (breath) he
comprehends: 'I am breathing out a long (breath)'; [ditto
with short breath]. He trains himself, thinking: 'I shall
breath in experiencing the whole body.' He trains himself,
thinking: 'I shall breath out experiencing the whole body.'
He trains himself, thinking: 'I shall breath in tranquillising
the activity of the body.' He trains himself, thinking: 'I shall
breath out tranquillising the activity of the body.' ...His
mindfulness of the body is established precisely to the
extent necessary for the sheer knowledge (ñāṇa-mattāya),
for the sheer vision (*dassana-mattāya), for the sheer
awareness (pati-ssati-mattāya), dwelling without leaning
(a-nissito ca viharati), without attaching to anything in the
world (na ca kiñci loke upādiyati)."

MN, I, 56, tr. Miss I. B. Horner, MLS, I, 71–72, the
asterisked portion does not exist in Pali and is filled in by
the Sanskrit as quoted in Lambert Schmithausen,
"Spirituelle Praxis und philosophische Theorie im
Buddhismus," Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und
Religionswissenschaft, 1973, 167, n. 14, Yogācāra-bhūmi,
T, 30, 1579, 428b7, Śrāvaka-bhūmi (14), in Annual of the
Institute for Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism, Taisho
University, 323 which have a passage (from a
para-canonical sūtra) which has all the major words of
our passage in immediate succession: jñāna-mātra,
darśana-mātra, prati-smṛti-mātra (or prati-smṛta-mātra).

The important parts are: "Herein, monks, a monk fares
along contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly
conscious (of it), mindful (of it) so as to control the
covetousness and dejection in the world.... arousing
mindfulness in front of him.... His mindfulness of
the body is established precisely to the extent necessary for
the sheer knowledge (ñāṇa-mattāya), for the sheer vision
(dassana-mattāya), for the sheer awareness
(pati-ssati-mattāya), dwelling without leaning (a-nissito
ca viharati), without attaching to anything in the world
(na ca kiñci loke upādiyati)."

To be noticed are the efforts to control the covetousness
and dejection in the world, to dwell without leaning on
anything, without attaching to anything in the world. One
does not stand on anything, does not stop at anything.

In my personal experience, I can tell whether I am
mindful or not by one criterion: "arousing mindfulness
in front of him." When I am mindful, I feel my centre
of awareness established in front of me. I feel my
self-presence established in front of me, even if when
it is well done, there is no or little "self" left in the
self-presence, so that there is a presence established
in front of me (though there is no or little me, but just
the presence). When such presence is established in
front of me, I can open up or close down and it doesn't
make any difference.

But more generally, meditation and mindfulness are not
limited to anything. If one wants to open up, one opens
up, if one wants to close down, one closes down, and
whatever else. That's what freedom is all about. To limit
meditation and mindfulness to something and allow
nothing else would be slavery, not freedom.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on June 2, 2006, in reply to a thread on the definition of mindfulness, responding to liaM's "just doing" formulation (itself a gloss on Gunaratana's Mindfulness in Plain English). Interlocutor: liaM. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The Schmithausen citation is the post's scholarly anchor: the Pali canon is missing one key phrase (pati-ssati-mattāya, "sheer awareness"), and the Sanskrit parallel from the Śrāvaka-bhūmi recovers it. The threefold standard — jñāna-mātra (sheer knowledge), darśana-mātra (sheer vision), prati-smṛti-mātra (sheer awareness) — is mindfulness's canonical measure. The personal phenomenology of "centre of awareness in front of me" translates this into lived experience: the presence without a self, established ahead of the practitioner. The post's final refusal is characteristically Tang Huyen — any fixed definition of mindfulness is already a constraint, and constraints are bondage.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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