The Mindfulness Sutta divides itself between two roles: on the one hand, it is a support for being awake in everyday life. And, on the other, it encourages sitting meditation. Sitting meditation, in the Buddhist context, is a specific application of the principles of mindfulness.
So it is that the sutta opens with the suggestion that a person serious about contemplating life goes to a quiet place, sets themselves apart, sits down, and meditates:
“A contemplative, having gone to a forest, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty dwelling, sits down, and folding her legs crosswise, she sits with her body upright, and making present-moment awareness the priority, she breathes in and out mindfully.”
Formal sitting meditation, though, is only one application of mindfulness; mindfulness applied to the one line of development – insight into the functioning of profound knowledge itself.
However, more broadly, the sutta recommends that we practitioners be awake in all our activities. It’s a call to abandon being on auto-pilot in any sphere which we inhabit – in the physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, social, sexual, artistic, technological, ecological; you name it. In the section on being mindful of the body, it says:
“Further, Practitioners, when walking, a contemplative knows: ‘I am walking.’ When standing, she knows: ‘I am standing.’ When sitting, she knows: ‘I am sitting.’ When lying down, she knows: ‘I am lying down.’ Or, whatever her body’s disposition, she knows it accordingly.”
And, afterward it says: “Practitioners, a contemplative is one who acts with full awareness when going backward and forward. She acts with full awareness when looking ahead or about her, when bending and stretching her limbs, when dressing, and when carrying things. She acts with full awareness when eating and drinking, chewing and tasting; and when defecating and urinating. When walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent, she acts with full awareness.”
Clearly, the invitation is to be aware of one’s bodily presence, in all circumstances, without exceptions. And, why wouldn’t we? Where else is one’s life, one’s lived world, but here now. We are called to be intimate with what is occurring now; in this life of flux, to know it as it is.
“In this way she dwells contemplating the body in the body with reference to the inner (life), or with reference to the outer (life), or with reference to both inner and outer. Or, she dwells contemplating either ‘presenting’ in bodily experience, or ‘vanishing’ in bodily experience; or she dwells contemplating both ‘presenting’ and ‘vanishing’ in bodily experience. “
How else will the question of whether there is a deathless element at all, how else will it be answered but in the flow of present-moment occurring? The whole point of mindfulness (in the Buddhist context) is deepest knowledge in the midst of life – not bliss, not relaxation. “I will teach you the truth and the path leading to the truth.”
The primary point is the growth of discernment; because growth of insight brings freedom from the false. Dukkha is founded on false assumptions about the nature of the mind. And, how is it, that dukkha can end? Because it is not founded in what is, and so it can’t survive the light which mindfulness brings.
“The mindfulness that ‘there is a body’ is simply established in her, so that discernment and attentiveness are established. She is one who dwells independent, not clinging to anything in the world. This is how a contemplative dwells contemplating the body in the body.”