Mindfulness in Patanjali's Yoga System
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Sep 07, 2016
Neo_Yogi 3 years ago
Mindfulness (Pali: sati, Sanskrit: smṛti) plays an important role in Buddhism. Does it have the same role and purpose in Patanjali's yoga? Is it also to be applied 24/7 as taught by the Buddha?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Neo_Yogi wrote:
Mindfulness (Pali: sati, Sanskrit: smṛti) plays an important role in Buddhism. Does it have the same role and purpose in Patanjali's yoga? Is it also to be applied 24/7 as taught by the Buddha?
MiBeloved's Response:
Smrti in Sanskrit means memory but it can also mean recollection and consideration, hashing over issues in the mind.
The Buddhist system is different and for the reason that Buddha set out to achieve a certain insight specifically. Patanjali’s system does not begin with that need for that particular insight.
It is worth your while, for you to read about Buddha and perhaps you can inform us of what he was aiming at. There is this general belief that enlightenment means the same thing to all people in all places and times but that is not true. For instance to Jesus Christ, it seems that enlightenment was his compliance with the will of a divine person whom he called his father. We do not hear that Jesus turned away from the world after seeing a sick man, a dead body and a person who rejected social conveniences (monk). In fact instead of turning away from the sick, Jesus used miraculous power to heal. Instead of turning away from dead bodies, Jesus resurrected some of them, or at least that is what the scripture says. I am not aware of one single instance of Buddha healing or resurrecting anyone. He may have done it but it was not his focus.
Buddha set out to end the afflictions, the traumas of this physical existence. Patanjali mentions these afflictions under the Sanskrit terms of kleshas but he does not make that the central issue.
In each case in conversations people had with Buddha after his enlightenment, we see that he repeatedly drives home this point about circumstances concluding with trauma and he tries to convince people to take to renunciation for the purpose of getting away from the generation of traumas. Patanjali is different.
Patanjali has no interest in mindfulness in the way that the Buddha stressed it. Patanjali instructs that we shut down the mind. It is a totally different approach with totally different motivation and objective.
Neo_Yogi 3 years ago
MiBeloved wrote:
There is this general belief that enlightenment means the same thing to all people in all places and times but that is not true. For instance to Jesus Christ, it seems that enlightenment was his compliance with the will of a divine person whom he called his father.
Neo_Yogi's Response:
But this general belief was generated by these religious figures since they always talked in terms of the ultimate aim possible for any soul.
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MiBeloved wrote:
We do not hear that Jesus turned away from the world after seeing a sick man, a dead body and a person who rejected social conveniences (monk). In fact instead of turning away from the sick, Jesus used miraculous power to heal. Instead of turning away from dead bodies, Jesus resurrected some of them, or at least that is what the scripture says. I am not aware of one single instance of Buddha healing or resurrecting anyone. He may have done it but it was not his focus.
Neo_Yogi's Response:
Obviously that story is mythologized. I don't believe that Prince Siddharta never saw a sick man, a dead body, or a monk until that very moment when he was 29. Even if he was locked up in the palace full of gold and beauty, his mother died soon after she gave birth (he was brought up by his aunt), so he knew death; he had a father, family members, assistants and helpers around him so, even if he had a good health, the people around him was aging and getting sick as the rest of the people in this world.
Siddharta did not turn away from the sick; when he realized this world was full of suffering he felt the need to search for a solution; and leading a spiritual path is not easy if one has political responsibilities as a prince has:
"I, too, monks, before my Awakening, when I was an unawakened bodhisatta, being subject myself to birth, sought what was likewise subject to birth. Being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, I sought [happiness in] what was likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement. The thought occurred to me, 'Why do I, being subject myself to birth, seek what is likewise subject to birth? Being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, why do I seek what is likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement? What if I, being subject myself to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, were to seek the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding? What if I, being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, were to seek the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less,, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding?'
"So, at a later time, while still young, a black-haired young man endowed with the blessings of youth in the first stage of life — and while my parents, unwilling, were crying with tears streaming down their faces — I shaved off my hair & beard, put on the ochre robe and went forth from the home life into homelessness.
Before my Awakening, when I was still an unawakened Bodhisatta, the thought occurred to me: 'Household life is confining, a dusty path. Life gone forth is the open air. It isn't easy, living in a home, to practice the holy life totally perfect, totally pure, a polished shell. What if I, having shaved off my hair & beard and putting on the ochre robe, were to go forth from the household life into homelessness?'
I don't think that the Buddha healed any sick person (at least I haven't encountered such story either), however he is called the healer because he heals suffering.
Jesus didn't open a hospital either to heal everybody, did he? That would have been useless. He just wanted to call the attention in order to give a message.
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MiBeloved wrote:
In each case in conversations people had with Buddha after his enlightenment, we see that he repeatedly drives home this point about circumstances concluding with trauma and he tries to convince people to take to renunciation for the purpose of getting away from the generation of traumas. Patanjali is different.
Neo_Yogi's Response:
But in Yoga is advised quite the same; there seems to be an 'obsession' with purification of the body and the mind, the practice of austerities, long meditation sessions, doing away with social life, etc.
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MiBeloved wrote:
Patanjali has no interest in mindfulness in the way that the Buddha stressed it. Patanjali instructs that we shut down the mind. It is a totally different approach with totally different motivation and objective.
Neo_Yogi's Response:
Mindfulness is practiced as a way to see the workings of the mind in detail, to stop it from going from desire to desire on a daily basis. When one has to sit to meditate, I think one is also advised to shut down the mind, or is this not the same?
Factors per Jhana
The qualities that remain in each jhana are:
1. First jhāna (vitakka, vicāra, pīti, sukha, ekaggatā): The five hindrances have completely disappeared and intense unified bliss remains. Only the subtlest of mental movement remains, perceivable in its absence by those who have entered the second jhāna. The ability to form unwholesome intentions ceases.
2. Second jhāna (pīti, sukha, ekaggatā): All mental movement utterly ceases. There is only bliss. The ability to form wholesome intentions ceases as well.
3. Third jhāna (sukha, ekaggatā): One-half of bliss (joy) disappears.
4. Fourth jhāna (upekkhā, ekaggatā): The other half of bliss (happiness) disappears, leading to a state with neither pleasure nor pain, which the Buddha said is actually a subtle form of happiness (more sublime than pīti and sukha). The breath is said to cease temporarily in this state.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Neo,
The two systems; the one demonstrated practically by, and taught by, Buddha is not the same as the Patanjali system. These systems are different.
The real difference however is in the initial approach and the initial motivation.
Let us look at something that makes that obvious, where the warrior Arjuna was told to complete his royal duties as the son of King. Buddha left aside those duties. Arjuna was taught a system of enlightenment as per Bhagavad Gita but there was no allowance to leave aside his duties.
There is this tendency to see the similarity of these systems and to bring them in abeyance so that they are all uniformly one process but that is just a tendency.
To be successful an ascetic has to be real honest about what he or she is after, and then find a valid method either by self-discovery or by being taught. In some cases one begins with a certain motive and then it changes or evolves, sometimes it is abandoned altogether and one aspires for something else.
I feel that it is important to know the unique features of each of these paths, where a particular process has a feature which is not in another system of approach, because then one can really find something that is tailored to one’s needs.
If I am being held by some terrorists in Somali, then the government sets up a situation to have a commando be arrested by them just so this person can make an attempt to rescue me, then it cannot be said that both myself and the commando are in confinement on the same basis. If this commando manages to escape with me successfully, then his escape and my escape even though externally similar are completely different.
To be successful in spiritual enlightenment one has to be very precise and generalizations are very useless.
Neo_Yogi 3 years ago
Yes, I understand that they are two different systems, yet they have many similarities which make them very easy to confuse or to generalize; but I agree with you when you say:
MiBeloved wrote: I feel that it is important to know the unique features of each of these paths, where a particular process has a feature which is not in another system of approach, because then one can really find something that is tailored to one’s needs.
