Is the word parimukkham ever used in any meditation instructions other than anapanasati in the canon? If so, where?
I thought that if it is only mentioned in anapanasati instructions it might actually mean "to the front" in a litteral physical way. Otherwise it might mean something else.

Hi Pål,

Here are some Pali scholar-monastics on the subject (http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/2518/what-is-the-interpretation-of-parimukham-in-the-context-of-buddhist-meditation), and they mentioned its use in the Abhidhamma and the vinaya. You many be able to contact them for more of its citations, if any.

Are you looking into this word to confirm/evaluate your own practice style?


Note: The above link also has references to commentaries & later Pāḷi literature. 

Thanks for the material! 

"Are you looking into this word to confirm/evaluate your own practice style?" Yes. I'm also trying to figure out what sabba kaya really means since there seems to be some controversy on that. I've always gone woth Thanissaro's translations of parimukham as "to the front" in a non-literal sense and sabba kaya as "the entire body" but then I've heard other convincing voices saying other things so I'm confused as usual.

Pal, sabba kaya means the whole body.  I'm 1000% sure. Now you can go practice in peace.

Here's proof:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.023.than.html
This sutta is the "Sabba Sutta."  In it, the buddha breifly defines the "all" or everything.  So sabba means everything.

http://www.buddha-vacana.org/gloss.html#ayatana
Kaya is one of the sense spheres. By process of elimination, you can deduce it means all physical sensations that are not hearing, smelling, tasting, or seeing, and are not mental.

So the anapanasati instructions say to be aware of the breath, then become aware of all physical sensations.  This is how jhana seems to work for me, so I can back it up with personal experience.

When the buddha says the breath is a body among bodies, he is saying how mindfulness of breathing is linked to contemplation of the body.  But as you pointed out in the other thread, when the monk said he was developing mindfulness of breathing but neglected to mention awareness of the body or the rest of the jhana factors that the Buddha goes through, he says there is that mindfulness, but also more to do to bring it to culmination.

As a last note just so you don't get confused by conflicting advice: when I suggested developing one-pointed concentration, this is to make jhana easier for you.  You will need a lot of concentration to abandon the hinderances and simply pay attention to bodily sensations without thinking.  Consider the one-pointed instructions as step 1 and 2 of anapanasati, and then when your awareness is stabilized to the extent that you know your breath without losing it, see if you can't be aware of all the physical sensations that make up your body.

P.s. Go here: http://www.buddha-vacana.org/sutta/majjhima/mn118.html

EDIT: I felt inclined to mention this again after doing my practice today. Jhana arises when you abandon the hinderances. Concentration, as a practice, is to help steady the mind. So steading the attention on an object is the support for the practice, not the practice itself. If you aren't plagued by the hinderances, you will need very little effort to concentrate - it may even seem effortless. If the hinderances are strong, it will take a great deal of effort to abandon them.

Thanks!! then I guess I'll abandon the Ajahn Brahm ideas sometime soon haha
What if I get to the kind of Ajahn Brahm/Mun/Maha-Bua jhana were I can't feel the body anymore? According to Thanissaro, that kind of samadhi doesn't lead to insight, you have to include the whole body and that's why it is in the suttas. But why do I need to include the whole body to get insight? When should I try to expand awareness to the whole body? According to Lee/Fuang/Thanissaro it's when the breath starts feeling good, but I find that kind of vague.

Bhikkhu Bodhi goes into how "Sabba kaya" is interpreted differently in a series of anapansati lectures he gave at Bodhi Monastery a few years ago. You can go to their website and I think he talks about this in the second lecture aound the 15 minute mark. Somewhere on DhO I've provided a link to this lecture. Bhikkhu Bodhi's classes often include the etmology of Pali and how a Pali word may be used differently or similarly throughout the suttas and the extant Theravdan abhidhamma. There is a youtube channel of his classes via Chuang Yen Pure Land Monastery.

'Sabba kaya' means 'all bodies', as the Sabba Sutta supports as proof. The word 'sabba' means 'all'.

When the buddha says the breath is a body among bodies, he is pointing out how there are many kinds of 'kaya', of which the breathe is a kaya (as is generally not known) and the physical body is also a kaya (as it is generally known).

'Experiencing all kaya' means intimately seeing/feeling with insight the interrationship between the mind, breath & physcial body and how this interrelationship leads to either suffering or peace.

The mind (nāmakāyassa), physical body (rūpakāyassa) &, as pointed out, the breath, are all examples of 'kaya'.

By experiencing all kaya ('all groups'), the 4 noble truths are also realised, resulting in stream-entry.

I would suggest Sujato is the right approach given the other approaches are simply too rigid & hinder stream entry.

For a boat to flow down a river to the ocean, it must first let go of the bank.

Similarly, to enter the stream to Nibbana, the mind must let go & cling to nothing.

I like that quote, Nicky.  It seems to describe things well from the experiential side.

re: Pål(1/11/15 12:53 PM )

"Is the word parimukkham ever used in any meditation instructions other than anapanasati in the canon? If so, where? I thought that if it is only mentioned in anapanasati instructions it might actually mean "to the front" in a litteral physical way. Otherwise it might mean something else. "

re: katy steger (1/11/15 4:54 PM as a reply to Pål. )

Thanks for the great research!

(back to Pål) "If so, where?"

There's a 'search function' in the CST4.0 digitalized complete Pali Canon application (http://www.tipitaka.org/cst4).
Trying it out on the search pattern "parimukha*" and Using the "Wildcards" option (using the wildcard character '*' to match any variations of declensional endings to the word), it comes up with the words:

parimukham – finding 137 occurrences in 52 books of the Canon; and
parimukhanti – finding 9 occurrences in 7 book.

When one double-clicks in the list onany of these found entries, it brings up a window with the text in that book and the term highlighted. Going through all of that shouldadequately answer Pål'squestion. It is, however, all in Pali.

For instance, taking an entry atrandom, it come up with:

Dīghanikāyo
Mahāvaggapāḷi
…
9. Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṃ
…
Kāyānupassanā ānāpānapabbaṃ
374. ‘‘Kathañca pana, bhikkhave, bhikkhu kāye kāyānupassī viharati? Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu araññagato vā rukkhamūlagato
vā suññāgāragato vā nisīdati pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā ujuṃ kāyaṃ paṇidhāya parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā. So satova assasati, satova passasati. Dīghaṃ vā assasanto ‘dīghaṃ assasāmī’ti pajānāti, dīghaṃ vā passasanto ‘dīghaṃ passasāmī’ti pajānāti. Rassaṃ vā assasanto ‘rassaṃ assasāmī’ti pajānāti, rassaṃ vā passasanto ‘rassaṃ passasāmī’ti pajānāti. ‘Sabbakāyapaṭisaṃvedī assasissāmī’ti sikkhati, ‘sabbakāyapaṭisaṃvedī passasissāmī’ti sikkhati. ‘Passambhayaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ assasissāmī’ti sikkhati, ‘passambhayaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ passasissāmī’ti sikkhati.

Good luck, Pål. This concordance tool could help you answer many of your questions.

Thanks!

Is there anything I have to actively do in order to get to the stage of understanding the realtionship between the bodies that you and Buddhadasa describe, other than paying attention to the breath at a spot or as a whole or in the entire body? 

The word itself "Ānāpānasati" is : "inhale-exhale remembering", recalling the inhale-exhale breath, because the mind goes so many other places than to being aware of the inhaling and to being aware of the exhaling. 

I start with a small local spot at the nose-upper lip area for the first mental concentration and then naturally by the second and third concentrations, the whole body is within the attention. By suffufisive third mental concentration, people tend to not know where any of their specific body is-- including lungs and nostril-upper-lip area, but they are feeling very stable and deeply calm/content.. third mental concentration.

Anyway, there is a Theravadan Buddhist sutta that says the things the mind can know are as many as there are leaves in a forest, on the ground and on the branches. Very few things the mind can know, even in a concentration training built in wholesome prepartion, are actually useful.

So jhana training can lead one into some amazing understanding and apparent experiences and it also can help one, again, just to see the arising and passing of all phenemona-- as with these concentration states themselves-- and also how mind is still the forerunner. This is to lead one to learn either very wholesome "stopping places" like faith, devotion, friendlinss (about conditioning causalities through a wholesome suite) as well as what to know about the cessation of all of arising phenomena, how one's mind could live in this simple, direct understanding of how things are arising and passing, being born and dying, the simplicity of which is obscured by lots of I-me-mine-ery and the corresponding habituated gratifications. 

Good luck, Pål =]

Only mental objects can be "remembered" (such as remembering what you got for Xmas when you were 5 years old). In and out breathing cannot be "remembered". There are six sense organs and the breathing is experienced via the physical body/nervous system as a sense organ (rather than experienced by memory).

I propose Anapanasati is 'remembering the Dhamma with in & out breathing [as the sign]". To quote the scriptures:


The Buddhist Commentaries developed ideas about various 'signs' (nimitta), which includes the breathing as the 'preliminary sign' (parikamma-nimitta).

The notion of 'sign' is important because Anapanasati is a 'sign' of the factors of the path coming together. To quote the scriptures:


Often practitioners lose awareness of breathing due to the breathing becoming to subtle and the mind remaining too coarse (due to wrong effort). This is a sign of wrong concentration, i.e., a sign that the mindfulness is not based in seclusion, dispassion [abandoning craving] and cessation resulting in relinquishment.

The Anapanasati Sutta is a series of samatha-vipassana experiences, with breathing in the beginning in the foreground but, when progressing, increasingly in the background. Example: He trains himself; constantly contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. He trains himself; constantly contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out.

In summary, when the mind is mindful of the Dhamma, i.e., keeps itself in a state free from craving, the breathing will naturally become the object of the mind (without any intention required to observe breathing).

Regards.

Let go. Be still. Be silent.

The very effort or intention to focus on the breathing will become a hindrance to reaching this subtle stage.

The intention to focus on breathing is itelf a thought. Like any thought, it is a hindrance to right concentration.

The 3rd step is the first step that uses the phrase: "He trains himself".

"He trains himself" means training in the 3 trainings of morality, concentration & wisdom.

If there is no abandoning craving, there is no wisdom training.

The intention to focus on breathing is craving (and will hinder 'experiencing all bodies').

Regards

If you feel defining sati/smriti/memory as the idea of "Dhamma" and that helps you practice in "inhale-exhale remembering" then it helps you practice (a tautomerism, I know). 

Usefully, each person can test for themselves if how they are doing a practice is, over time and sincere effort, useful to calming the mind and seeing things as they are and having something useful come of the practice and insights.

The word ānāpānasati just comes from the sanskrit for inhale-exhale (apana and ana) and smriti-- smṛti, literally "that which is remembered."

It is said by people like Richard Francis Gombrich that the man who referred later to himself as a Tathagatha used word play and/or changing the meaning of words to change how people saw them. So people now could also find meanings now that work best for them. The buddhist science of mind is certainly not one of absolutes, rather change (i know, i know, change as absolute... : )

Best wishes.

Hi Nicky,

I like what you wrote, but I disagree somewhat.  Bringing attention back to the breath is, itself, letting go of other things. Once the breath becomes the only thing that's paid attention to, the process of jhana becomes letting go of the singular object that's left.  You CAN let go all at once and land right in a very deep formless realm (or even cessation - which might be what noting practice does) but I only accomplished this (landing in a formless realm) by accident after a lot of one-pointed concentration practice.

If there is aversion and strain in the process, that's usually a sign of holding onto something while trying to pay attention to the breath.  Without using an object of some kind, it's easy to waste a lot of time since there is no indication of whether you are actually letting go of things or not.  So effort and strain and aversion in meditation are actually the way to judge if letting go is happening or not.  If the breath becomes more clear and there is less effort to pay atention to it, you know you're making progress in letting go of other things.

Nicky,   and DHO

Indeed, What you have written is true.  This is a very subtle point of the practice, and many miss this point, and focus on the breath, and bring attention back to the breath.  While focus on the breath and bringing attention back to the breath are just the methods themselves.  With Right Concentration, there is just the breathing phenomenon.  EDIT;  there is just the quality of phenomenon related to the jhana, i.e. piti, sukha, contentment, upekkha

In other words, and paraphrasing you Nicky, so as to make sure I am understanding also, In Right Concentration, there are no thoughts, there are no thoughts of focussing or thoughts of bringing awareness back to the breath, etc.  

Now, when one falls away from Right Concentration, yeah sure, one may use the breath as an anchor or object to still the mind so that it may incline again towards Right Concentration.

That is interesting the way you have phrased and explained this, within the method stage there is the I want to focus on the breath, or I want to not be distracted from the breath, but again, in Right Concentration there are no such thought occurring at the time of Right Concentration.  

I will admit this is somewhat difficult for me to put all this into words.

It could be that while some may think they are practicing Right Concentration, they are actually practicing Right Mindfulness, i.e. mind being aware of the breath moment to moment, which can be quite peaceful, and also train one in abandoning craving, by substitution.

Just some thoughts, still investigating.

Psi

Want to add, upon further reflection, there may be some thoughts in first jhana, but they would be subtle directed thoughts, and not random discursive thoughts.  But, this too probably depends upon the depth of jhana, it is not like it is an on or off phenomenon, it seems to have a spectrum, and while it has common ground, there do seem to be some variances from individual to individual.  For example, some experience different kinds and types of piti, and different intensities of piti.

Psi

Psi, what you wrote is also true, but it isn't the method, just the result.  It's a bit like saying, "to paint a still life, all you have to do is paint what you see."  While this is true, and easily accomplished for a master, the beginner can't just do it.  So there are methods like measuring proportions and comparing angles.  Once a person has used these methods for a bit, they will say to themselves, "wow, I really can paint a still life with perfect accuracy."  As time goes by, they use the methods less and less until they no longer need them.  Then they just paint what they see.

But the thing is, they are actually seeing differently.  The process has changed them.  The same is true of concentrating on the breath.  As someone practices meditation, they will drop effort naturally as it becomes an obvious hinderance.  But to begin with, they need to harness "doing" to learn "being."

EDIT: Something I've learned the hard way over the last few months is that we can move back and forth on the spectrum from beginner to master.  When falling back, it's very helpful to rely on the old methods we might have disowned.  I gave up "doing" during meditation becuase it no longer seemed necessary, but then I went back to doing without realizing it, and spent a lot of time "trying to be" with doesn't work at all.  The advice "just let go" only works for someone who can actually do it - and a person like that doesn't need any advice, they can just let go.

Nicky, I hear that some who concentrate on breath sensations at a single spot such as the nostrils, after some amount of practice,automatically get their attention widened to include the entire physical body. Has that ever happened to you? Do you concentrate on a single spot or no spot in particular?

Anālayo Bhikkhu: Once the posture is set up, mindfulness is to be established “in front”. The injunction “in front” (parimukhaṃ)
can be understood literally or figuratively. Following the more literal
understanding, “in front” indicates the nostril area as the most
appropriate for attention to the in- and out-breaths. Alternatively, “in
front” understood more figuratively suggests a firm establishment of sati, sati being mentally “in front” in the sense of meditative composure and attentiveness. 

I like this one.  The word (and concept) which is most valuable to me in practice is "FOREFRONT" and means simply mindfulness itself being the framework of attention.  Minimzing distraction and the tendency to conceptualize and limiting the "running program of attention" to your object whether narrow or broad.  It could be as ephemeral as a statement before a sit to be mindful to a constant silent reminder to bring attention to the present.

re: Pål (1/11/15 12:53 PM )
"If so, where?"

re: Chris J Macie (1/14/15 10:24 PM as a reply to Pål. )

I. In case anyone actually tries to use the search / concordance function in the Pali Canon (CST 4.0 digitalized complete Pali Canon application (http://www.tipitaka.org/cst4)), as I outlined in the last post – here are some practical tips how to get from there to English translations to read for those of us not that fluent in Pali:

When the Search Window finds and lists some hits for a search word, double clicking on one of the list entry brings up a new window at the place the word appears, hi-lited, with some surrounding text. The searched list entries have information about the 'book' where the word is found, but is s/w cryptic. To find out definitely what book, and where in it (to then be able to look up in some English translation):

1) Scroll up to the top of the window with the text and hi-lited word. There you should see the name of the book, e.g. the 'Dighanikaya'. But then in which sutta?

2) Close the window, and double-click to open a new copy (because you might not easily get back to that place where the word is hi-lited after scrolling to the top to find the book's name). In this new window, showing the hi-lited word and surrounding text, now scoll upwards until you find the heading, i.e. title of the sutta, e.g. '9. Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṃ'. But then where exactly in that sutta?

3) Again, close that window and open a new one (because, again, it may be a long sutta and a task to get back to the place the searched word appears). Now, you can scroll /search backwards or forwards and compare with an English translation to locate the position. Forwards or backwards depending on whether the citation is closer to either end. Again, this may involve losing track of the place with the word. You may be closing and opening new windows more times to get back to the location of the word.

Note: The numerical systems used in the Pali Canon (e.g. the number '374' before the paragraph with 'parimukham' ) -– that numbering scheme may or may not be used in the tranlation. (There are a couple of different schemes, and I don't fully understand them.) If the translation shows numbers in a similar range, as s/t in B.Bodhi translations the numbers in ''embedded in the text, it's easier. Otherwise involves more painstaking scanning / comparison of the Pali and English.

Takes time and effort, and a degree of khanika concentration to keep track, but it works. If anyone has a quicker method, please share it.

Also, the CST 4.0 is the COMPLETE Pali Canon – the whole Suttanikaya-s, the whole Vinaya, the whole Abhidhamma, plus all traditional commentaries and subcommentaries on the three Tipitika collections. So, a word search may come up with places other than sutta-s, and places in other books that have no English translations.

The CST 4.0 is some piece of work. If one is a serious scholar, and knows Pali well, there are added features, seen in a toolbar at the top of text windows. E.g.
'Mula' -- when turned on (when the window is in a commentary or subcommentary), clicking this get a window with the original sutta passage commentated on.
'Atthakatha' – when turned on in a sutta, this gets a window to the corresponding discussion in the commentaries.
'Tika' – when turned on in a sutta or commentary, this gets a window to the corresponding discussion in the subcommentaries.

CST 4.0 is freely down-loadable on the internet, but only for Windows OS. There's also an elaborate help-database included. Wonderful piece of software!

II. While I'm at it, there's another helpful utility program for dealing with Pali (in addition to CST 4.0 and the various dictionaries), called 'Pali
Lookup'. This program lets one type or copy in a Pali 'search string', e.g. a word, and it searches (some built-in dictionary) for all words containing the search string, opening another window with the list of matches. In that window, one can select a found word, and click 'Save' to save it or 'Inflect', to get a window showing all the noun/participle declension forms (endings), or verb conjugation (depending on if the word is noun-type or verb-type). 'Saved' terms appear in a list at the bottom of the main window; one can export or delete in this list.

There are some quirks to know / learn. E.g. some Pali words can appear with doubled letters or not, like the word 'parimukkham'
that Pål started this thread with. One sees the CST 4.0 uses 'parimukham'. Pali-Lookup finds the version with only one 'k', and not th one with 'kk'. Several other letters can appear doubled or not in various usages. Just another little hassle (dukkha, samsara) to adapt to.

A 'Help/About' window gives some instruction, and info about the program. Under 'Help' it points to a 19 page, very professional looking 'UserManual.pdf' that's found in the directory where the program gets installed. Under 'About', version and licensing info:
"Pali Loopup version 2.0 – ForFree Distribution Only
Copyright @ 2002 Aukana Trust"