This question came up in the Online 10-day Retreat Nov 3, 2020, guided by Delson Armstrong. Day 0 was part of a daily 30-minute discussion on the suttas, the Dhamma talk and reflections.
(Slightly edited to improve readability)
It really depends on the translations. Bhante Ananda’s translation likes to call it the Four Resting places of Awareness. That’s another way of looking at it.
This is, first and foremost the Body. Understanding how your body is feeling in any given moment.
The Sensations that are arising from the body is the second, the third is your mind, or consciousness they call it. I call it Mindset, because a mindset can continually change and is a collection of thoughts that creates a certain mindset. When you get into the jhanas, each jhana is a particular kind of mindset, because it has different kinds of factors within each jhana.
And Dhamma is really phenomena. Any kind of phenomena related to the mind, whether it’s thoughts, emotions, memories, Formations, things like that.
These are the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
When you are practicing the jhanas, practicing Metta and you get into jhana, the way you know you are in jhana is that your mind is collected. Effective or Right Collectedness is being in one of these four jhanas, first and foremost.
Going back to Dhamma, you have other aspects of it; you have phenomena related to the five hindrances; you are aware if any of these hindrances are in the mind. Any time a hindrance is present, you are no longer in jhana. This is how you are utilizing Mindfulness. By seeing whether a hindrance is present or not in the mind, because when you are distracted, you know there is a hindrance there. So, you use the 6R’s to come back.
And as you are doing this, you are also starting to activate and balance the Seven Factors of Awakening. This is also part of the Dhamma aspect of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. When it comes to the Seven Factors of Awakening, they start to be utilized more and more as you get higher into the process, into higher dimensions of perception, beyond the four jhanas.
But for the time being, all you should know if you are starting on the Path, or you’re still working with the first four jhanas, is if your mind continues to stay with the object, and you are not pushing. Because if you push, you are not utilizing Mindfulness anymore, you’re using too much effort, too much one-pointed focus. You just observe.
In the observation of that, you are collectively being observant of the body, of the mind, of the sensations and of the mental contents within the mind. It’s an open awareness. In the awareness of that, you are being attentive to the feeling, but you are also aware if there are any thoughts in the background, or if the mind is being distracted.
Watch it here (start from 10.20 minutes)
