Commentary on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Second Edition) (Newly Revised)
Chapter 2: Contemplating Mindfulness of the Body
Section 3: Contemplating the Impurity of the Material Body
Original text: 复次。诸比丘。比丘于皮覆包。充满种种不净物之此身。观察此身。上至头发。下至蹠底。知于此身。有发髦爪齿。皮肉筋骨髓。肾脏心脏。肝脏肋膜。脾脏肺肠。肠间膜胃。排泄物胆汁。痰脓血汗。脂肪泪淋巴液。唾液粘液。关节液尿。
Explanation: Furthermore, O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu, regarding this body wrapped in skin and filled with all kinds of impure things, contemplates this body from the hair on top down to the soles of the feet, and knows that in this body there are hair, body hair, nails, and teeth; skin, flesh, sinews, bones, and bone marrow; kidneys, heart, liver, and pleura; spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, and stomach; excrement and bile; phlegm, pus, blood, and sweat; fat, tears, and lymph; saliva, mucus, joint fluid, and urine, and so on.
This passage of scripture is the key to cultivating the contemplation of the body as impure. The World-Honored One explained it in considerable detail, so we can enter contemplation along with the text and carry out the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) in a more detailed way. Of these items, except for the hair, all are wrapped by the skin. The skin may seem quite clean, but what it wraps is extremely filthy and impure—full of all sorts of fishy and foul odors, filled with blood, vital energy, and mucus, a blurred mess. Taken out individually, or with the skin peeled open, anyone would feel disgust and aversion. These impure things together constitute the material body. Yet sentient beings greedily cling to such a filthy body and refuse to let go—this is truly foolish.
Original text: 诸比丘。犹如两口之袋。填进种种谷物。即稻粳绿豆。豆颗胡麻糙米。其眼者开解之。得观察。此是稻。此是粳。此是绿豆。此是豆颗。此是胡麻。此是糙米。
Explanation: O bhikkhus, the material body, filled with all the items mentioned above, is like a bag with two openings, into which many, many kinds of grain have been packed. When the bag is opened and examined, one can count them out one by one: this is rice, this is non-glutinous rice, this is mung bean, this is bean seed, this is sesame, this is coarse rice—one glance with the eyes and one knows what kinds of beans there are. By the same principle, when the body is opened up and the skin peeled away, one knows what is inside the body; each item can be counted out and observed one by one.
This material body is like a bag with both openings tied shut, packed with all kinds of things: the crown of the head is one sealed opening, the soles of the feet are the other; outside is skin, and inside are all sorts of items. After the skin is peeled away, inside there is flesh and blood, various fluids, internal organs, bone marrow, and so on. The contemplation of the body as impure can begin from the surface of the skin. If you examine the skin under a microscope, you will find that its surface is entirely covered with bacteria. There are bacteria in the eyes, bacteria in tears, bacteria in nasal mucus, saliva, and on every surface of the skin. The bacteria in each part differ in shape, size, and number.
There is a kind of Chan contemplation that specifically observes these bacteria and worms on the body in order to eradicate the view of the body and the view of self. These bacteria have some with three heads and six arms, some of every color, some baring fangs and brandishing claws—extremely ferocious and terrifying. They slaughter one another, and after the slaughter, their numbers and species become unbalanced, and the body falls ill—skin diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, and so on—all caused by an imbalance in the numbers and kinds of bacteria. If the stomach feels hungry, it is because the bacteria want to eat; if desires arise in the body, that too is the result of these bacteria stirring things up. And the food and drink taken into the stomach rely entirely on bacteria to be broken down and digested. When food descends into the stomach, the bacteria break it into fragments, turning it into a paste, and only then can the body absorb a portion of it into the blood. The body needs these bacteria for its metabolism, and the bacteria need the physical body to survive. Sentient beings rely on bacteria to stay alive, and bacteria rely on the material bodies of sentient beings to exist. All of this is what the Buddha saw and taught: the Buddha's eye is immeasurably finer than a microscope, which is why He could see these bacteria.
There are also bacteria in the air; bacteria exist everywhere. These bacteria are also sentient beings who in the future can become Buddhas; they too have a mind consciousness, the manas, and the tathāgatagarbha. When sentient beings fall ill and take medicine, the medicine works at first and can cure the disease, but after taking it for a long time it stops working—this is called drug resistance. Why is this so? Because the medicine is taken to counteract the bacteria. After the bacteria ingest it and feel unwell, they thereafter refuse to take it, and the same medicine no longer has a bacteria-killing effect. This shows that bacteria also have consciousness that makes discriminations.
Observe that the surface of the body's skin is extremely filthy; then observe further inward: the blood, the muscles, the sinews, the bones, and the bone marrow are all full of bacteria, and the various mucus fluids also contain bacteria—the inside of the body is also extremely filthy. By contemplating the material body in this truthful and detailed way, one will gradually no longer crave and cling to the body. Suppose you see a beautiful woman: begin contemplating from her skin, observing the bacteria on the skin's surface; after that contemplation, peel the skin open and observe the impure things inside, the foul odors emanating from inside out—there is not a single clean spot. Later it will also be said that a few days after a beautiful woman dies, her body will swell and bruise, its color will change, its shape will change, then it will discharge pus—and after that, imagine it yourself.
The material body that sentient beings crave is in fact extremely filthy and impure. For example, the food we eat grows out of the soil, and the soil contains everything; no matter how cleanly it is washed, it is still dirty. Chew a few mouthfuls of food and spit it out—see what state it is in; or vomit up food that has been swallowed into the stomach—see what state it is in, smell what odor it has. In truth, the body is just a moving toilet, a bag of filth, also called a stinking skin-bag. On careful reflection, there is nothing about the body, food, and so on worth craving.
Original text: 诸比丘。比丘如是于皮覆包。充满种种不净物之此身。观察上至头发下至蹠底。知于此身。有发髦爪齿。皮肉筋骨髓。肾脏心脏肝脏。肋膜脾脏。肺肠肠间膜。胃排泄物胆汁。痰脓血汗。脂肪泪淋巴液。唾液粘液。关节液尿。
Explanation: O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu, in just this way, on this material body covered and wrapped in skin and filled with all kinds of impure things, contemplates from the hair on top down to the soles of the feet, and knows that in this material body there are hair, body hair, nails, and teeth; skin, flesh, sinews, and bone marrow; kidneys, heart, and liver; pleura and spleen; lungs, intestines, and mesentery; stomach, excrement, and bile; phlegm, pus, blood, and sweat; fat, tears, and lymph; saliva, mucus, joint fluid, and urine.
The Buddha taught the bhikkhus to continue contemplating the impurity of the material body, observing from the crown of the head all the way down to the soles of the feet. If through genuine observation one discovers that the material body is so filthy and dirty—like an embroidered pillow that looks presentable on the outside but is stuffed with filthy things inside, with nothing clean at all—then contemplating over and over, one will give rise to a mind of revulsion toward one's own material body, and will no longer care so much about it or crave it.
Original text: 如是。或于内身观身而住。于外身观身而住。又于内外身观身而住。或于身观生法而住。于身观灭法而住。又于身观生灭法而住。
Explanation: After contemplating the impurity of the material body, the mind either dwells in the contemplative practice on the internal body, or dwells in the contemplative practice on the external body, or dwells in the contemplative practice on both the internal and external bodies simultaneously; or it dwells in the contemplation of the dharmas arising in the material body, or dwells in the contemplation of the dharmas ceasing in the material body, or dwells in the contemplation of both the arising and ceasing dharmas of the material body simultaneously.
Continuing to observe in finer detail the things inside the material body as introduced above: first contemplate the dharmas of arising in the material body—what is gradually coming into being on the body, for example, nails growing, hair growing, abscesses emerging on the skin, the formation of cysts and stones in the internal organs, and the arising of various diseases. Then contemplate the dharmas of ceasing in the material body—what things disappear from the body, for example, the removal or excision of internal organs, the disappearance and passing away of various diseases, and so on. Then contemplate simultaneously the dharmas of arising and the dharmas of ceasing in the material body.
Original text: 尚又智识所成及忆念所成。皆会有身之思念现前。彼当无所依而住。且不执着世间任何物。诸比丘。比丘如是。于身观身而住。
Explanation: As one contemplates over and over, wisdom will arise, and mindfulness of the material body will also arise, so that the mind is constantly occupied with thoughts about the material body. At this point, the practitioner should let the mind not lean upon the material body, be able to view the material body objectively, not bind the material body tightly to oneself, and not cling to any thing in the world. O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu should, in just this way, dwell contemplating the body in the body.
After all these contents have been contemplated to completion, one's thoughts will be full of notions of the material body, yet one does not dwell on the material body; the mind does not depend on the material body, because it is empty, not-self, and impermanent and subject to change. In the mind, the notion of the body as "I" must be cleared away and the material body emptied out. Only by abandoning the body can one enter a state of meditative concentration (samādhi) of emptiness and give rise to wise cognition, thereby eradicating the view of the body as self (the view that takes the material body as the self). Moreover, toward any other thing in the world, the mind should not dwell on or crave or cling to any of them; all should be emptied out, for none of these is real. If even the body is not the self, then things outside the body are even less the self. Up to this point in the practice, one may not yet be able to accept this view; one must wait until the contemplative practice is truly complete, wisdom is fully endowed, and the other conditions for seeing the Path are all present—then the mind's thoughts can turn around, and one can truly eradicate the view of self. The three fetters will be severed along with it, and one will never again fall into the three evil destinies.
It is not easy to accept this principle. Right now only the mind consciousness knows it; the manas has not yet accepted it, and that degree of awakening has not yet been reached. Once it is reached and the manas accepts it, the state of body and mind will completely change, and the mind's thoughts will turn around and be inverted. The shallow knowing of the mind consciousness has little force; if the manas does not accept it, then once action is undertaken, the manas will still make decisions according to its former cognition and notions, and will not make choices according to the mind consciousness's understanding. Because bodily, verbal, and mental actions are not governed by the mind consciousness, but are decided and chosen by the deeper-level manas.
For example, suppose you promise to give someone a hundred yuan in generosity (dāna). If this thought does not well up from the bottom of your heart, then although you verbally agreed, it is only the mind consciousness feeling that you should give the person a hundred yuan, while the manas is not very willing and does not understand what benefit there is in giving someone a hundred yuan; when the time comes to hand over the money, there will be a sense of reluctance in the mind. Therefore, when we study the Buddha-dharma, we should enter deep into meditative concentration and try as much as possible to let the manas itself deliberate (manasikāra/manana) on the Dharma. Once the manas deliberates and understands, the principle becomes clear, and both one's views and behavior will transform. As for the dharma of contemplating the body as impure, one should frequently and repeatedly carry out deep, detailed, and comprehensive contemplative practice and reflection within meditative concentration. Do not think, "I already know this; it's very simple, it's just like that," and thereby disdain to engage in deep contemplation.
What has been discussed above is dwelling contemplating the body in the body; with this, the contemplation of the body as impure among the four foundations of mindfulness is complete. The contemplation of the body begins with contemplating the breath: one must know the out-breath and the in-breath, and know both long breathing and short breathing. One must be clear about the body's condition while breathing; when the breath is long, one must be clear about the condition of the whole body. One must know the dharmas that arise in the body and the dharmas that cease; one must know all dharmas of arising and ceasing, know the dharmas within the body and the dharmas outside the body, and also contemplate how impure the material body is. When the contemplative practice is complete and the notion of the material body in the mind is firm, then empty out the material body, remove the notions of the body as the self and as real; the mind's thoughts must be emptied—not only emptying the material body, but also emptying all dharmas, clinging to no dharma whatsoever. In this way one can eradicate the view of the body and the view of self.
