The Practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Is a Process from Unknowning Awareness to Knowing Awareness

This Satipaṭṭhāna Sūtra is not merely a sūtra on cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi); it is also a sūtra in which śamatha and vipaśyanā operate simultaneously. The result of śamatha and vipaśyanā is the arising of wisdom—this wisdom is the wisdom that eliminates self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), the wisdom by which the Dharma eye becomes purified and the mind attains liberation. The so-called wisdom of liberation means that, through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), one comes to know the contemplated dharmas to a certain degree, so that knowing born of ignorance (avidyā) transforms into knowing endowed with clarity. The former knowing was ignorant knowing that did not understand the dharmas; the present knowing is clear knowing that understands the true truth of the dharmas—understanding that all the contemplated dharmas, the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) of body and mind, are subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent, subject to change, suffering, empty (śūnyatā), and not-self. At this point, the wisdom of liberation arises, and thereafter one can attain liberation. 

Therefore, in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the four satipaṭṭhānas, the mind must at every moment maintain a knowing—and it must be a knowing when the mind is stilled, not a knowing when the mind is scattered. These two kinds of knowing are different: the knowing of a stilled mind includes the knowing of the manas, whereas when the mind is scattered, it is the scattered knowing of the mind consciousness. Scattered knowing is all ignorant knowing; with the knowing of a stilled mind, ignorance can gradually diminish, and ignorant knowing can gradually transform into clear knowing, enabling one to develop wisdom and attain liberation. The knowing present when the mind is scattered manifests only the functions of the mind consciousness; the knowing present when the mind is stilled includes not only the lucid knowing of the mind consciousness but also the clearly comprehending knowing of the manas, with the manas's deliberation (manana) functioning. Only in this way can one eliminate self-view (ātma-dṣṭi) and purify the Dharma eye. This is the method of practice the Buddha taught us; it does not employ the mind consciousness for thinking, analyzing, weighing, inferential cognition, or reasoning—none of these methods are used at all. All dharmas exist as direct perception/valid direct cognition; they are intrinsically so. As long as one sustains this knowing to a certain point, one can comprehend the true truth of the world.