Recollections (Anussati 10)

So the Dhamma for today is the ten Anusatti. Anusatti means recollection. It's a word used for meditation. Of course the root word is sati. We translate as mindfulness, but it means something closer to remembering. So recollection means to bring to mind again and again, to spend time. considering or making your active object of mind. So these ten anusati are in and of themselves

in their own right, meditation objects. So each and every one of them can be taken as objects of meditation. Of course we're not... primarily interested in that because we have a meditation object. Our practice is the practice of the satipatthana, which is sati, but it's sati based on experience. And these ten anusati are much more conceptual. And so they work really well as supports for the practice of mindfulness.

You don't want to get too sidetracked with other mental activities, but these are the kinds of mental activities that are supportive of one's mental health and of... of positive, beneficial, wholesome qualities of mind, the kind of things that will support the practice of the satipatthana, the practice of mindfulness as we know it, the practice of vipassana. There are ten of them.

and they're taught by the Buddha. They are a collection of various objects of reflection, so they need not be used as primary objects of meditation. and how we can use them or how Buddhists in general use them, is the sorts of things that you take time out of your day to reflect upon, to remember, the kind of things that are good to bring to mind.

again, that support your virtuous qualities, they support your mental health, and they support the cultivation of all sorts of... positive beneficial qualities that lead to the increase in focus and understanding of reality as it is. So each one of them has their own particular benefits and can be used for different occasions.

But we'll just go through them and try and get a sense of how they fit into our lives as Buddhist meditators. So the first is the Buddha. Our first object of reflection or recollection is the Buddha himself. And the Buddha enjoined us in this practice. This is a common theme in the Buddha's teaching that recollection of the Buddha is a good thing.

It's not going to lead you to enlightenment, it's not an object that will allow you to understand the truth of reality, but it's a good object for cultivating wholesome qualities, especially confidence. when you're unsure, when you're unsure of yourself, when you feel a lack of self-confidence, the reassurance that the Buddha is here to support us.

Even though we cannot contact the Buddha directly, we still have his presence in the form of his teachings, in the form of his religion. The Buddha is, in a sense, with us. and is something we can always remember that there was this person there was this being who attained the highest possible state and level of understanding and wisdom of the nature of reality and shared it with the world.

So reflection of the Buddha is of course a common practice in Buddhist cultures. It just means very simply thinking of this being, this perfect being who had the qualities of purity of mind. that there was no speck of defilement or any kind of bad habit or even the residue of any kind of unwholesome character. who had perfect wisdom and was able to teach, able to share and guide other beings. The Buddha we think of as our leader, the person who had the great compassion,

Not only did he know the way to become free from suffering, but he sacrificed his own peace. He sacrificed his own seclusion, his own freedom from suffering. He gave up his life, he gave up the many years after his enlightenment for the tireless and constant sharing of the Dhamma with others day and night. both humans and divine beings. So even just remembering the Buddha, even just saying the word Buddha, going for refuge to the Buddha, reflecting on his...

qualities, the common thing is to recite the qualities of the Buddha. The Buddha specifically mentioned that this sort of practice is great for living in solitude, where you might become afraid. where you might become paranoid or you might have a hard time finding peace of mind when you're living in the forest at the root of a tree or in a forest monastery, feeling alone, feeling out of your element.

Sometimes people come to a foreign land of meditation center and find themselves just overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. And the Buddha, of course, is a great refuge for creating reassurance and confidence. When we think of the Buddha we remember that what we're doing here is not something cultish or... perverse or warped or crazy. We're not crazy to be going off into the forest and doing what we're doing. We're following after someone who is so pure and so right and so perfect.

that there really is no doubt and should be no doubt about what we're doing. Remembering the Buddha is great in this way for confidence. The second is, of course, recollection of the Dhamma, the teaching of the Buddha.

This is the dhamma-nusati, recollection of the teaching. This doesn't mean learning the teaching. This means that for those who have learned the teaching, even in its very basic form, even just learning the four satipatthana, reminding yourself that this Dhamma that we have is quite special and quite valuable and effective whenever there is any kind of

weakness of mind or lack of confidence, any kind of fear or uncertainty, recollection of the Dhamma, remembering the Dhamma, remembering the greatness and the purity of the Dhamma, the power of the Dhamma. and appreciating that what we have is something that is effective, something that is a source of safety, a source of security, that is a source of great depth of wisdom and understanding.

And it's all there available to us. It's like having this great mass of wealth, amassing of wealth that we have. gather that's sitting in our bank account ready for us to use at any time. People who have great wealth have a great sense of security, of course thinking that the wealth can protect them from any kind of... danger or challenge or adversity that arises. Of course we know that this isn't the case and being rich doesn't make you completely immune to suffering.

safe or protected from suffering but the Dhamma is not like that the Dhamma of course may not protect your body but can protect the mind so that no matter what circumstance you find yourself in whether it's physically challenging or painful, stressful in any way. The Dhamma is that which protects the mind, protects the mind from stress, protects the mind from worry and fear.

protects the mind from addiction, protects the mind from aversion, from hatred, from animosity, from fear, from doubt. The Dhamma is this priceless treasure that we have like having in our bank account again and we can always take it out and use it and unlike money it is something that has a true benefit for our mental health something that we can use

We can apply ourselves to simply by learning and studying and then, of course, putting into practice. We have this resource at our fingertips. Even just the four satipatthana, having them available to us is a source of great reassurance. We don't ever have to doubt or worry about the future, wonder how we're going to cope with getting old and sick and dying or any sort of challenge or danger that might arise.

Mindfulness in and of itself, the four satipatthana, is enough to confront any sort of danger and keep our mind free from stress and worry and fear and danger. The third anusati is the sangha.

Of course, we have those who are familiar with Buddhism should be expecting this. The first three are the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. The Sangha is those who have practiced the Buddha's teaching successfully and come to...

experience the truth that the Buddha himself realized. So in one way they are equal to the Buddha, their enlightenment, their... freedom from defilement is equal to the Buddha in that sense they are enlightened just as the Buddha was enlightened of course the Buddha had of course his own special qualities but the Sangha the Sangha is a separate

treasure because it has passed on and shared and provided evidence of the greatness of the buddha of course it's one thing to have someone who appears to be wise and great It's another to have those to see the change that his teachings evoke in others, to have those who have shown and provided the example, evidence as witnesses.

to the greatness of the Buddha's teachings. It's not like having a god, or an avatar of god, or some kind of son of god, or something like that, or god manifest on earth. having a great being that we can worship it's not like that we have the Buddha but we also have the Dhamma that is available for anyone to attain the same

freedom from suffering that the Buddha Himself found, and then we have those who are the example of it. So simply as an example, as a reassurance of the possibility for other human beings, for all of us, to follow after the Buddha. and come to understand the truth in the same sort of way as the Buddha himself realized.

We also have, of course, the greatness of the Sangha as those who share the Dhamma with others. Once the Buddha passed away, we rely upon those who have experienced and understood the Buddha's teaching to pass it on. And so we have that as a greatness of the sangha. It's such a great treasure for us to reflect upon not just for the example it sets but also for the generosity and kindness.

that the sangha has expressed in passing on the teachings generation after generation. So again, reflecting on the sangha, reflecting on their purity and their greatness and how they... put in such dedication to practice and realize the Buddha's teaching for themselves is another great source of confidence and reassurance and is great for calming the mind. are not just something that we are expected to worship as some sort of requirement for being a Buddha, they're a treasure, they're a wealth.

They're a possession that we have, something that we can rely upon, a refuge for us to rely upon. They're the three refuges, things that can support us in our practice, reflecting on them again. gives us reassurance that change is possible and enlightenment is possible and freedom from suffering is possible. So, very common objects of reflection, things that we take as a practice.

through daily chanting or even just reflection at any time of the day, remembering the Buddha. Buddha is my refuge, the Dhamma is my refuge, the Sangha is my refuge. This is a common recitation. that Buddhists undertake to provide reassurance and give them the confidence to be able to succeed in their practice.

The fourth recollection is sila-nusati. Sila means ethics, so recollection of ethics. And this doesn't actually mean remembering what are ethical precepts. What this refers to is... reflecting on one's own ethics as a means of reassuring or providing confidence and joy and peace of mind.

Whenever you wonder whether you're on the right path, whether you're a good person, whether you are competent or whether you are enough, whether you're good enough for this, can you do it? Reflecting on your ethics is a great source of of reassurance remembering the good that you have done as far as changing your life changing your way of life for those who used to kill but have given up killing that's such a great and powerful practice

You've provided safety, you've offered safety from yourself to all beings. You are no longer a source of suffering or fear or danger to other beings, giving up killing, stealing. cheating, lying, drugs and alcohol, you have created such purity of conduct that is so rare and difficult for ordinary people to attain. It's something worth It's something that really does make you a good person, make you be able to say of yourself that you are of sound ethics, that you are a good person.

that you were someone worthy of respect, and that you were worthy of the cultivation of the Dhamma. Of course this doesn't hold if you don't keep ethics, and so it's also a reminder of the importance of ethics. Because someone who is unethical will of course have to reflect on their lack of ethics and will find a sense of guilt and fear, paranoia, fear of retribution.

We'll have a scattered mind, an inability to focus. When someone has cultivated ethics, they will feel for themselves the sense of reassurance. tranquility of mind, the orderliness of their mind as a result of no longer harming, torturing, killing and stealing. inflicting suffering on other beings. So just reflecting on ethics, it's not generally something that Buddhists take as a dedicated meditation topic, but reflecting on it, which is how we would take it.

is a valuable practice. If you ever feel sort of doubting yourself or wondering if you actually have what it takes to practice the Buddha's teaching, you already have the foundation. by keeping the five precepts, and you have this foundation available to you. You have the beginning of the holy life, the beginning of the spiritual life available to you, and all it takes is to keep basic ethical principles.

Even just the five precepts is a very profound undertaking, not to mention those who dedicate themselves, at least for some time, to the eight precepts, engaging in celibacy and eating only in the morning. the kinds of things that people do at meditation centers like this one. Giving up entertainment for the time you're here, sleeping on the floor, sleeping only as much as is totally necessary.

being dedicated to wakefulness. These kinds of things are profound practices that are the real, true beginning of the spiritual life. So reflecting on ethics, the Buddha said,

one of the ten great reflections, and it's something that helps to support your practice, gives you confidence and reassurance. Number five is caganusati, recollection of generosity. Now this is conditional and it's a common occurrence for people to come to practice meditation without having been incredibly generous in their lives, but it's instructive.

and that those who have been generous throughout their lives, who have been dedicated to the Buddhist practice of generosity, of kindness, of charity, have a much easier time with the practice of meditation because this is a part of their psyche, their ability to remember and to acknowledge and to reaffirm themselves as being.

not just ethical individuals, but kind and generous individuals, sacrificing their own happiness for the happiness of others, sacrificing their own possessions for the benefit of those who need it more than them. giving gifts to people who are poor, supporting those who are practicing meditation, monks and meditators by giving food.

supporting meditation centers, building meditation centers, building monasteries. These are very common things in Buddhist practice. Unfortunately, they sometimes are the beginning and the end of people's practice, where it's all that people do, and that is sometimes seen with criticism. from the outside, visitors and newcomers to Buddhism will wonder why there is so much emphasis placed on generosity. And it certainly can be something that is taken advantage of by monks preaching.

generosity as a main practice because of course it benefits them if they're generous people are generous to the monasteries but absolutely absolutely there's a correlation between how easy and comfortable your meditation practice is and how generous you are as an individual. If you have a history of generosity, you can rely on that to make your practice more comfortable and easier.

because it reassures you, and it gives you a sense of self-worth, a sense of peace of mind, of being a good person. It gives you a strength of mind. Because, of course, it creates clarity of mind and it's directly correlated with greed and attachment, which are really the base cause of suffering that we're looking to eradicate. If someone is generous and kind by nature...

then they're also going to be this sort of person with reduced levels of greed and attachment and neediness, clinginess. They're going to be familiar. with the act of letting go and giving up and finding happiness and peace outside of material wealth, material possessions and that sort of thing. I mean, these are all qualities that are very much tied to...

freedom to enlightenment and freedom from suffering. And so generosity is a great basic practice. So it's not the kind of thing you can make up for. It's something that has to be acknowledged if you haven't been very generous in your life. It's the kind of thing that you can undertake as something to change your life, change about your life.

but certainly something that comes from the practice of the Buddha's teaching and a realization of the importance of being kind and being a good person and the real efficacy. of good and bad deeds. Feeling guilty and upset and low self-esteem for all the bad things we've done is a real reminder. of how great it is to do good deeds and to be a good person, and how beneficial and supportive that is for our practice.

Many people, newcomers to Buddhism, will often learn and take home with them, find themselves becoming more generous and really dedicated to generosity and kindness because of how great it is as a support for our spiritual life. It's a good lesson. A good lesson for us in the efficacy of good deeds and bad deeds, and a good lesson in general for changing our life. Both of these, ethics and generosity, are two very fundamental practices that aren't directly...

linked to freedom from suffering and enlightenment. But if you don't have them, it's like trying to drive a car without motor oil or gasoline. You won't get very far and it won't be comfortable if you do.

So two very important sorts of reflections as a reminder of the value of these things. Number six is an interesting one, devatanusati, recollection of the devas. And I think this is somewhat... niche and particular sort of practice, not for everyone, but what I would say about recollection of angels, of divine beings, is that

For most Buddhist practitioners we're well aware that we're not going to become, we're not going to be free from samsara in this life. Many people who come to practice make it as to a certain... distance on the path, but are quite aware that they're still going to be reborn again. They may have gained insight and understanding, they may have even

attain some level of what we call enlightenment, but they aren't completely free from the realms of samsara. They still have a ways to go and more learning to do. And so there's an acknowledgement generally among Buddhists that most are going to be reborn. And so the topic of heaven is a very valid and important discussion to have. It's the kind of thing that Buddhists are constantly concerned with and in general interested in.

Because, well, if you're going to be reborn, where should you be reborn? Now there is the common misconception that being born in heaven would be a bad thing. There's a sort of a derisiveness towards the state of angels, and well earned, because being a divine being in heaven is not directly correlated with enlightenment, and it is true. that divine beings, angels, those beings in other dimensions can be deluded, can be misguided.

and can be addicted to sensuality in a similar way to how humans are. It really isn't anything comparable to how crude and coarse and unrefined human beings are. The state of being a human being is so steeped in suffering because of how coarse and defiled. the minds of ordinary human beings are. And it's very rare to find someone who is actually of the sort of mind to be born as a devata, to be born as a heavenly being.

you see such people from time to time even outside of the buddha's teaching people who are kind and generous by nature who are thoughtful and compassionate who are calm and peaceful who don't have anger or greed who don't exhibit cruelty or any kind of conceit or arrogance, who are just pure of mind, pure of habit. maybe not completely on the right path, so can certainly still be caught up in delusion and caught up in certain levels of greed, anger and so on.

But there is something profound and incredible and valuable about the qualities that lead to be born as a divine being. You could say, unlike the Sangha, who are our true role models and people who we should truly look up to and appreciate, Devatas are the sort of being that... an ordinary person can relate to. So the texts say that in regards to the Devatas, we should think of their qualities. They have the qualities of confidence, the quality of ethics.

the qualities of wisdom, the quality of learning, and they have the quality of generosity. good qualities that we've already talked about, the qualities of generosity and ethics and so on, are the sorts of qualities that lead to heaven. And as human beings wondering or concerned about, where will I be reborn?

even as Buddhist practitioners who are dedicated to becoming free from the rounds of samsara, the knowledge that we're going to have to be reborn due to our still existent attachment, greed. craving, thirst. This idea of where we're going to be reborn is an important topic, and so reflecting on the qualities that lead us to heaven. is a valuable practice. Birth in heaven for a Buddhist is an incredibly valuable experience because life in heaven is comfortable. Life in heaven is stable.

is profitable. There is so much purity and peace. that one can go delve deeply into the nature of the mind. One can sit in meditation for days, for hours, days, weeks, months, I don't know, long time. certainly without great disturbance as we do in the human realm. There is a case to be made for that being a dangerous situation in terms of creating complacency. but because of the length of the life of a deva, of a divine being, and due to the presence of other Buddhists.

through the practice of generosity and ethics and so on. Being in heaven can be a really great experience surrounded by other Buddhist practitioners, people who remember their time on earth and remember the Dhamma. and continue to practice the Dhamma and teach the Dhamma and share the Dhamma with each other. I would imagine that after the Buddha, after the arising of the Buddha, that most of the heavenly realms are incredibly

potent and valuable and profitable places to be reborn in. So thinking about heaven, it is an odd one. It isn't exactly in line with the more profound teachings of the Buddha. still something that is absolutely found throughout Buddhist cultures in the world, the discussion of heaven and how to get to heaven and what it means.

or what are the practices that lead to heaven and what it means to be reborn in heaven and so on. So something for us to reflect upon and certainly something that all Buddhists are interested, generally Buddhists are interested in.

Number seven is mindfulness of death. Mindfulness of death is probably out of all of these the one that is most recommended as a daily... Now mindfulness of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha is much more common, but mindfulness of death really has a special place in Buddhist practice because it's just so potent and powerful. and really necessary to put our lives and our existence in perspective. There are so many things that we cling to, that we worry about, that we strive towards,

when put in the perspective of death, end up meaning very little. So without this reminder of the extent or the limit of... worldly affairs created by the reality or the truth of death we easily fall into without this we easily fall into negligence, and we get caught up in worrying and striving after things that end up being pointless and meaningless that we just have to let go of, that in the end...

get washed away by the tides of birth, old age, sickness and death. End up having very little meaning. Wealth, family, relationships. society, politics, even the environment ends up having much less of an importance to us when we remember that in the end we don't get to keep any of it. In the end, all of this is circumscribed by the truth, the inevitability of death. So thinking about death, the Buddha enjoined us that we should think about death constantly, that reminder of death.

is such a valuable practice that it keeps us honest and it keeps us dedicated, it keeps us focused on what's truly important. It's not some arbitrary or debatable, it's not a debatable topic.

No one can deny that every being alive now will eventually die. And so it has such a power in its reminder to us of... what has the capacity of being important and what doesn't have the capacity of being important anything that we have to leave behind when we die really has very little reason to be held as important or held

held up as being important, or as anything that we do take with us, specifically our qualities of mind, the results of our good deeds, the results of our bad deeds, that we do take with us. That does affect not just our state of rebirth, but our minds wherever we are reborn. The quality of our minds is going to be very much dependent.

on the qualities that we cultivate in this lifetime. And that's a great reassurance to us. But it's also a great source of urgency. It puts everything in perspective and it reminds us. of the need or the importance or the value of doing all that we can to change and to improve the qualities of our mind while really letting go and giving up. our attachments to all of the many things in the world that we'll never be able to keep or find any lasting or significant or real benefit from.

Because we leave it all behind when we die, whether it's our own being, our body, or it's our possessions, even the people and the places and the things that we hold dear, all of them we leave behind. mindfulness of death, even just remembering, I will die, death is inevitable, I don't know when, I don't know where, I don't know how, but I do know that it's coming. It's such a good reminder to us to...

not be negligent and to not hold on to things that are not worth holding on to. Number eight is called Kaya Gata Sati. It doesn't actually have the word anusatti but it is one of the anusattis. Kaya gattasatti means literally mindfulness or recollection or remembrance gone to the body. So taking the body as an object of meditation. And this specifically refers to the parts of the body. So the idea of taking the body as the object of meditation isn't...

It isn't kaya nupasana or kaya nusati as we take in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. This refers to a specific practice of taking the body apart into pieces. and focusing on the body piece by piece by piece. And it's a specific practice used to dispel the delusion or the misperception of beauty in the body. It's a specific practice related to lust.

related to sexual desire, related to sexual attraction, attraction to the human physical form. Because taken as a whole there are signs of the male, signs of the female, signs of beauty. that trigger chemicals in the brain and trigger great pleasurable reactions that we then cling to. And so this triggering creates addiction. And it creates this cycle of need, this cycle of lust and the fever of lust that blinds us to right or wrong or good or bad or truly valuable or worthless.

and it makes us cling to what is worthless, clings to what is unsatisfying, and leads us to so much stress and suffering. How much stress and suffering do we cultivate? through the effort that we put into attaining and obtaining the objects of our desire. This is a big topic of concern for Buddhist practitioners when we realize how stressful and how corrupting the influence of this sort of lust and desire is.

And so it's common in Buddhist circles to put this into practice, take the body apart into pieces. And again, it's so powerful, especially because it's not biased. You're not saying to yourself, this is ugly, this is terrible. You're just taking a look at the body honestly, without focusing on the ideas of beauty or male, female and so on. the sign of sexuality or so on. You focus on the reality, so you focus on the hair as it really is, not how you wish it would be or the ideal.

beautiful sort of hair. What is hair like? And you focus on hair. Hair is like a rice plant planted in the scalp and it's oily and it's smelly and it's cracked and so on. And you look at the hair on the body, you look at the skin, teeth, nails, flesh, blood. and you break the body up into pieces. This is a common Buddhist meditation practice. It's not on the level of the practice of vipassana, the practice of the four satipatthana, but it is a valuable practice. It's the first thing that...

New monks are taught to recite these because of course as monastics this is especially important. Monastics who have undertaken the practice of celibacy are... are in great need of this sort of support, at least in the beginning, while they find their way to free themselves from the lust and the desire for the physical form.

But as Buddhist practitioners in general, in the practice of mindfulness, we don't have to put too much emphasis on this. Instead, we can focus on the desire and we can focus on the experiences of seeing or feeling. or focus on the liking or the wanting, and be mindful of it, again objectively, as really a deeper and more powerful practice. On the other hand,

There are times where the lust and desire is just so overwhelming that mindfulness isn't really an option. And in those cases it is a recommended practice to really sit down and undertake. a dissecting of the body, breaking it up into parts, hair, hair on the head, hair on the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, and so on, in order to quiet down.

the raging fires of lust and desire. So a common Buddhist practice, something that is well worth keeping in mind and worth investigating at least on a basic level for all Buddhists.

Number nine is anapanasatti. Anapanasatti is for sure the most well-known of these and most practiced of all of the ten anusatti. Anapanasatti means mindfulness of breathing. or remembrance of breathing, sati. And this is probably got to be by far the most practiced Buddhist meditation. What we practice, our... basic technique of practice could be called anapanasati. I mean it is called anapanasati by many people in that it focuses on the mechanism of the breath.

You could say it's not anapanasati because it's not focused on the breath itself, but instead focused on the movement of the body, which is just another movement of the body, the movement of the stomach rising and falling. But the greatness of anapanasati is that the breath is always there. And so we do have that, and that is the reason. for focusing on the stomach rising and falling because no matter what else is changing and uncertain and whatever else is going on with the body and the mind.

there is always going to be this movement of the stomach rising and falling. It's something you can always fall back on. So it's a very good basic object of recollection, something we can depend upon and use. as a reliable object for trying to experience reality objectively. Now mindfulness doesn't discriminate any.

experience can be an object of realization of the three characteristics realization of the nature reality realization that nothing is worth clinging to but certainly having an object that you can always come back to frees your mind up from trying to look for an object or having to seek out something to pay attention to. It's always there, it's simple, it's easy, it's present at all times.

So anapanasatti is probably for that reason and that reason alone the most common. Another reason why it's very popular is because it's also very calming and soothing if done in a certain way. as it's normally practiced, is simply a means of tranquilizing the mind or calming the mind. So it's seen as a samatha practice. What we practice is a little bit different. Again, because it's focusing on the movement of the body, it's unpredictable.

and you'll find that it's not so calming, it's not so peaceful, but that's purposeful. That's the whole point of focusing rather on the physical aspects of the experience. because we want to see, we want to be uncomfortable in a sense, because the discomfort, it's not painful, but it's uncomfortable because it's unpredictable. And that's important because being comfortable, finding things that you like and seeking out things that you like is only feeding and is the whole problem.

the clinging, it's the attachment to things as being satisfying and stable and controllable. And by focusing on reality, we quickly learn that that is not truly the nature of of the world around us, that reality is unpredictable, it's unsatisfying, it's uncontrollable. as it's commonly practiced, is great for calming the mind. And so as a recollection, if you don't take it as a primary object of meditation, it can be a great way to...

quiet the mind and calm the mind before you practice mindfulness or outside of the practice of mindfulness. Now, certainly, and I think it's not necessary to seek out other practices that...

The simple practice of watching the stomach rise and fall can fulfill this need or fulfill this requirement. So any time during your daily life simply taking the time to focus again on the stomach can be at least initially calming, it can certainly be a great source of focus and a great source of balancing to remind you. of the nature of things and to focus your attention back on reality if you've gotten carried away by some externality or some problem that you're facing but it also is true

that if you simply want to calm down you can just focus on your breath, watching the breath go in, watching the breath go out. So in a sense this is similar to the common...

secular advice to don't forget to breathe. Breathe, breathe, remember to breathe. You know, people who will say this to those who are having a panic attack. I mean, it certainly goes to show how powerful meditation practice can be that even for those who are uninitiated, who are unskilled, untrained in the practice of mindfulness or the practice of meditation in general, can see the benefit of just focusing on your breath.

coming back to the breath. Obviously those who have some experience in meditation have a greater understanding of why that is and can easily fall back on this practice. So if you take it as the sort of thing that you can apply throughout your day.

Remembering the breath is just great advice, either for the practice of tranquility or focusing you back on mindfulness, bringing your mind back to the present moment. First start with the breath and then you can... extend the mind out expand out into all of the other objects and it could maybe be whatever you're dealing with once you start by focusing on the breath focusing on the stomach rising and falling then you can see more clearly ah

I have greed, I have anger, I have worry, I have fear, I have doubt, and so on. These qualities of mind are much easier to see once you've focused your attention on something simple like the breath. Another reason for focusing on it is because it's neutral. The breath isn't wholesome, it isn't unwholesome, it's neutral. It's something that we're not really invested in emotionally, and so it's a very good...

way to practice or begin in the practice before we focus on the things that are a lot more concerning, like greed and anger and delusion. And finally, the tenth anusatti.

is upasamānusati, which means recollection of peace. And there's nothing particularly special that makes this the last one, but it is certainly... at the pinnacle of Buddhism. But mindfulness of peace is a valuable practice, something that certainly is a part of what it means to, or is something that has great meaning for Buddhists, part of what it means to be a Buddhist because of how important peace is. And the importance here is that

For non-Buddhists or for people living worldly lives with no concern for spiritual affairs whatsoever, the focus is much more on pleasure, obviously. It's on happiness. What they would say is happiness and... When people say happiness, they generally mean pleasure, and so we find ourselves constantly seeking out stimulation, seeking out that which triggers these chemicals in the brain, these endorphins or whatever, the pleasure.

centers of the brain that bring us a sense of satisfaction temporarily. What makes a person a Buddhist, in a sense, is what differentiates Buddhists from others, or you could say spiritual people from others, is the much greater emphasis on peace than pleasure.

and the claims that true happiness is peace, or peace is true happiness and pleasure is not true happiness. And that's basically because pleasure is not something that is sustainable. Pleasure is something that, of course... becomes addictive and requires stimulation and that we can see eventually leads to disappointment and can be very much associated or is very much associated.

with disappointment, with aversion, with anger. It can lead to conflict or it does often lead to conflict. Those who are most deeply in love end up being the most violent and toxic and unhappy as a result of their raging emotions but peace doesn't have that quality peace and a mind that is at peace a mind that is free from need, free from want, free from irritation, free from disappointment, a mind that is content whether it gets.

no matter what it gets or no matter what it loses. That is at peace in the face of loss and at peace in the face of gain. This is, according to Buddhism, true happiness. This is the higher goal from a Buddhist perspective. And so reflection on peace in that sense, meaning ultimately reflection on Nibbāna. which is the ultimate cooling or quieting of the mind, where the mind becomes free by letting go and experiences.

true cessation of suffering. The recollection of this is a great reminder and a great source of direction. for Buddhists, to point us in the right direction and to remind us of the distinction between peace and pleasure, the difference between seeking out stimulation and freeing ourselves from need and want, and being at peace with ourselves and with the world around us.

The reflection or recollection of peace is a... well, it's one more object that we can take as... an object of reflection, it is something that can be taken as an object of meditation, probably better for those who have experienced Nibbāna, so it's the sort of thing that those who have experienced can reflect upon.

But the texts state that it's the sort of thing that directs one in the right direction. And even if one doesn't ever achieve the true peace of Nibbana, it's still the sort of thing that leads one to a greater... existence in the future, because it sets you in the right direction. It again helps you differentiate between pleasure and the stimulation of worldly pursuits.

and the peace that comes from spiritual practice and letting go and freeing yourself from greed and anger and delusion. So another valuable sort of reflection. fits in with the theme of those things that from time to time we should remind ourselves about, thinking of peace just as we think of all these things. So these are the ten Anu Sati, the ten...

Of all the many things we could think about, these are ten that we could say are probably the most beneficial as a support for our practice, as a support for our lives as Buddhist practitioners. and just an all-around great part of what it means to be a Buddhist and a testament to the greatness of the Buddhist teaching.

something that we have as our treasure and as our possession, the sort of thing that we have that we can carry with us and we can put into practice at any time and the sort of thing that throughout our lives we can cultivate. and gain as skills to bring about peace, happiness and freedom from suffering. That's the Dhamma for today. Thank you all for listening.