You’ve Been Brainwashed Into Ignoring Four Dimensions of Mindfulness

The way you live “modern” life is secretly blocking your true happiness.

Understanding the actual words spoken by the Buddha is a transformative event. It cuts the constantly growing weeds of non-clarity — slowly and surely leading to joys that can only be hinted at with words.

Everyone has a different definition of ‘mindfulness meditation’ these days.

But the basic instructions the Buddha gave are actually supposed to be outfitted to every single personality type, in proportion to their abilities.

You can’t know exactly how you need to apply mindfulness, unless you go back to the source.

Give yourself the deeper understanding as I did, and these simple tools will rejuvenate your whole inner world.

Kaya: Mindfulness Stabilized in the Body

In Sanskrit, each syllable carries deep meaning. The word for the most fundamental type of mindfulness is called kayanupassana:

• ka connotes space
• ya means to move
• kaya is what moves through space (your body)
• anu means alongside
• passana means observing

This meaning of this word is literally to observe and follow along with the body and what it’s doing.

Is what you’re doing beneficial to you in the long run, or a mindless habit like endless scrolling?

Simply following the physicality of your breath can act as the rope you need to stabilize and habituate you into this current of knowing.

We ground ourselves in presence here, rather than get caught in fantasy.

We slow ourselves enough to process experience, rather than getting drowned by it.

Vedana: Mindfulness Aware of Sensations

If we attend to our bodies long enough, we notice our feelings and sensations are what matter most to us — we react to them almost constantly.

The word vedana means sensation, and veda itself means knowledge.

How do we take in knowledge from the outside world? By the sensations we perceive.

This level of mindfulness is about introducing a sense of equal-mindedness toward what we feel. We put distance between outer events & inner reactions.

We stabilize, calm, and slow enough to respond thoughtfully, rather than react mindlessly.

If you do this long enough, you realize that all feelings and subtle sensations are produced in part by your mind, as Buddhist psychology has discovered.

Citta: Mindfulness Observing the Mind

The word chitta means “mind-stuff.” This is the space of the mind and the mental phenomena arising within it.

This level of mindfulness is about looking at what’s going on without getting involved.

You put distance between you (awareness) and the object of observation (passing emotions, thoughts, ideas, memories).

You don’t get caught by their emotionally-charged hooks.

You release your grasping, because detachment becomes infinitely more valuable than fusing with them unconsciously.

After practice, a scary revelation occurs. You’ve been seeing the contents of your mind as inherently real rather than simply as mental events!

Caught by one event after another, we’ve been spinning in a cycle of agitation. The simply act of being present with the temporary nature of these thoughts can shatter this pattern instantly.

You can taste freedom from self-perpetuated misery for the first time.

Dhamma: Mindfulness Discerning Cause and Effect

The word dhamma is used to describe reality — which is why the Buddha’s teachings, that which leads us to understand reality, are named after the same word.

This final level of mindfulness is about bringing a sense of illumination into your life.

You bring intelligent discernment into the emotions you were unknowingly feeding.

Awareness in Buddhism is defined as that which is luminous and cognizant by its own nature. Notice this dimension of yourself!

It can become the tool that clarifies the entire process of meditation.

You don’t identify and get bogged down with what’s temporary and ignorant, but rely on what is bright and discerning.

This, in the end, is the whole purpose of mindfulness — building up armor of all-embracing, luminous and attentive awareness.

Once we know what’s going on within us and why, we can then act on this knowledge.

Here’s why you need to re-think what you know.

‘Mindfulness’ is an English word. The original was smrtyupasthana, which means:

• smrti: to remember or to hold in mind.
• upa: presence, proximity, and nearness.
• sthana: a place; stability; to stay.

So these four are literally the bases where mindfulness is closely rooted & established for the sake of well-being.

Knowing this simple etymology makes the Buddha’s ideas come alive and speak to you in a way that no translation fully replicates! Deepening your understanding, your appreciation of these profound ideas naturally increases as you practice them.

With greater awareness of their preciousness and potential, we gain the inspiration to make use of them, along with all the opportunities in front of us.

I sincerely hope insights like these help you reach a greater and more lasting happiness.

ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः

May all experience happiness.