Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization
by Analayo
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Book Summary Information
Author: AnalayoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-01
ISBN: 1899579540
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
Book Reviews of Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization
Book Review: Most Certainly for the "Seeker"
Summary: 5 Stars
Two Part Response taken from comments on another post. My update on viewing the book first hand is in the second comment below.
I am responding to your comments directly as I have not read this particular book. Intelligent study, some of which can be at first appear to bind one more to thought processes, is very much a part of waking up in tandem with meditation. Contemporary emphasis on being in the "now" and other forms of neo-advaitan notions often enforces the idea that beingness and intellectual effort do not enhance one another.
Yet if the very idea of enlightenment is to be verified from one's own direct experience and awareness, a finely tuned discrimination of what constitutes the liberated, non-localized observant self that operates through your existent self and notates what is real and what is not will be required. Said more simply, you usually need guidance in order to know what is pure mind essence and what is just phenomena. Since the ultimate realization beyond Alaya consciousness is unstained by thought and unchanging, the many stages of enlightenment to be climbed towards that rare attainment require increasing stages of discernment so the one who cultivates has the wisdom to let go of what is merely another stage of conception, no matter how refined it may be.
What does this have to do with the ordinary cultivator you might ask? On one hand, not much in the sense most don't get far enough to be concerned with refining higher stages of enlightenment. On the other hand, it is of the ultimate importance that "seekers", particularly Westerners, develop proper view as soon as they can on the path.
And the view I speak of is the basic knowledge that all form, be it ideas, sensation, phenomena, experience are merely bridges to the formless and the sooner one realizes this as they cultivate, the easier it will be to let go and progress to higher stages with less of the oh so common dawdling with the chakras, esoterica of the energies and other aspects of life that exist, but themselves are merely phenomena and not the source of all being. Feeling things does not lead to enlightenment. Wisdom does. And for this reason, engaging the mind so that it begins to identify its contents and separates them and dissolves them. Without meditation it becomes ridiculous and academic and useless. But meditation without study and thought leads to deadness of the spirit no matter how groovy you feel about your energy states. Awakening to the mind that is all takes you on a journey through your mind. No reason to fear using it as you let it go.
The greatest masters, as in the Lord Buddha himself, were diligent in their excavation of the recesses of the mind and their explorations on how to identify its workings so you may free yourself of bondage to false thinking and attachment to the myriad worlds it produces. Buddhas still think of course, yet they are no longer generating karmic debts from their purified mind stream and can apply their power of thought to good deeds. So often now you have people seeking masters as "gurus" and surrendering their reason in some longing for a devotional relationship. We all want to belong to something, but how many want to belong to the All that is empty and has no trace of our personal identity? How many gurus preach meditation + studious thought? Some do. Some may fear for their follower's attachment to independence and self-individuation and wish to calm their minds before engaging the thinking function too rigorously.
But in the end it is up to you and you alone and the mind must be understood. Some will accomplish it without studying the ancient sutras, but few will go very far beyond low level attainments without them. I will pick up this book and see if your critique of its being inappropriately dense and irrelevant is true. Good luck in your own efforts.
One week later:
Updating - Received the book several days ago. Have given it a fast scan and read sections to get the feel for the text, its intent and quality. It is quite valuable already in its extremely clear demarcation of the stepping up and stepping down one encounters in moving through the dhyanas. It is absolutely a text for a "seeker", a term I use in response without any bias.
As a side note, it is very popular these days to blithely say the problem is in the seeking when in fact determination and will to generate the bliss states and realization of emptiness is the stone cold requirement for liberation. Ease of spirit allows that effort to transform and alchemize, but ease alone and simply being in the "Now" (another illusion) does not pierce the veil of mind obscurations.
Anyway, this text is deeply realized and extremely articulate and jammed full of highly applicable strategies you can experiment with in your practice. It simply is not for the seeker or commentator here who dismissed it as academic tripe, but their preference (which is all it was) in no way disqualifies this book as being a serious aid to the regular and committed meditator who wishes to explore and deconstruct their elemental stages of being with the goal of purification and awakening. All the best.
Summary of Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization
?Surely destined to become the classic commentary on the Satipatthana? ?Christopher Titmuss Now in its second printing!
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