VICTORIA IMS – STUDY GROUP NOTES from Heather Martin
Summer 2014
For these next four months: June, July, August and September, we will be studying
The Four (material) Elements:
- Earth, Water, Fire, Air/Wind.
Their characteristics;
how we experience them in our bodies,
the world around us, and
how they manifest in our minds – attitudes – behaviours.
To put this in context:
In the Satipatthana sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness – the Buddha’s most detailed instructions for meditation training, the first Foundation is the Mindfulness of the Body. In this section there are 7 ways to contemplate the Body, the 6th being reflection on the Anatomical parts and the Elements.
Bhikkhu Analayo – author of the book: Satipatthana, writes:
“ The aim of the exercise is to undermine the perception of the body as a compact and discrete unit, thereby deconstructing the solid sense of “I” that can so easily arise in regard to one’s own body.”
And in the Buddha’s words, referring to the body: “It is not mine; I am not part of it; and it is not (my) self.”
Always with the aim of liberation from struggle and suffering, we learn a degree of dis-idification and thus detachment from the conventional view of ME, My Body, My thoughts etc. by these contemplations.
Keeping this in mind, see how your experience of the various physical Elements affects your attitude as you live those many moments through the days of your life.
My recommendation is that you structure your studies yourself, taking as your main contemplation one of these elements in both their inner and outward manifestation, per month over the summer.
On Sunday, June 1 at our Study Group meeting, we explored and discussed
the first element: EARTH.
Here are some of the characteristics we outlined and shared:
Material/Physical |
Human character |
Excess |
| Hard Solid Bulk | Fixed | |
| Heavy | Stuck | |
| Dense | Stubborn | |
| Strong | Strong | Dull |
| Stable | Committed, Reliable | Bigoted |
| Unchanging (v.slowly) | Trustworthy, Safe | Closed |
| Ground | Grounded, centered Balanced/Equanamous |
|
| Stuck-in-the-mud |
Stones and their meaning in human life:
Standing stones – ancient memorials – eg signifying the birth, enlightenment and death places of the Buddha, erected by King Ashoka – the converted monarch who lived in the same lands some 400 years after the Buddha. Stone circles – oldest symbolic ceremonial sites of northern Europe.
Foundation Stone of house / building
Grinding stones – ancient tool for providing most basic food of civilized human: bread. (A millstone round one’s neck).
Retaining walls, Sandbags to ward off floods.
Experience of Earth element in our own bodies:
1. Materially
Teeth: gnash them, grind them. Bang them together.
Nails – feel them (eyes closed), prizing open something, scratching – claws, talons, beaks.
Head/skull – knock it, feel it – all hard except for cheeks.
Thighs, Pelvis – our biggest bones.
2. Energetically
Heaviness, pressure, gravity.
Discomfort under seat w/o padding on hard surface. Sagging shoulders. Stooping / Drooping body with aging.
Slowing down. Flopping down when tired, sick.
3. Mentally
Dullness, sinking mind (meditating after lunch)
Stuck, fixed views and opinions. Narrow mindedness.
Closed mind – lack of flexibility and creativity.
Resistant: perhaps out of fear, or from unquestioning.
It is a fascinating exploration, and will reveal much about ourselves and how we are in our lives.
Practice suggestions:
Give your attention, while sitting in meditation, to the bulk, weight, pressure of your body on the seat. Aware of Earth’s gravitational pull on your heavy body. Tune in to the pelvis and thighs particularly. Move your attention around the body, attending to the boney structure, the hard head, the teeth, nails etc.
It’s quiet and slow to notice this aspect of your physical make-up. Grounding. Calming. Steadying.
When you walk around, bring your attention into the depth of your body – the pelvis and feel yourself grounded as you walk and move about: connected to the earth through your feet. Aware of the connecting places where your feet touch the earth – the kind of earth you are on, how hard, even, soft etc. it is.
Pay attention to the structure of your and other people’s bodies. The length of their legs. Imagine them as skeletons balancing the head on top, bones swinging from joints . . .Play with this reflection and be creative.
Then reflect on the mental and energetic characteristics of earth element, and watch yourself experiencing being grounded, calm, solid, truthful and even stubborn etc. etc. Conservatism to the point of resistant to the changes etc.
See what you discover. Perhaps make some journal entries when you notice something previously unrealized.
Reference materials:
Satipatthana: The direct path to realization by Analayo. Chapter VI section 6.
Some of you will have this as we studied a number of years ago.
Majjhima Nikaya Sutta 62 The Greater Discourse of Advice to Rahula (The Buddha’s little son).
Dharmaseed:
Contemplating the Body as The Four Elements by Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia.
Comtemplation on the Four Great Elements, by Ayya Khema.
Enjoy this exploration, and please keep in mind that we are intending to take apart what we usually put together – I, ME MINE.
We’ll move to the next element in July. I’ll send out some notes at the beginning of the month.
Many blessings,
Heather