I just read a thread about sati on another forum.
Here are some of the posts:
For example while sitting on a park bench each of the 5 senses make contact with the environment. The nature scenery, the bird songs, smell of the grass and earth, feeling the bench, tasting saliva… but there is a directed, pointed focus for a particular one of these; The bird song at the ear. When focusing specifically on that, it isn’t that my eyes no longer see the scenery, just that the details sort of fuzz out. Maybe with increased focus on the bird song, details about the sound become clearer while I do lose track of some other contacts like tasting saliva and smelling the earth.
So what functions are taking place here where there is a broad sati of a couple/few sense contacts along with a particular pointed and directed sati which can be placed here or there with intensity? I get the feeling one of these is sati and another is something else.
and
Sati is broad, sometimes we direct it by focusing on something in particular.
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This struck me as odd.
Sati is a conditioned element that can only arise when there are the right conditions. It is a kusala cetasika.
Also there is no one who directs sati to go here and there or focus… There is no one at all - sunnata.
It is true that we seem to have the capacity to concentrate on this or that. But concentration and attention - while also fully conditioned - can arise with akusala or kusala. It seems there is a manager who is directing these mental qualities but this is all a magicians trick. Concentration is, most of the time, rooted in lobha , which may not be obvious, and if there is not some understanding of this process one may easily mistake akusala citta, devoid of sati, with sati.
So what functions are taking place here where there is a broad sati of a couple/few sense contacts along with a particular pointed and directed sati which can be placed here or there with intensity? I get the feeling one of these is sati and another is something else.
Abhidhamma should inform our understanding of these matters. It should be understood that akusala is more common than kusala in a day. Akusala cittas can be very subtle. The idea of placing “sati here or there” is already a wrong idea.
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To the question of whether sati can be “broad or pointed”.
All cittas, and the associated cetasikas, mental factors, take only one object, very briefly and then fall away immediately.
However, due to continuity and the fact that this arising and falling is happening so fast, there is the idea of citta lasting for a few split seconds or longer.
Understanding Abhidhamma is vital in breaking down this apparent continuity - initially at the pariyatti level - so that what was thought to be a lasting situation can be seen as it is - as merely a stream of conditioned elements with no self or manager anywhere.
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