Observation of Different Parts of the Body | Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh (EN subtitles)

Now we move on to the next passage.

"Further, the practitioner meditates on their
very own body from the soles of the feet upwards

"and then from the hair on top of the head downwards,

"a body contained inside the skin and full of
all the impurities which belong to the body:

" ‘Here is the hair of the head,
the hairs on the body, the nails, teeth,

"skin, flesh, sinews, bones,
bone marrow, kidneys, heart,

"liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines,
bowels, excrement, bile, phlegm, pus,

"blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease,
saliva, mucus, synovial fluid, urine.’"

This is the fourth part, called...

well...

We call this fourth part, "parts of the body."

In Plum Village, we usually
practice this passage of this sutra

when we are...

lying down, when we're doing deep or total relaxation.

When we're doing total relaxation,

we practice following our breath,

paying attention to different parts of the body,
and recognizing them one by one.

From the hair on top of the head

to the toe nails.

We have to go from the top of the head downwards.

Whichever part of the body we go to,
we bring our awareness to it and recognize it.

Over 30 parts of the body have been
listed out in the sutra very clearly.

And the Buddha has helped bring this home
to us with an example.

He says,

there's a...

there's a farmer. He climbs up...

an attic and hauls down a bag
containing a variety of grains.

And he opens that bag of grains

and lets all the grains

spill out

on the floor.

Because they have good eyesight,
they can tell, "These are mung beans,

"these are lima beans,

"these are rough rice grains,

"this is red rice,

"these are sesame seeds,

"this is white rice, etc."

So when we lie down or sit down in total relaxation,

our body becomes a bag of grains.

With full awareness we know that,
"Here is the hair of the head,

"here are the eyelashes, here are the ears,
here are the eyes, here is the nose,

"here is excrement, here is urine, here are lungs,
here is the heart, here is the liver."

And we use our mind consciousness,
we use our mindful awareness,

to recognize the different parts of the body,

the different elements of the body.

We gradually approach and befriend these different
parts of the body, hugging them with our awareness.

Because in our daily life

we've been a complete stranger to our body.

We have to come back to refamiliarize with the body,

embrace the body with a loving awareness, accept
the body as it is, and become one with our body.

This is a very important practice of making peace.

Let's read out that passage.

"Bhikkhus, imagine a sack containing a variety of grains

"— like brown rice,

"red rice,

"rough rice grains,

"mung beans,

"lima beans,

"sesame seeds,

"white rice —

"which can be opened at both ends.

"When someone with good eyesight opens the bags,
they'll be able to see different types of grains

"in the bag.

" ‘This is brown rice, red rice,

"these are rough rice grains,
these are mung beans,

"these are lima beans,

"these are sesame seeds,

"this is white rice.’

"Just so when mindfully observing
the whole of their body,

"the practitioner passes in review everything from the
soles of the feet to the hair on the top of the head,

"and from the hair on the top of the head
to the soles of the feet,

"a body enclosed in a layer of skin
and full of...

"all the impurities which belong to the body:

" ‘Here is the hair of the head,
the hairs on the body,

"nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews,
bones, bone marrow,

"kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen,

"lungs, intestines, bowels,
excrement, bile, phlegm,

"pus, blood, sweat, fat,
tears, grease, saliva,

"mucus, synovial fluid, urine.’"

There's one thing we need to recognize,

that is...

the words "full of all the impurities."

In this passage,

the phrase "full of all the impurities"
is repeated twice.

And I believe that these words
have been added to the sutra later.

Sometimes, we study Buddhism
the way we study math.

We already know that the 4 areas of mindfulness
are the body,

the feelings,

the mind,

and then the dharmas—or the objects of mind.

When Thay was still a novice — a monk student,

Thay was taught the Discourse on Four Establishments
of Mindfulness in a very simple way.

And people grafted the teachings of
impermanence, non-self, and impurities

onto the Discourse of the Four
Establishments of Mindfulness.

We should note that the Four Establishments
of Mindfulness is a very special practice.

Four Establishments of Mindfulness means
using mindful awareness and observation

to merely recognize...

to merely recognize what is present in the moment.

Mindfulness means the ability to merely recognize
what is present in the moment.

At first, we only merely recognize without judgments.

From that mere recognition, we come to
a deeper understanding of such and such.

Back then at school, we were taught that, "Body...

"is impure.

"Feelings are suffering.

"Mind is impermanent.

And "Objects of mind are not
having separate self-entities."

And every novice monk and nun
was made to learn this by heart.

In Sino-Vietnamese, "Thân bất tịnh.
Thọ thị khổ. Tâm vô thường. Pháp vô ngã."

We had to learn this by heart
and recite it like a parrot.

"Body is impure. Feelings are suffering.
Mind is impermanent.

"Objects of mind are not
having separate self-entities."

With that, they label body...

a characteristic

i.e. "body is impure."

They label feelings

a characteristic called "suffering."

They label mind

a characteristic, which is "impermanent."

And they label...

objects of mind a characteristic

i.e. "not having separate self-entities."

Of course, these 4 teachings

are the Buddha's teachings, no mistake.

But grafting these 4 teachings onto these 4
(objects of mindfulness) makes it feel forced.

Take feelings.

Feelings are not just about suffering.

We have 3 kinds of feelings, don't we?

We have painful or unpleasant feelings.

There's also happy or pleasant feelings,
isn't there?

Besides these two, we also have neutral feelings.
They're called the 3 kinds of feelings.

So, why did they say "Feelings are suffering" only?

Is it...

dogmatic attitude,

forcing one thing on another?

If body is impure,

are dharmas also impure?

If dharmas are not having separate self-entities,

are body, feelings, and mind not
having separate self-entities?

Fact is, when speaking of being impure, suffering,
impermanent, not having separate self-entities

— body is impure, suffering, impermanent, and not
having a separate self-entity all at the same time.

The same with feelings.

That's why, using two bundles —
this is one bundle, and this is another bundle

— and merging them together this way
is not appropriate.

But all novice monks and nuns recited like a parrot,
"Body is impure. Feelings are suffering.

"Mind is impermanent. Objects of mind
are not having separate self-entities."

It becomes a formula.

Meanwhile, mindfulness...

means to merely recognize something without judgments.
You don't say it's this or that.

You recognize it just as it is first. Then,...

after merely recognizing things without judgments,
you look into things

and tell they are this or that.

We don't have to indoctrinate ourselves
first thing, that body has to be impure,

feelings have to be suffering,
mind has to be impermanent,

and objects of mind have to
be not having separate self-entities.

That's a way of indoctrination.

But that way of indoctrination,

over different times,

has gone straight into
the Buddha's teachings, the sutras.

Body can probably be impure.

But mindfulness of the body, first of all,

is to merely recognize the body,

and to merely recognize...

the different parts and elements of the body.

One merely recognizes without judgments first.

Then while merely recognizing it
and looking deeply into it,

it may then dawn on one
that there's impurities in it.

But we don't say the body as impure
first thing. That's indoctrination.

That's rigid dogma.

So they have added the words
"full of all the impurities"

with the good intention

of reminding people of the
Buddha's teaching on impurities.

But doing it this way is not appropriate.

That said, it doesn't mean that
we're teaching "body isn't impure."

But the discovery of body being impure should dawn
on one as a result of one's own work of deep looking.

It's not the result of dogmatism or...

an indoctrination.

Here, we don't talk about impermanence,
non-self, impurities, and suffering.

Here, we only talk about being fully aware and
merely recognizing the different elements of the body.

Hair on the head is just hair on the head.
Lungs are just lungs.

Blood is just blood.

Phlegm is just phlegm. That's all.
Why do you have to bring in the word "impure" here?

People studied sutras in such a dogmatic way,
in such a dogmatic spirit,

so they spoke too much about "suffering",
"non-self", "impermanence", and "impurities"

to the point that later some people retorted,

"No pure, no impure."

That's the Heart Sutra
(The Insight the Brings Us To The Other Shore).

In Sino-Vietnamese, "Bất cấu. Bất tịnh."
Indeed, reality transcends...

purity and impurity.

It transcends permanence and impermanence.

Being caught in purity is one kind of being caught.

And being caught in impurity
is also another kind of being caught.

That's why the Heart Sutra said,

the nature of emptiness of all phenomena,
all dharmas, is "no defilement no purity,"

"no birth no death", "no being no non-being",
"no increasing no decreasing."

So, this passage

is...

to help us

practice merely recognizing

different elements of the body.

And once or twice every day,

we can sit down or lie down,

follow our breathing,

and then come back to the body
in order to merely recognize the...

different parts of our body.

Over 30 things in total.

[Touching the bell]

[Bell]

In hospitals, they have a machine called a scanner.

And they put a patient through the scanner

so they can see clearly what's in the patient's body.

They use a beam of light...

a beam of light

to help people see clearly

what can't be seen in normal light
and with normal eyes.

The laser beam.

The practice offered by the Buddha here

applies...

a beam called the beam of mindfulness.

When we lie down or sit down,

we use that beam of mindfulness

to sweep from the top of the head
down to the soles of the feet.

Wherever the beam of mindfulness goes,
we can always recognize

the part or element of the body that it sweeps across.

So, we can call this method, this practice,

"body scanning"

in Buddhism.

Instead of using the laser beam,
we use the beam of mindfulness.

We allow the beam of mindfulness
to sweep across our body very slowly.

Wherever it goes, we're able to recognize
the part of body it is sweeping across.

Breathing in,

I'm fully aware of my two eyes.

Breathing out, I smile to my two eyes.

Breathing in, I'm fully aware of my heart.

Breathing out, I smile to my heart.

That's how we usually practice it.

We can practice in the position of sitting
or in the position of lying down.

When it's time to go to bed, if we have already lain
in bed but not slept yet, instead of ruminating...

on this or that, we practice relaxing with our
arms at our sides and come back to embrace

the different elements of our body.

We smile at them.

This way, the whole of our body
becomes calm and quiet.

We embrace the whole of our body
with full awareness.

This is such a wonderful practice

because...

thanks to this practice, we get to
come back to our body, befriend our body,

and give it our genuine care and love.

Because we've probably treated
our body quite badly.

All we care about is building fame
and acquiring wealth among other things.

We've been completely oblivious to our body.

We've shown no love to our body.

We've estranged our body.

That's why, we come back to our body,
embrace our body

show it our genuine love and tender care,
saying "I am my body."

"I am my body" can be seen as "identity view"
("thân kiến" in Vietnamese, or sakkayādiṭṭhi),

as a wrong view.

However, the body is part of being human.

A very important part, indeed.
That's why, coming back...

to see that the body is such
an intimate friend to us,

to make peace with our body,

and to take care of our body
is such an important practice.

It's even more so when, in our body, there are...

parts and elements suffering aches and pains.

We come back and we embrace such and such
a part of our body with mindful awareness.

We smile at it. We give it our
genuine care, love, and compassion.

With that, we can help that part
of the body to heal faster.

How have we treated our liver?

How have we treated our bile?

How have we treated our lungs?

We've actually treated these elements
of the body rather badly.

In what way have we eaten,
in what way have we drunk,

in what way have we, time after time, subjected
our liver, lungs, or heart to pain and suffering?

Now is the time to come back,

make peace,

and reconcile with these parts of the body.

Breathing in, I'm fully aware of my heart.

Breathing out, I smile to my heart.

That's within the spirit

of this passage in this sutra.

In Plum Village, we don't practice as individuals.

When we practice total relaxation,

or deep relaxation, we all lie down
and one person will guide us.

Breathing in,

I know that I'm breathing in.

Breathing out, I know that I'm breathing out.

Breathing in, I'm fully aware of my heart.
Breathing out, I smile to my heart.

We practice this as a community, as a sangha.

We come back to our body and
to the different parts of the body,

embracing them, and showing
our genuine care and love.

This way, we can...

help heal or support the healing of the pains,
aches, and illnesses going on in the body.

There are many more things about this passage
of the sutra that we can apply in our daily life.