I.- INTRODUCTION
The Four Foundations Of Establishing Awareness Meditation (FFOEA) is also called: "Insight Meditation " or "Vipassana Meditation". The purpose of the meditation is to establish the continual presence of "bare awarenss" in the mind.
What is the purpose of establishing the continual presence of bare awareness in the mind?
This boundless marvelous nature carries signals to transfer the awareness from one creature to another. Awareness in nature is bare as it is: it will be named as "bare awareness". Upon coming to a sense organ of a creature, the signal becomes an object of the sense organ and the being aware of the object occurs (consciousness). Signals from sense organs will activate different parts of the being's brain controlling thoughts, memories, and feelings. The arising of these brain activities exert influence on the knowing process and season it with the sense of self. The outcome of this process is called "mental formation awareness". Based on the mental formation awareness, all the mental activities will be going on on the worldly eightfold paths: gain and loss, praise and criticism, fame and disrepute, happiness and unhappiness. In the process of FFOEA meditation practice, an object is chosen and continually recognized and observed during the meditation time: Being aware of the coming of the chosen object is called right mindfulness; the intention to keep being aware and observing of the chosen object continually is called right effort. Right mindfulness and right effort will induce the establishment of the permanent presence of the bare awareness that has the ability to recognize and observe the rising thoughts, memories, feelings. Bare awareness will navigate the mind and becomes the standpoint for all mental activities which follow the Noble Eightfold Paths: right mindfulness, right effort, right contemplation, right view, right concentration, right attitude …. Everything is right. With its nonself characteristic as an observer, bare awareness will uncover the nonself characteristic of the coming objects.
What are the four foundations? The four foundations are the body foundation, the feeling foundation, the mind foundation, and the dharma foundation.
What are the five aggregates?
The five aggregates are the body, feeling, memory, thinking, and consciousness that unite together to form a human being.
The body stands for one of the four foundations: body foundation.
the feelings stand for one foundation: feeling foundation.
Consciousness, memories, and thinkings stand for one foundation: mind foundation.
These three foundations encompass everything related to a human being's body, human being's body activities, and mental activities.
The fourth foundation: the dharma foundation. The term "dharma" describes all phenomena, cosmic laws, and orders, as well as all the teachings of the Buddha.
Recognize, observe, contemplate objects from the four foundations, over time, will shed the light to the darkness of ignorance of the self and nature.
Two standpoints experienced in meditation practice used for this writing.
1.- This is the four foundations of establishing awareness meditation. Upon the arising of an object from one foundation, the other objects related to the just arising object, from other foundations will concomitantly arise. After achieving the preparatory steps, meditator may recognize and observe the prominent coming object instead of focusing on any prechosen object. The bare awareness will work with the right effort and right contemplation to understand the cause/opportunity/effect relationship between the arising of these objects.
2.- Recognize/ observe/contemplate objects
from four foundations will shed light on the
ignorance of the five aggregates: body, feeling,
memory thinking and consciousness then enhance
the insight of the ultimate characteristics of
a human being and nature.
Feelings greatly affect physical health and life quality of a human being. Unwilling persistence of annoying feelings such as fear, nervousness, anxiety, anger... will induce chemical imbalance in the body. The occurrence of these emotions on daily basis may result in physical illnesses.
Diligent practice of meditation on a long-term basis will enable the bare awareness to recognize, contemplate feelings as an object of observation and get out of their disturbing effects. This fruition of the Four Foundations of Establishing Awareness Meditation practice may be considered as a mechanism of action in alleviating signs/symptoms of some mental illnesses.
For the purpose of easy understanding, the knowing process of an object, for example, a bird singing in the image, is theoretically divided into two phases. The first phase, the Bare Awareness, also be called "Right Mindfulness" in dharma discussion language in English and "Chanh Niem" in the Vietnamese language.
Bare Awareness is the fundamental stone in building the Dharma Paths of the "Four Foundations Of Establishing Awareness Meditation that opens the door to the enlightenment and liberation.( Image 1)
In an unskillful human being, the Bare Awareness is unrecognized, almost covered by the simultaneously arising of the mental formation awareness.
In the absence of the Bare Awareness, the mental formation awareness will unconsciously take over the jobs of recognizing and observing the object performed in the Four Foundations of Establishing Awareness Meditation. Feelings, memories, conditioned and conventional mental activities will affect the final results of the observation process. The ultimate characteristics of the objects continue to be covered, ignorance continues to dominate the mind, meditation performance does not progress.(Image 2)
II.- THE FOUR FOUNDATIONS OF ESTABLISHING AWARENESS MEDITATION
PREPARATORY STEPS
Preparatory Step 1A: Start to establish bare awareness in the mind
The purpose of this step is to help meditation beginner to experience the being aware and the present moment. The present moment is the moment the being aware occurs.
By focusing the attention to recognize a chosen meditation object, to recognize the being aware and the present moment; over months or years of practicing, the bare awareness will be unexpectedly continually present in the mind.
Be patient to diligently practice this key step over years.
Preparatory Step 1B
Practice recognizing objects coming from other sense organs: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch
Preparatory step 2A
The presence of Bare Awareness starts becoming more and more stable in the mind after months/years of diligent practice of preparatory step1. Move on to practice to recognize objects coming from mind foundation: the rising thoughts and memories.
Upon the arising of a thought/memory, there are two possible scenarios that can happen in the mind.
Scenario 1: Bare Awareness is stably present to recognize the rising thoughts/ memories that then gradually passe away.
Scenario 2: Bare Awareness, not stable enough, is going to be covered up by the rising thoughts/memories that immediately govern the mind and the process of thinking/recalling will going on.
Preparatory Step 2B
Practice recognizing the arising of intentions to perform body or part of body movements simultaneously with observing the movements.
In order to keep being mindful continuously in daily life, a human being must be aware not only of the arising of thoughts, memories but also of all motion intentions and the movements of body/body parts.
Recognizing the intentions and observing the body/body part motions may gradually induce the deep understanding of the cause/opportunity/effect law and gradually induce a non-self experience in meditator's mind.
Preparatory Step 3
Practice recognizing the infiltration of feelings into the mind.
Feelings: like, dislike, anger, anxiety, fear ...diffuse in the mind, disturb the easy feelings of the mind and are difficult to recognize/observe. A long period of diligent practice is required to activate a deep understanding that the uneasy feeling in the mind is only a mental formation and is the object of observation. The deep understanding will help to control the feelings. This fruition may be used as a mechanism of action for the Four Foundations of Establishing Awareness Meditation to alleviate some frequently seen symptoms in mentally ill patients.
Meditator is able to recognize all objects from the four foundations coming in contact with the Bare Awareness. Meditator also acquires the ability to apply the right contemplation to understand the governing of the cause and effect, the opportunity and the karma on all mind reactions, attitude, behaviors and body activities of a being/human being.
The preparatory steps are now completed
III.-THE PRACTICE OF THE FOUR FOUNDATIONS OF ESTABLISHING AWARENESS MEDITATION IS NOW STARTED
WELCOME ABOARD
Coming up to this step, meditation practice is deeply bound to and becoming the goal of meditator's life.
Just letting go all the above instructions simply because they are already implanted in the mind, they became practitioner's karma, they will arise whenever cause/effect/ opportunities are met.
With the establishment of Bare Awareness and Right View, the Noble Eightfold Paths will gradually take place the worldly paths.
A vague feeling of being liberated starts infiltrating the mind.
With years of diligent practice, two experiences gradually infiltrate into the mind:
The rising/ falling of the mental formation objects (Sankara) and
The permanence experience of the Bare Awareness as a fundamental structure of the mind.
Feelings greatly affect physical health and quality of life of a human being. Unwilling persistence of annoying feelings such as fear, nervousness, anxiety, anger... will induce chemical imbalance in the body. The occurrence of these emotions on daily basis may result in physical illnesses.
Diligent practice of meditation on a long-term basis will enable the bare awareness to recognize and contemplate the feelings as an object of observation and to get out of the disturbing effects of the feelings. This fruition of the Four Foundations of Establishing Awareness Meditation practice may be considered as a mechanism of action in the treatment of some mental illnesses.