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The input provided by sampajaa , clearly knowing, could be illustrated with the example of yeast, due to which the dough of mindfulness practice can grow into the bread of liberating insight.

Without yeast, the dough will result only in flatbread.

Yeast on its own, however, will not be nourishing at all.

It is when the cultivation of mindfulness comes in combination with the right amount of the yeast of clearly knowing that the tasty and nourishing bread of insight will result.

Regarding the role of concepts, it also needs to be kept in mind that a distinction between concepts and ultimate realities is not found in the early Buddhist discourses.

For those who practise according to the methodology of the Theravda commentarial tradition, this distinction is of considerable importance and has its practical benefits.

However, for the type of practice that present here, it would be helpful to set aside this mode of thinking.

In the early discourses, tranquillity and insight are not distinguished according to whether our meditation object is a concept or an ultimate reality.

Some practices can emphasize one or the other of these two, and with still others tranquillity and insight can be cultivated in conjunction.

The only ultimate reality recognized in early Buddhism is Nibbna.

This is the one experience where concepts indeed do not have a place.

For the path leading up to this culmination point in the experience of Nibbna, however, concepts are useful tools.

The need for concepts is also to some degree implicit in a passage in the Mahnidna-sutta , which describes experience as involving a relationship of reciprocal conditioning between consciousness and name-and-form.

Here name stands for those mental activities responsible for conceptual designation and form for the experience of matter by way of resistance.

Both together are known by consciousness.

From the viewpoint of early Buddhist epistemology, insight into matter cannot take place without name, without at least a minimal input of concept.

Only dead matter impinging on dead matter will be free from concepts.

But for us to cultivate insight into the true nature of material phenomena, some form of contact by way of designation is required.

In the case of contemplation of the body as the first satipahna , for example, the task is not to break through to an ultimately true experience of the body that leaves behind all concepts.

Instead, the task is to see through deluding concepts with the help of wise concepts.

This takes place by cultivating clearly knowing in conjunction with mindfulness.

In short, not only can early Buddhist mindfulness coexist with the use of concepts, satipahna meditation even has to employ concepts in order to lead to liberation.

Another significant aspect of mindfulness is what like to refer to as breadth of mind.

This type of open receptivity can be illustrated with the help of the cowherd simile found in the Dvedhvitakka-sutta.

This simile describes a cowherd in ancient India in two situations.

The cowherd has to watch over the cows with close vigilance to prevent them from straying into and feasting on the ripe crops.

Once the crops have been harvested, however, the cowherd can relax and just observe the cows from a distance.

All he has to do is to be aware that there are the cows.

For this distant watching the simile uses the term sati.

picture the cowherd sitting relaxed at the root of a tree and watching the cows grazing in various places.

All he has to do is just be aware of them from an uninvolved distance.

Needless to say, the cowherd will not get awakened by just being aware of the cows.

More than just being mindful is required for that.

This is precisely where clearly knowing, sampajaa , comes in to plant the seeds of wisdom in the fertile soil of mindful observation.

In terms of my earlier simile, without the yeast of clearly knowing, the dough of mindfulness practice will result only in flatbread.

Although the cowherd lacks the crucial wisdom part, observing the cows from a distance is nevertheless a good illustration of the receptivity and breadth of mind that consider to be an important dimension of mindfulness.

The cowherd simile is not alone in conveying this sense.

Another relevant discourse is the Mahtahsakhaya-sutta , which relates a narrow state of mind to being without mindfulness of the body.

However, a state of mind that is broad, even boundless, comes with mindfulness of the body established.

Here the presence of mindfulness of the body clearly relates to a broad state of mind.

The importance of this breadth of mind lies in the comprehensiveness of vision that results from such an open-minded attitude.

This is somewhat like taking a picture with a wide-angle lens.

Such wide-angle openness allows mental space for differences to exist side by side.

The resultant mental spaciousness stands in contrast to the narrow-mindedness of being firmly convinced that our particular view or understanding is the only right one.

This does not mean that we are no longer entitled to have an opinion.

It does mean, however, that our personal opinions are seen for what they are just opinions, which may or may not be correct.

We learn to allow space for diversity to unfold without suppression or negativity.

With a bit of mindful observation, we can in fact easily notice how spacious and allowing the mind can be when we are open to differences and variety, and how narrow and cramped the mind can become when we are self-righteous and judgemental.

It is a common experience that mindfulness is lost and the mind succumbs to some sort of distraction or fantasy.

The challenge here is to find an anchor that supports the continuity of mindfulness without losing the qualities of open-mindedness and receptivity.

In other words, the anchor should be established without introducing too strong a focus and without too much of an interfering and controlling attitude.

In simple terms, mindfulness of the body means a form of mindfulness that in one way or another relates to aspects of the body or to the body as a whole.

Needless to say, both modes are interrelated.

Becoming aware of parts of the body strengthens whole-body awareness, just as awareness of the whole body easily leads over to awareness of its different parts.

Given the need to avoid too strong a focus, however, the mode of mindfulness of the body that recommends itself for serving as an anchor is awareness of the whole physical body.

Mindfulness of the whole body can be related to two contemplations in the Satipahna - sutta , which describe being aware of the bodily postures and clearly knowing bodily activities.

The instructions for the first of these two are as follows When walking, one knows am walking or when standing, one knows am standing or when sitting, one knows am sitting or when lying down, one knows am lying down or, however the body is disposed, one knows it accordingly.

The passage is not about performing any of these postures in a special way, such as doing slow-motion walking meditation, but just about knowing the postures of the body as they occur naturally.

To my mind this conveys the sense of a continuity of awareness of the body combined with clearly knowing its posture.

It is something natural and without artificiality in fact the naturalness helps to avoid going into autopilot mode.

This can easily happen when we train ourselves to do something invariably in a particular manner.

Natural walking is also what would recommend for walking meditation by way of just resting in whole-body awareness during the walking process.

When walking, we just walk with our whole being.

The ability to know if the body is in one of these four postures relies on what clinical psychology calls proprioceptive awareness.

The term proprioception refers to the ability to sense the position of the body and its movements.

Even with closed eyes we are able to know the position of our body through this type of ability.

It is a felt sense of physical presence.

This felt physical presence provides an easily available sense of here, and mindfulness itself keeps us in the now.

In this way mindfulness of the body can combine spatial and temporal dimensions that facilitate our being fully in the here and now.

During normal daily life this felt sense of physical presence is usually not noticed.

It quickly comes to the forefront of attention, however, when bodily balance is lost.

Meditative cultivation of this felt sense of physical presence can take place by being aware of the body in any posture.

This requires allowing this natural ability of proprioceptive awareness to become a recognized aspect of our experience.

In this way neither is it ignored, as usually, nor does it take up the whole field of attention, as is the case when a loss of bodily balance occurs.

The phrase tend to use to introduce the flavour of this practice is We are aware of the body in the sitting posture and we let the mind rest on the body just as the body rests on the cushion.

Properly cultivated, such mindfulness of the body results in a sense of being firmly grounded in the body it is an embodied awareness.

Such embodied awareness does not need to interfere with other tasks and activities.

The natural tendency of the mind is either to focus or to ignore.

Proprioceptive awareness can be employed to cultivate a middle path between these two extremes.

Once the centring and balancing potential of mindfulness of the body has become a matter of personal experience, it becomes easier to return to the body even amidst the most challenging situations.

The body is always there, wherefore turning mindfulness towards it can serve almost like a portable meditation device, ready at hand in any situation.

All it takes is to become aware of some part of the body and from that entry door to allow mindfulness to encompass the whole body, enabling the mind to rest in that encompassing awareness as its reference point.

This in itself simple act of turning with awareness to the presence of the body can transform the most boring types of situation into opportunities for practice.

Caught up in a traffic jam, sitting in the doctors waiting room, standing in a long queue at passport control, any such setting can be transformed by embodied mindfulness.

Advantages of cultivating this middle path are stability and continuity of mindfulness.

It enables bridging the gap between formal meditation during a retreat or sitting period and everyday activities.

For meditation practice to flourish truly, formal sitting and everyday life have to evolve into an integrated whole, each supporting the other.

This can be achieved by finding a way of maintaining the presence of mindfulness, regardless of what needs to be done.

When outer circumstances make continuity of mindfulness difficult, it can be helpful to use a phrase from the part of the Satipahna - sutta call the refrain.

The relevant part reads mindfulness is established that there is the body.

Just bringing to mind this phrase there is the body can help to re-establish mindfulness of the body and to support its continuity.

The same type of phrase can also be used for the domains of the other satipahna s.

If the situation at hand gives rise to prominent feelings, for example, the mental phrase to be used could be there is feeling, atthi vedan.

good way to get a practical sense of what it means to cultivate such an embodied awareness would be taking a walk in a forest.

Walking in the forest, can we just walk in the forest Is it possible to be fully with the present moment of walking For the time being, can we leave behind all our concerns and duties, our roles and identities, as well as the ever-active mental commentator within When walking in the forest, can we just know that we are walking Based on the resultant rootedness in the act of walking, can we allow the mind to be wide open and receptive to the beauty of nature around us Establishing continuity of awareness in the four postures builds the foundation for the next exercise described in the Satipahna - sutta , which is clearly knowing in relation to various bodily activities.

The same quality also occurs in the part of the discourse that like to call the definition.

In that context, clearly knowing seems to have a more specific purpose, which understand to be in particular to serve as a reminder of the changing nature of all aspects of experience.

In terms of my earlier simile, the clearly knowing mentioned in the definition is the yeast required for the bread of insight.

The instructions in the Satipahna-sutta for the type of clearly knowing that is relevant to various bodily activities proceed as follows When going forward and returning one acts clearly knowing when looking ahead and looking away one acts clearly knowing when flexing and extending one acts clearly knowing when wearing the outer robe and robes and the bowl one acts clearly knowing when eating, drinking, consuming food, and tasting one acts clearly knowing when defecating and urinating one acts clearly knowing when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent one acts clearly knowing.

Aspects of this description relate in particular to the lifestyle of a monastic.