Shared and specific characteristics

• Pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings
• Six consciousnesses
• Mental factors and other types of phenomena
• Four conceptual errors in relation to self and four objects of mindfulness
• How constructive or destructive actions come about based on body, feelings, mind and phenomena
• How each of the four objects of mindfulness is related in particular to one of the four distorted conceptions
• Meditating on mindfulness of body and feelings to counteract preoccupation with this life
• Four truths in relation to each of the four objects of mindfulness

99 Shared and Specific Characteristics (download)

Contemplation points

1. Make examples of the internal, external, and both internal and external for each of the Four Establishments of Mindfulness: body, feelings, mind and phenomena.
2. Investigate assumptions in your mind that may be so habitual you don’t recognize them. Identify in your experience these four conceptual errors:
   • Conceiving our body to be the residence of place where the self resides;
   • Conceiving our feelings to be what the self enjoys and experiences;
   • Conceiving our mind to be a real self;
   • Conceiving phenomena as what makes the self afflictive or worthwhile.
3. How do these four (mind, feelings, mind, and phenomena) influence your actions? Make examples from your own life. How might being more attentive to these be of benefit to your life and how you interact with the world?
4. Contemplate the relationship between mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of the mind, and mindfulness of phenomena and the four truths. Why is mindfulness of the body correlated with true dukkha, mindfulness of feelings with true origins, mindfulness of the mind with true cessation, and mindfulness of phenomena with true paths?
5. Why is mindfulness of all four objects important?
6. Using the chart from the text (The Objects of Mindfulness, Distorted Conceptions, and Truths), create your own meditations on the four establishments of mindfulness. Please pause after each section, write out the steps of each meditation, and then guide yourself in doing the meditation.