Four Element Meditation
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Four Element Meditation Bhikkhu Anālayo 1 Accepted: 22 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract One of the mindfulness exercises described in the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta and its parallels concerns the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, which stand representative of the qualities of solidity, cohesion, temperature, and motion. Within the ancient Indian setting, the early Buddhist analysis of matter into these four elements can be seen to eschew the two extremes of materialist annihilationism and eternalism; closer inspection also shows that the employment of these elements does not reflect the influence of Brahminical cosmology, as assumed by Alexander Wynne. The ultimate concern of mindful contemplation of the elements is their transcendence, which is to be achieved through cultivating liberating insight into their impermanent and empty nature. Keywords Contemplation of the body . Four elements . Materialism . Not self . satipaṭṭhāna Ancient Indian thought conceived of matter as made up of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. A comparable approach can also be found in preSocratic Greece, as Empedocles is known for having developed such a scheme (Wright 1997, pp. 178–184). This model laid an important foundation for the development of natural sciences in the West. A specific early Buddhist contribution to the fourelement scheme lies in relating it to mindfulness meditation by way of an analytical approach to the subjective dimension of experience.
Instructions for Mindfulness of the Elements In the Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta and its parallels, instructions on how to relate mindfulness to the four elements form part of the description of contemplation of the body, the first of the four establishments of mindfulness. The relevant instructions proceed as follows: One examines this same body, however it is placed, however it is disposed, by way of the elements: “In this body there are the earth element, the water element, the fire element, and the wind element.”
* Bhikkhu Anālayo [email protected] 1
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 149 Lockwood Road, Barre, MA 01005, USA
(MN 10: imam eva kāyaṃ yathāṭhitaṃ yathāpaṇihitaṃ dhātuso paccavekkhati: atthi imasmiṃ kāye paṭhavīdhātu āpodhātu tejodhātu vāyodhātū ti). One contemplates the body’s elements: “Within this body of mine there are the earth element, the water element, the fire element, the wind element, the space element, and the consciousness element.” (MĀ 98: 觀身諸界: 我此身中有地界, 水界, 火界, 風界, 空 界, 識界). One contemplates [reflecting]: “Are there in this body the earth element, the water [element], the fire [element], and the wind element?” (EĀ 12.1: 觀此身有地種耶, 水, 火, 風種耶). A significant difference occurs in the second of these three versions, stemming from the Madhyama-āgama, which in addition to the four elements mentions space and consciousness. The last is clearly a misfit in the present context (Anālayo 2013b), which is concerned with contemplation of the body as distinct fr
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