The Sutra
The Nature of the 32 Parts of the Body
Again, Bhikkhus, a bhikkhu reviews this same body up from the soles of the feet and down from the top of the hair, bounded by skin, as full as many kinds of impurity thus: “In this body there are:
- Hair on the head
- Hair on the body
- Nails
- Teeth
- Skin
- Flesh
- Tendons
- Bones
- Bone Marrow
- Kidneys
- Heart
- Liver
- Diaphragm
- Spleen
- Lungs
- Bowels (Sometimes referred to as Large Intestines)
- Stomach (Sometimes referred to as Small Intestines)
- Undigested Food
- Feces
- Brain
- Bile
- Phlegm
- Pus
- Blood
- Sweat
- Fat
- Tears
- Lymph
- Saliva
- Nasal Mucus
- Fluid(Oil) that Lubricates the Joints
- Urine
Just as though there were a bag with an opening at both ends full of many sorts of grain, such as hill rice, red rice, beans, peas, millet, and white rice, and a man with good eyes were to open it and review it thus: “This is hill rice, this is red rice, these are beans, these are peas, this is millet, this is white rice”; so too, a bhikkhu reviews this same body…as full of many kinds of impurity thus: “In this body there are head hairs…and urine.”
In this way he abides contemplating the body as a body internally, externally, and both internally and externally…And he abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. That too is how a bhikkhu abides contemplating the body as a body.
Commentary
First and foremost it needs to be said that we are not trying to create disgust or aversion towards the body. This actually happened in the Buddha’s time where monks followed this contemplation unskillfully and after getting disgusted with the body, they took their lives. This aversion to the body is practiced by some people today as a misguided attempt to end craving for sense pleasures. Sense pleasures aren’t the source of our suffering! I will repeat this: Sense pleasures aren’t the source of our suffering. Attachment to sense pleasures are the source of suffering.
The body is an incredible process in so many ways. We are meditating on the body to see that it is merely a conglomeration of parts. We look to see that each part is not me. If each part is not me, how can the grouping of parts we call a body be me?
When we mistake the conglomeration of parts as me we are creating the “concept “of a me. Does the concept exist? Of course it does! As a concept!
Second, in the sutra the body is said to be filled with many kinds of impurity. That is true – urine, feces, the contents of the stomach, and so forth are not things that we normally handle without noticing its unhygienic nature. This meditation is referred to as “going against the grain.” That is, going against the grain of how one usually looks at the body.
When we think of someone’s beautiful hair we rarely consider what it looks like when it’s dirty, or how we would react if we found a strand of their hair in our food. When we see a beautiful smile, we do not consider how the mouth smells when the teeth are not brushed or what the teeth look like when they are outside the person’s mouth. When we think of the skin, we do not reflect on what happens when the skin ages, or the odor that comes from the body when it isn’t washed.
When we think of the body overall, we do not consider what it looks like beneath the surface of the skin with the presence of bones, organs, blood, pus, urine, and feces. Here too we are not trying to create aversion to any of those body parts we are just trying to see the reality of the body. This being said, let’s explore the meaning of the sutra in more detail.
The body parts are listed as a sequence from the outer parts, through to the internal organs, and ultimately to the organic liquids. It is interesting to note that the brain was not originally listed in the sutra. We are not sure when it was added. Some say that it was possibly covered by the term bone marrow. The reason for the brain’s placement between feces and bile can only be conjectured. There is no certainty as to why the male or female sexual organs are absent from the list. It can possibly reflect wanting the same instructions to be appropriate to both male and female meditators, or that contemplating these parts can stimulate lust and sexual desire.
There are three main purposes for the contemplation on the body parts:
- To see that one’s own body or the bodies of others are not inherently attractive
- To break any attachment to the body
- To realize that the body is not “me “or “mine”
We want to observe the body with equanimity and to avoid the extremes of attachment, repression of feelings towards the body, or aversion. To help create that sense of objectivity, the Buddha gives the analogy of looking at the body as if we were looking at a bag filled with various types of grain.
Practices
The way the practices are typically explained is very complex, potentially confusing, and unrealistic to follow for most people. The traditional instructions include memorizing the various parts by reciting them in both forward and backwards order. That is accomplished by grouping the parts into sets, memorizing each set, and adding each new set to those already remembered.
The next step is to learn the color of each part, the shape of each part, the direction in the body where it is found (upper or lower), the exact location of the body part, the origin of each part, and exactly which body parts are surrounding it. (In the commentaries to the sutra this process is described in amazing detail.) The final step is to generate an impression of the reality of each body part (that each part lacks inherent beauty or self).
We will not be following this process. We will employ different techniques to work with the body to accomplish the same end of seeing the body as it really is.
There are two major defilements (afflictive emotions) in the human mind tied up with the body. The first is sensual attraction or grasping. It normally arises while attending to the body of others. The other defilement is conceit, which is usually bound up with one’s own body. It arises when one compares one’s own body with others to determine whether they are more attractive (which creates pride), less attractive (which creates sadness), or equally attractive as others (which is still a form of comparison or conceit).
The Following are the specific meditations to practice:
- First and foremost, please do not neglect your daily formal sitting (and possibly walking) practice. This is especially important as we move into material that the mind may have a significant resistance to looking at.
- There are a lot of meditations here. Please read them all to get a total picture of what you will be practicing over the time allotted for these meditations.
- The first meditation has six steps. Please do not move on to the next step until you have completed the one that proceeds it:
1) Memorize the first five parts of the body so it comes easily to the surface of your mind: hair on the head, hair on the body; nails; teeth; and skin. Memorize them so you can also repeat them in reverse order: skin; teeth, nails, hair on the body; and hair on the head.
2) Investigate each of these parts of your own body until you can objectively see what each one looks like. That means do not look at the body as a whole, but look separately at each of the five parts you just memorized.
Remove a hair from your head and one from your body and see how they look and even feel differently. Where is the beauty now? What would happen if you found one of these hairs in your food?
Take a nail clipping without polish and examine it. Is it beautiful? What would it be like to use someone’s bathroom and find nail clippings on the sink and floor?
Open your mouth and really look at one of your teeth. Is it beautiful when separated from a smile?
Finally either take a scraping of skin or look at a very isolated area of skin on your hand to see its true nature. What is beautiful about it?
Please remember that we are looking without aversion, without attachment, and without resistance. We are looking with spaciousness or equanimity.
3) Next, open to the realization that each of these body parts is no longer alive. The reason that you can cut your head hairs, body hairs, or nails, drill the outside of your tooth, or take scrapings from the top layer of skin without pain, is because they are already lifeless. In other words, all that we have conceit about, which we dress up, clean, style, cover, color, and perfume, are no longer alive. Allow this realization to move deeply into your consciousness.
4) Are any of these parts permanent? Can any of these parts provide lasting pleasure? Are any of these parts you or your self? If they were, wouldn’t you be less whole every time a hair was cut or a layer of skin was lost?
5) Look at yourself in the mirror. Can you face the fact that what you are seeing is not a self (or your self), but merely lifeless matter?
6) This final contemplation is “external.” This one is very tricky because if we are not truly mindful, if the mind gets carried away into its normal conditioned patterns of thinking, this contemplation can lead to the arising of lust.
Can you recognize that when you are looking at “someone else,” you are not seeing a self? Can you penetrate the conditioned illusion and see that the surface appearance (hair, skin, nails, and teeth) which normally attracts the mind is merely lifeless matter?
Friends, we are not saying that you need to walk around on a daily basis keeping these realizations in mind. However, during periods of intensive practice, we want to take the opportunity to see the true nature of the body.
Please remember the three purposes for the contemplation on the body parts:
- To see that one’s own body or the bodies of others are not inherently attractive (i.e., without the overlays of conditioned perceptions)
- To break any attachment to the body (which is the cause of much suffering)
- To realize that the body is not “me “or “mine” (to see its selflessness)
- The next meditation has us moving more deeply into the body to see its nature. It is to realize that the skin is covering up a skeleton – merely bones which are composed of tissue. This meditation will require a picture of a skeleton. One can be found at
www.bio.psu.edu/people/faculty/strauss/anatomy/skel/skeleton.htm
After printing it, you can use a copier to make the picture larger.
You may find a better one on the web. (If you had a model of a skeleton to work with that would be even better.) Print out the one you have chosen.
- Sit in your meditation posture. Look at the skeleton picture and at the same time feel the bones in your body to experience the skeleton that is beneath your own skin. Really move into the experience – feel the bone structure of your skull, your collar bones, your rib cage, and so forth. Realize that what you are experiencing by touching your
body is the same thing as what the picture is depicting.
- “Reflect” deeply to see whether this skeleton that you are
experiencing is permanent. Is this skeleton the source of lasting
pleasure? Is this skeleton your self? If one of the bones breaks, are you broken?
- Throughout the day, try to maintain the awareness that it is just the skeleton moving when you are moving, just the skeleton sitting when you are sitting, just the skeleton lifting when the hand or arm is lifted, just the skeleton bending when the body is bending, and so forth.
- Finally, for short periods of time, observe others and see that it is merely skeletons walking, sitting, turning, pointing, eating, and so forth. Is their skeleton a self?
There is a story of a monk who was practicing this meditation. As he was walking down a path a beautiful and expensively dressed woman who just had an argument with her boyfriend passed him by. The boyfriend, who was looking for the woman, saw the monk and asked him, “Did you see a beautiful woman pass by?” The monk replied, “I saw neither man nor woman. I merely saw bones and teeth passing by.”
This is someone who really moved into this practice! Please practice this month with right effort, right mindfulness and clarity. Work with these teachings in a joyful and investigative heart.
