And the Welcome to the Joseph Goldstein Inside Hour.

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please go to be here now network.com slash Joseph. Tonight we continue with the series of talks on the Saty Patana Suta. Two weeks ago we talked about the section dealing with clear

comprehension and the contemplation of the Asuba or non-beautiful aspects of the body.

The next instructions that the Buddha gives in the suitor for contemplating the body,

mindfulness of the body, draws the mind down to a further level of subtlety and refinement.

So this is the instruction.

Again, monks, he reviews this same body,

however it is placed, however disposed, as consisting of elements thus, in

this body there are the earth element, the water element, the fire element, and the air element.

So here the Buddha is using the ancient Indian scheme of the four basic qualities of matter.

It's clear that our scientific understanding has progressed

considerably since those days. But these elements still provide a useful framework for understanding our felt sense,

our subjective experience of the body and the physical world.

So we'll just explore a little bit how that is.

The earth element refers to the experience we have of the solidity of things, the qualities

of stiffness, hardness, of softness,

when we touch something and we feel the hardness,

that's the expression of the manifestation of Earth element.

Water element is the... of the manifestation of Earth element.

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