And the Welcome to the Joseph Goldstein Inside Hour.

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Join Joseph as he shares his deep knowledge of the path of mindfulness.

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please go to be here now network.com slash Joseph. Tonight I'll continue in the series of talks on the Saty Pitanasuta.

And tonight begin a discussion of the fourth and the last of the foundations of

mindfulness. That is contemplation of the Damas. As you know, the word dama or darma in Sanskrit has a wide range of meanings

depending on the context.

So one of the meanings of the word dama is truth or law or the teachings of the Buddha, or the general principles of the

teachings of the Buddha, or the particular elements of the mind and body.

Each specific element is called a dama.

Now in the Satipitana suta, in the Saty Petanasuta in this fourth foundation, mindfulness of Dama, it's often

translated as mental objects or objects of mind.

But this translation can be somewhat confusing

because objects of mind have already been included in the first three foundations.

The question is, what is the Buddha singling out in this fourth mindful abiding?

In his book Saty Petana, The Direct Path to Realization, which we've been using a lot in these talks,

the venerable Analeo has a very lucid and incisive analysis of what precisely is meant by this

contemplation of Dama of how this term is being used. by this

term is being used.

And that is Dama as categories of phenomena

which highlight how the different elements of the mind are working, how they're functioning.

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