1.5. Satipaṭṭhāna, Vipassanā, and the Only Way

According to our analysis above, all twenty-one meditation techniques are insight meditation subjects. Among them, the “attention to the repulsiveness of the body” and the “nine cemetery contemplations” are necessarily related to samatha meditation, while the remainning satipaṭṭhāna techniques are pure insight meditation. The Pāli commentary on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta supports our suggestion that most of these twenty-one practices fall in the category of insight meditation subject. However, the “mindfulness of breathing” and the “attention to repulsiveness” are considered by the commentary of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta as samatha meditation subjects that lead to “full absorption” (appanā).^[1] Even though these two meditation subjects at their initial stage may be taken as serenity meditation, since the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta explicitly requires meditators to contemplate the nature of rising and passing away when each meditative practice comes to its advanced stage, the “mindfulness of breathing” and the “attention to repulsiveness” can be viewed as an insight meditation subject as a whole.

The expression “the only way” has been regarded by some scholars to be a problematic translation for ekāyana magga, the appellation given to the satipaṭṭhāna practice. However, considering that the four satipaṭṭhāna are as a whole equivalent to insight meditation and that only insight meditation can lead to enlightenment, there is reason to conclude that the practice of satipaṭṭhāna does deserves such an appellation as “the only way” and “the sole way”. This conclusion might gain support from Saṃyutta Nikāya,^[2] where it is said that just as every creature enters or leaves a frontier city through its only single gate (ekadvāra), so also all the Buddhas of the past, present and future attain the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment through the practice of satipaṭṭhāna meditation. It is said there: There is only one way that is able to purify beings, dispel suffering and sorrow, destroy unwholesome evil kamma, and bring the benefits of the true dhamma—what is meant is the four satipaṭṭḥānas. It should be understood: except for these four satipaṭṭhānas, there exists no other path or object. Through such a path or such objects, one exhausts the taints and attains nibbāna. Because there is no second path for purification, it is said that there is just the only one path that leads to nibbāna.