Mì chính (bột ngọt) có độc hại như người ta tưởng?

Mì chính (bột ngọt) có độc hại như người ta tưởng?

Bianca Nogrady

BBC Future (10 November 2015)

Trước đây người ta gọi là ‘Hội chứng Nhà hàng Trung Quốc’: đó là một tập hợp các triệu chứng như nhức đầu, buồn nôn và cảm giác tê tê mà một số người hình như cảm thấy sau khi ăn đồ ăn Trung Quốc, nó còn hơn cả sự buồn nôn thông thường và ý nghĩ tự trách mình đã ăn quá nhiều bánh bao nhân thịt lợn. Thành phần bị đổ lỗi được sử dụng phổ biến gọi là monosodium glutamate (viết tắt là MSG), hay mì chính.

Tiếng xấu về mì chính bắt đầu vào năm 1968 khi tiến sỹ Ho Man Kwok viết một lá thư cho Tạp Chí Y Khoa New England suy ngẫm về nguyên nhân có thể có của một hội chứng mà ông đã trải nghiệm bất cứ khi nào ăn ở nhà hàng Trung Quốc tại Hoa Kỳ. Đặc biệt, ông mô tả một cảm giác tê tê ở sau cổ mà nó lan xuống cánh tay và lưng, cũng như bị yếu đi và mạch đập nhanh.

Ông cho rằng nguyên nhân có thể là xì dầu (nhưng rồi loại bỏ nó vì ông dùng nó để nấu ăn ở nhà mà không thấy làm sao) hoặc do dùng dùng quá nhiều rượu nấu ăn Trung Quốc ở các cơ sở thương mại. Rồi đến thứ gây hại: có lẽ là do mì chính được dùng vị trong các nhà hàng Trung Quốc.

Như các lý thuyết về sức khỏe có liên quan đến thức ăn thường được bàn đến, ý kiến của ông lan tỏa nhanh trên mạng, sản sinh ra rất nhiều các nghiên cứu khoa học, các sách nói ‘sự thật’ của mì chính, các sách dạy nấu ăn không dùng mì chính, và thậm chí làm cho các nhà hàng Trung Quốc phải quảng cáo là họ không dùng mì chính để nấu ăn.

Mì chính là muối natri của acid glutamic, hoặc nếu bạn muốn gây ấn tượng với ai đó trong bữa tiệc tối thì nói là disodium 2-aminopentanedioate. Như giáo sư hóa học Kikunae Ikeda của Đại Học Tokyo đã phát hiện ra nó vào 1908 thì mì chính là muối ổn định nhất được hình thành từ acid glutamic và là thứ tốt nhất tạo ra vị ngọt thịt được ưa thích.

‘Umami’, dịch là ‘ngọt thịt’, gắn với vị thịt, và là phát hiện của ông Ikeda. Ông theo đuổi nó và tin rằng còn có một vị nữa ngoài bốn vị giác cơ bản là ngọt, mặn, chua, đắng.

Glutamate là thành phần mầu nhiệm trong mì chính. Nó là một acid amin được tạo ra một cách tự nhiên trong rất nhiều thực phẩm kể cả cà chua, pho mát parmesan, nấm khô, xì dầu (nước tương), là thành phần chính trong quả và rau, và trong sữa phụ nữ.

Ikeda đã tách nó ra từ rong biển nâu Kombu mà vợ ông (cũng như tất cả những người làm bếp Nhật Bản khác trên thế giới) sử dụng làm nguyên liệu nấu canh cá dashi rất phổ biến ở Nhật. Khi bổ sung natri vào, là một trong 2 nguyên tố của muối ăn, làm cho glutamate ổn định ở dạng bột và cho vào thức ăn, và thế là tạo ra mì chính và làm cho ông Kikunae trở thành người giàu có. Gia vị dựa trên mì chính có tên là Ajinomoto (‘tinh chất của vị giác’) hiện được thấy trên bàn ăn trên khắp thế giới.

Sau bức thư của Kwok là một sự sôi động các thí nghiệm trong đó nhiều động vật, kể cả người, tham gia thử nghiệm với một lượng mì chính lớn bằng cách ăn hoặc truyền máu.

Thoạt đầu ta thấy hình như Kwok có thể đã phát hiện ra điều gì. Nhà nghiên cứu của Trường Đại Học Washington, tiến sỹ John W. Olney thấy rằng khi tiêm những liều rất lớn mì chính vào dưới da chuột con mới đẻ sẽ nảy sinh các đốm tế bào chết ở não chuột. Khi các con chuột này trưởng thành chúng nhỏ bé, béo phì, và trong một vài trường hợp, vô sinh. Olney cũng lặp lại thử nghiệm với khỉ nâu con, cho chúng mì chính qua đường miệng và thấy kết quả vẫn như vậy. Nhưng 19 nghiên cứu khác với khỉ do các nhà nghiên cứu khác thực hiện đã không cho ra kết quả như vậy, thậm chí không tương tự như vậy.

Những nghiên cứu trên người cũng không đủ cơ sở để kết luận. Trong một nghiên cứu, 71 người khỏe mạnh được xử lý với liều lượng tăng dần mì chính thật và ở dạng viên con nhộng giả mì chính. Các nhà nghiên cứu thấy rằng cái gọi là triệu chứng Hội chứng Nhà hàng Trung Quốc xảy ra xấp xỉ như nhau, cho dù người tham gia uống mì chính thật hay uống viên giả mì chính.

Nhằm giải quyết dứt điểm chủ đề này, vào năm 1995 Cục Quản Lý Thuốc và Thực Phẩm Mỹ (FDA) đã giao trách nhiệm cho Hiệp Hội Các Công ty Mỹ Về Sinh Học Thực Nghiệm xem xét tất cả các bằng chứng sẵn có để quyết định xem mì chính có phải là "quái vật thực phẩm" như người ta tưởng không.

Để khởi sự, hội đồng chuyên gia đã loại bỏ thuật ngữ ‘Hội Chứng Nhà hàng Trung Quốc’ vì nó “mang nghĩa miệt thị và không phản ánh đúng mức độ và bản chất của triệu chứng”, và thay bằng thuật ngữ ‘tổ hợp triệu chứng MSG’ để mô tả nhiều triệu chứng khác nhau do dùng mì chính.

Nhưng họ có kết luận rằng có đủ bằng chứng khoa học để nói rằng có tồn tại một nhóm người khỏe mạnh trong dân chúng có thể có phản ứng xấu nếu sử dụng một lượng lớn mì chính, thường thì phản ứng xảy ra một giờ sau khi sử dụng. Nhưng phản ứng này được thấy khi nghiên cứu với 3 gram (hoặc nhiều hơn) mì chính đi kèm với nước, không có thức ăn; một tình huống không xảy ra trong thực tế mà, theo FDA, phần lớn người ta dùng khoảng 0,55 gram mì chính một ngày và lẫn trong thức ăn.

Một nghiên cứu vào năm 2000 đã cố gắng để đi sâu hơn nữa với 130 người mà tự họ cho rằng họ có phản ứng với mì chính. Những người mạnh khỏe này trước tiên nhận được một liều mì chính không kèm thức ăn. Nếu ai đó có số triệu chứng vượt qua một mức nhất định trong bảng 10 triệu chứng, thì họ sẽ được thử nghiệm lại với cùng liều như cũ (hoặc mì chính giả) để xem phản ứng có nhất quán hay không. Họ cũng được thử nghiệm với liều cao hơn để xem có tăng triệu chứng không.

Sau một vòng nữa thử nghiệm lại, chỉ thấy có 2 người trong số 130 người là có biểu hiện phản ứng nhất quán với mì chính thật, không có phản ứng với mì chính giả. Nhưng sau đó, khi họ được thử nghiệm lại với mì chính trong thức ăn thì phản ứng của họ khác đi, điều này làm ta nghi ngờ tính vững chắc của việc tự đánh giá là nhạy cảm với mì chính.

Nhưng ngoài ra, glutamate là hết sức thấp về độc tố. Một con chuột có thể tiếp nhận 15-18 gram cho 1 kg trọng lượng trước khi bị rủi ro chết vì ngộ độc glutamate. Nên biết chuột nhắt sơ sinh đặc biệt nhạy cảm với tác động của mì chính.

Do vậy trong khi không thể khóa sổ về khoa học (và tiến sỹ John Olney đã dành gần cả đời mình, sau lần thử nghiệm ban đầu trên súc vật, để vận động cho quy chế chặt chẽ hơn với việc sử dụng mì chính) thì nay Cục Quản Lý Thuốc và Thực Phẩm Mỹ (FDA) nói rằng việc cho mì chính vào thức ăn ‘nhìn chung được công nhận là an toàn’.

Đó là sự đảm bảo với những người thích món ăn Trung Quốc mà đối với họ thì một kỳ cuối tuần sẽ không trọn vẹn nếu không ghé vào nhà hàng Trung Quốc.

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Monosodium glutamate is blamed for a range of nasty side effects. But is there evidence to back up these claims?

Bianca Nogrady

BBC Future (10 November 2015)

It used to be called ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’: a collection of symptoms such as headache, nausea and a strange numbness that certain people seem to suffer after a meal of Chinese food, which went beyond the usual queasiness and self-loathing at having eaten one too many barbecued pork buns. The ingredient allegedly to blame is a commonly used seasoning called monosodium glutamate, better known as MSG.

Monosodium glutamate’s notoriety took off in 1968 when Dr Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine musing about the possible causes of a syndrome he experienced whenever he ate at Chinese restaurants in the US. In particular, he described a feeling of numbness at the back of his neck that then spread to his arms and back, as well as general weakness and heart palpitations.

Kwok speculated the cause could be soy sauce – but dismissed this as he used it in home cooking without the same effects – or the more liberal use of Chinese cooking wine in commercial establishments. Then came the clanger: perhaps it was the monosodium glutamate used as a common seasoning in Chinese restaurants. As food-related health theories are wont to do, his suggestion went viral, spawning a huge number of scientific studies, books exposing ‘the truth’ about MSG, anti-MSG cookbooks, and even prompting Chinese restaurants to advertise that they didn’t use MSG in their cooking.

Monosodium glutamate is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. As University of Tokyo chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda discovered in 1908, MSG is the most stable salt formed from glutamic acid, and one that best delivers the sought-after ‘umami’ taste.

‘Umami’ – which translates as ‘savoury’ – is associated with a “meaty” flavour, and was also Ikeda’s discovery, who pursued it believing that there was something more than the four basic tastes of sweet, salty, sour and bitter.

Glutamate is the magic ingredient in MSG. It’s a common amino acid that occurs naturally in a large range of foods including tomatoes, parmesan cheese, dried mushrooms, soy sauce, a host of fruits and vegetables, and human breast milk.

Ikeda isolated it from the dried kombu seaweed (kelp) that his wife – and just about every other Japanese cook on Earth – used to make the dashi stock that is ubiquitous in Japanese cuisine. Adding sodium, one of the two elements in table salt, allows the glutamate to be stabilised into a powder and added to food, thus giving us monosodium glutamate and making Kikunae a very rich man. His MSG-based condiment, Ajinomoto (‘essence of taste’) is now found on tables the world over.

After Kwok’s letter, a flurry of experiments followed in which various animals, including humans, were subjected to large doses of monosodium glutamate both orally and intravenously.

At first, it looked like Kwok might have been onto something. Washington University researcher Dr John W. Olney found that injecting enormous doses of monosodium glutamate under the skin of newborn mice led to the development of patches of dead tissue in the brain. When these mice grew into adulthood they were stunted, obese, and in some cases, sterile. Olney also repeated his study in infant rhesus monkeys, giving them the MSG orally, and noted the same results. But 19 other studies in monkeys by other researchers failed to show the same, or even similar results.

Human studies also fell short of coming up with a smoking gun. In one study, 71 healthy individuals were treated with increasing doses of MSG or placebo in capsule form. Researchers found the so-called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome symptoms occurred at roughly the same rate, regardless of whether subjects were given the MSG or the placebo, and even after the participants were swapped over to the alternative option.

In an attempt to lay the issue to rest, in 1995 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioned the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology to look into all the available evidence and decide whether MSG really was the food fiend that it was made out to be.

To begin with, the expert panel dismissed the term ‘Chinese Restaurant Syndrome’ as “pejorative and not reflective of the extent or nature of the symptoms”, choosing instead the term ‘MSG symptom complex’ to describe the many and varied symptoms linked to consumption of MSG.

But they did conclude there was enough scientific evidence to suggest the existence of a subgroup of healthy individuals in the general population who may respond badly to large doses of MSG, usually within an hour of exposure. But these reactions were observed in studies where they were given three grams or more of MSG delivered in water, without food; a scenario unlikely to occur in the real world where, according to the FDA, most people will get around 0.55 grams per day of added MSG in their diet.

A study in 2000 tried to explore this further with 130 people who described themselves as being reactive to MSG. These otherwise healthy people were first given a dose of MSG without food, or given a placebo. If anyone scored above a certain level on a list of 10 symptoms, they were tested again with the same dose (or placebo) to see if their response was consistent. They were also tested with higher doses to see if this increased their symptoms. After another round of retests, only two of the original 130 had shown consistent reactions to MSG and not the placebo. But then, when they were tested again with MSG in food, their reactions differed – which cast doubt on the validity of self-described MSG sensitivity.

But otherwise, glutamate is remarkably low in toxicity. A rat or mouse can take a dose of 15-18 grams per kilogram of body weight before it is at risk of dying from glutamate poisoning. It’s also now known that baby mice are particularly sensitive to the effects of MSG.

So while nothing is ever truly laid to rest in science – and Dr John Olney spent much of his life after his early animal experiments campaigning for tighter regulation of MSG use – the FDA now says the addition of MSG to foods is GRAS, or ‘Generally Recognised As Safe’.

It’s reassurance to the many fans of Chinese cuisine, for whom a lazy weekend just isn’t complete without a few spins of a soy sauce-spattered lazy Susan.

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Learning meditation from the Buddha: a meeting with Bhikkhu Analayo

Learning meditation from the Buddha: a meeting with Bhikkhu Analayo

Vishvapani

http://www.wiseattention.org (07 September, 2012)

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I met German-born Analayo some years ago when he was living a life of intensive meditation and study in a small retreat centre in Sri Lanka. He told me how his study of the Buddha’s original meditation teaching had led him to question established approaches to practice.

Since then, he has published an acclaimed work on the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha’s main teaching on mindfulness, taken full Bhikkhu ordination, published many groundbreaking essays on Pali Buddhism, especially comparisons between the Pali Suttas and the Chinese versions, the Agamas and become a widely respected scholar and academic. As this interview shows, he is above all a deeply devoted Dharma practitioner

*

Vishvapani (V): How do you come to be living as a Buddhist monk here in Sri Lanka?

Analayo (A): I studied martial arts in Berlin and I found that the discipline offered a way to express and contain my anger, but it didn’t address the root of the problem. Along with martial arts I also learned Soto Zen meditation, and when I found that through practising that some of my anger no longer arose I became very interested in meditation. I travelled to Asia and ended up in Thailand where I did a course in mindfulness of breathing with Ajahn Buddhadasa. With Zen you are told to just sit, but no more, and through Buddhadasa’s teaching I now received some instruction in meditation.

Then came the start of the rainy season and the custom in Thailand is for many people to become monks for the three months of the rains. So that’s what I did, and I stayed in a cave on a hilltop, surrounded on three sides by the sea, and there I had the opportunity to live a very meditative life.

Once I was in robes I found that the monastic lifestyle supported meditation so I decided to continue with it. Later I came to Sri Lanka and stayed with Godwin Samaratane, who was an excellent meditation teacher, and in 1995 he sent me to develop the Lewelle Meditation Centre. Here we have a main house with a small community, and we’ve built several kutis on the hill where I stay and other visitors can come to meditate.

Godwin brought out aspects of meditation that are in the suttas [the records of the Buddha’s discourses recorded in the Pali language] but which have been neglected in Theravada tradition. He had a very open-minded approach that emphasised emptiness, working constructively with emotions, and developing metta (loving-kindness). He wanted me to provide scholarly back-up for what he was doing, so he introduced me to a university professor and the people at the university just told me that I would be doing a PhD!

V: As a dedicated meditator, what was your motivation for engaging with academic study?

A: I wanted a better understanding of the Buddha’s teaching, and I hoped to approach Buddhism both from the inside perspective of a Buddhist monk and meditator, and also to look at it scientifically. Being a meditating monk the most obvious topic was satipatthana, the development of mindfulness, and I found that there is almost no research on satipatthana or the Satipatthana Sutta, the principal canonical text concerning it.

The book I have eventually written is not only a vindication of Godwin’s teaching, but also an attempt to go back to the roots and ask, what were the Buddha’s basic ideas? What did he mean by insight meditation? What is written in the Satipatthana Sutta, and how can other suttas illuminate it?

The book reflects my particular perspective as both a scholar and a practitioner. Academics sometimes go off at tangents because without experience of practice they can get caught up in ideas that are a long way from the original meanings. On the other hand meditation teachers tend either to express their ideas and experience without going back to the sources, or else to be steeped in the Theravada tradition. For traditional Theravadins, the suttas, which recount the Buddhas discourses, and the commentaries, which were written later, are one block. They see everything through the eyes of Buddhaghosha, the author of the Visuddhimagga [the most important commentary] unaware that there was an historical gap of 800 years between the Buddha and Buddhaghosha. So I wanted to separate these out. The ideas and techniques in the commentaries may well be good, but it’s important to know that some weren’t taught by the Buddha.

V: How would you characterise the Buddha’s approach to meditation as it emerges from the discourses?

A: In the discourses when a monk comes to the Buddha and says he wants to meditate, the Buddha usually just gives him a theme like, ‘don’t cling to anything.’ The monk goes off and when he returns he is an arahant! [one with a high level of realisation]. In other words, the Buddha gives the general pattern, not a precise technique such as you find in the Visuddhimagga, whose approach we have inherited. When the Buddha discusses concentration he talks about what happens with the mind. He says that when pamojja (delight) arises the mind naturally becomes joyful, and from that come happiness, calm, tranquillity and concentration. So you should enjoy meditating, and in enjoying itself the mind becomes unified.

At the same time the Buddha has a very clear, analytical approach, and when he speaks of ‘the five hindrances’, for example, he is pointing to specific experiences that imply specific antidotes. But that’s different from issuing technical instructions. You could say that the Buddha didn’t teach meditation so much as the skill of meditating or the ability to meditate. He was concerned with stirring the natural potential of individuals to awaken the mind on the basis of a very clear distinction that never gets lost between what is wholesome in the mind and what is unwholesome.

V: What difference does the distinction between commentarial and sutta approaches to meditation make for what you do when you meditate?

A: Being an ‘anger-type’ I thought it was important to develop metta (loving-kindness). In Thailand I followed the Visuddhimagga approach of sending metta to oneself, a friend, a neutral person and an enemy, and verbalising good wishes. I found I got stuck in ideas, and when I turned to the suttas I saw that the Buddha just says that, ‘with a mind full of metta’ (that is an attitude or feeling of loving-kindness) ‘he radiates metta in all directions’. There’s no verbalisation, no particular people, just this radiation. That made an incredible change in my practice and from then on it evolved very strongly.

Another example is the counting methods in the commentarial approach to the mindfulness of breathing, which are also not found in the suttas. The Anapanasati Sutta describes how in sixteen steps you can be aware of the breath, the body, feelings, and what is happening in the mind. This extends to seeing the impermanence of the breath.

This is an excellent approach to practice. Firstly, you calm the mind by staying predominantly with bodily phenomena. Then you become aware of your whole self as it sits in meditation, and then you notice how the breath and the body become calmer. As soon as that happens thinking activity also calms down, and joy arises. You’re aware of these changes and encourage them, and that takes you away from the thinking activity of the mind.

The commentarial approach implies narrowing the focus of attention onto one point and only prescribes contemplating the most prominent characteristics of the physical breath – not the many other dimensions that are described in the sutta. Because you have so little material to work on, the practice can become boring, so your mind wanders, and you need counting as food for the mind. But counting can take you away from the bodily experience of the breath to conceptual ideas about it. However, if the mind has something it likes it will stay with it, and that’s the way to get into deep concentration.

V: What about the importance of one-pointed concentration (ekagata), which is usually taught as the way to become fully absorbed?

A: Ekagata can also be translated as ‘unification of the mind.’ So in developing meditative absorption it’s not so much that you narrow everything down to a fine point. It’s more that everything becomes ‘one’. If I take a large object and move it around you have no trouble following it; but if you try to stay with a pin-point it’s very difficult and that can create tension.

As you go deeper into meditation (in developing the higher states of meditative absorption known as jhana/dhyana) you need a reference point. But to enter jhana you have to let go of the five physical senses. So the experience of the breath becomes a mental equivalent of it (a nimitta) not a felt experience. Sometimes meditators experience a light that is an equivalent of the breath, which may envelop you entirely. Or the nimitta could be an experience of happiness or metta, or just mentally knowing the breath, and the mind becomes one with that.

An important term for meditative absorption is samadhi. We often translate that as ‘concentration’, but that can suggest a certain stiffness. Perhaps ‘unification’ is a better rendition, as samadhi means ‘to bring together’. Deep samadhi isn’t at all stiff. It’s a process of letting go of other things and coming to a unified experience.

V: I practice the five stages of the mettabhavana and I find that there’s a definite psychological value in that approach.

A: I’m not saying that the commentarial approach is wrong, only that if it doesn’t work for you then there is an alternative. And whatever practice you follow be aware if it comes from the Buddha or someone else.

I know people who say the five-stage mettabhavana or the mindfulness of breathing with counting works for them. That’s completely OK. I’m trying to add to the commentarial view, and to broaden perspectives, not to ask people to throw out the commentaries or their teacher’s approach, and only listen to me. I have been practising the Goenka technique for ten years and I got very good results with it. But I wouldn’t say that it’s the only correct technique.

In the discourses the Buddha didn’t say that there’s one way for everybody.  In the Theravada tradition there have been many debates about the relationship between samatha (absorption) and vipassana (insight) as goals of meditation. But the discourses say that you can practice samatha first, and then vipassana, or the other way around, or both together. Both samatha and vipassana develop the mind and the two co-operate, but how you engage with them depends on the individual.

V: The breadth of this approach implies knowing yourself sufficiently so that you can plot a course.

A: The process of developing insight is a matter of gaining self-knowledge and learning to act accordingly. If you sit down to meditate you need to feel the tendency of the mind – what it needs and what it wants to do. More broadly, I know that my tendency is towards anger and that means that I need to develop tranquillity to balance my personality.

V: You place great emphasis on mindfulness, and also to have a very broad view of its implications.

A: The presentation of mindfulness in the discourses suggests an open, receptive state of mind in which you let things come to you. It’s different from concentration (samatha) in that concentration means focus and mindfulness means breadth, but without mindfulness you can’t develop concentration. It’s also an important basis for insight meditation (vipassana). Mindfulness has many facets. Many teachers speak of mindfulness of the body, but people don’t talk much about the contemplations of feelings, mind and dhammas that are also in the Satipatthana Sutta. But if you take any experience – like sitting here now – you can be aware of the bodily aspect, how you feel about what we are discussing; the state of mind that we are each in; and you can see it in the light of the Buddha’s teachings. Each situation has these four aspects and mindfulness can focus on one or all of these as appropriate

V: How has studying these suttas affected your own meditation?

A: It’s the ground of my practice. Before I started my academic work, I decided that however many hours I studied I would spend more hours meditating. That’s why it took me six years to complete my work. I would never lose touch with my meditation practice for the sake of theoretical study. On the other hand, though, a good knowledge of Buddha’s teachings ‘clears the path’ as it enables you to know what you’re doing and then you don’t experience doubt. Now I can learn from various meditation teachers without getting confused because I know what lines I am pursuing in my own practice.

The Buddha gave the talks that are recorded in the suttas because he thought people should know what they are doing. Meditation is like eating and the knowledge you have gained from the suttas is like the digestive juice that makes it possible for your body to digest the nutrients. The two belong together, but meditation has to have the priority. Doing PhD research is perhaps going to an extreme. But studying informed sources can be helpful for everyone. They can shine a beam of light onto your practice and that can inspire it.

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Perspectives on Satipatthana: An interview with Bhikkhu Analayo

Perspectives on Satipatthana: An interview with Bhikkhu Anālayo

Hannah Atkinson

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An interview with Bhikkhu Anālayo, author of Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization. Bhikkhu Anālayo’s latest book, Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna, uses a comparison of three different versions of the Satipatthana Sutta to reveal what the original core teachings are likely to have been.

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Hannah Atkinson (HA): Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna is a companion volume to your earlier publication, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization. How are the two books distinct and how do they work together?

Bhikkhu Anālayo (BA): My first book, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, came out of a PhD I did in Sri Lanka. It was the product of my academic study of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the practical experience I had gained in meditation, and what I had read about the experience of other meditators and teachers – I tried to bring all that together to come to a better understanding of the text itself.

At that time I was working on the Pali sources of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta because the Buddha’s teachings were transmitted orally from India to Sri Lanka and then eventually written down in Pali, which is fairly similar to the original language or languages that the Buddha would have spoken. However, the transmission of the Buddha’s teachings also went in other directions, and we have versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta in Chinese and Tibetan. So after completing my PhD I learnt Chinese and Tibetan so that I could engage in a comparative study of parallel textual lineages, and this is the focus of my new book, Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna.

Although this was, at the outset, mainly an academic enterprise, what I discovered really changed the focus of my practice. When I took out the exercises that were not common to all three versions of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, I was left with a vision of mindfulness meditation that was very different to anything I would have expected. Contemplation of the body, which is the first of the four satipaṭṭhānas, for example, is usually practised in the form of the mindfulness of breathing and being mindful of bodily postures, but these exercises are not found in all versions. What I found in all three versions were the exercises that most of us do not like to do: seeing the body as made out of anatomical parts and thus as something that it is not beautiful, as something that is made up of elements and thus does not belong to me, and the cemetery contemplations – looking at a corpse that is decaying.

So then I understood: body contemplation is not so much about using the body to be mindful. It is rather predominantly about using mindfulness to understand the nature of the body. As a result of these practices one will become more mindful of the body, but the main thrust is much more challenging. The focus is on insight – understanding the body in a completely different way from how it is normally perceived.

Normally we look at the body and see it as ‘me’, but these texts are asking us to take that apart and see that actually we are made up of earth, water, fire and wind, of hardness, fluidity and wetness, temperature and motion. They are asking us to directly confront our own mortality – to contemplate the most threatening thing for us: death.


I found a similar pattern when I looked at the last satipaṭṭhāna, which is contemplation of dharmas. The practices that were common to all three versions were those that focused on overcoming the hindrances and cultivating the awakening factors. The emphasis is not so much on reflecting on the teachings, the Dharma, but really on putting them into practice, really going for awakening. As a result of this discovery I have developed a new approach to the practice of satipaṭṭhāna which I have found to be very powerful, and this would never have happened if I had not done the academic groundwork first.

HA: Your books are a combined outcome of scholarly study and practical experience of meditating. Do you find that these two approaches are generally compatible with each other, or do they ever come into conflict?

BA: It is not easy to be a scholar and a practitioner at the same time. If you look throughout Buddhist history, it is more usual to find Buddhists who are either practitioners or scholars than Buddhists who are both. However, for a while I have been trying to achieve a balance between these two sides of me, and I have found a point of concurrence: the main task of meditation is to achieve ‘knowledge and vision of things as they really are’ and actually this is the main task of academics as well. We use a different methodology, but the aim of both is to understand things as they really happen. If I take that as my converging point, then I am able to be both a scholar and a meditating monk, and this has been a very fruitful combination for me.

Both of my books are aimed at people who, like me, are interested in academic study and meditation. They are academic books where the final aim is to help people develop their meditation practice. They are not books for beginners, and the second book builds on the first book, so one would need a basic familiarity with what I covered in Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization in order to fully engage with Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna.

HA: Both of your books mention the idea of satipaṭṭhāna as a form of balance, and the title of your new book suggests that there are many different perspectives on satipaṭṭhāna that could be taken into account. Is the very essence of satipaṭṭhāna practice a balance of perspectives or is there one particular perspective on satipaṭṭhāna that has been most useful in the context of your practice?

BA: I think that balance is an absolutely central aspect of mindfulness practice. If you look at the Awakening Factors, the first one is mindfulness and the last one is usually translated as ‘equanimity’, but in my opinion it would be better to understand it as balance or equipoise. To be balanced means to be mindful and open to the present moment, to be free from desire and aversion, and this is what the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta continually comes back to.

I believe that balance is also an essential element of academic study. If, through my mindfulness practice, I am cultivating openness and reception then how can I say that one approach to a topic is totally right and another one is completely wrong? If I do that, I have to exclude all of the other approaches from my vision. Often, when we get into very strong opinions, we have tunnel vision – we see only one part of reality, one side of it, but that is not how things really are. So, in my academic work, if I find one approach that seems more reasonable to me, I keep it in the foreground, but I have to keep the other approaches in the background, I cannot just cut them out.

HA: Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization and Perspectives on Satipaṭṭhāna both mention the importance of combining self-development with concern for others. Does satipaṭṭhāna practice lead naturally to a person becoming more compassionate or is it necessary to engage in other practices to achieve this? Is satipaṭṭhāna practice a solitary activity or is it important that it is undertaken in the context of a Sangha?

BA: I think that compassion is a natural outcome of Satipaṭṭhāna practice, but it is also good to encourage it in other ways as well. There is a simile from the Satipaṭṭhāna Samyutta of two acrobats performing together on a pole – we need to establish our own balance in order to be in balance with other people and the outside world, but other people and the outside world are also the point at which we find out about our own balance. I can be practising alone, sitting in my room, feeling that I am so incredibly balanced and equanimous, but let me get out into the world and have some contact with people, come into some problems, and see how balanced I am then! Of course, time in seclusion and intensive meditation is essential, but there must always be a wider context to our practice.

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Book details:
PERSPECTIVES ON SATIPATTHANA, by BHIKKHU ANALAYO
Format: Paperback | 327 pages
Dimensions: 156 x 232 x 22mm | 579.99g
Publication date: 18 Mar 2014
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
Publication: City/Country Birmingham, United Kingdom
Language: English
ISBN10: 190931403X
ISBN13: 9781909314030

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Anālayo, The Meditative Scholar

Anālayo, The Meditative Scholar

by Bhikkhu Yogananda

October 15, 2010

http://web.archive.org/web/20120328094346/http://nidahas.com/2010/10/analayo_meditative_scholar/

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Bhante Anālayo’s works are marked by a precision and thoroughness that seems to border on perfectionism. I first saw this in Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Awakening, and later in his other publications. Since completing the work which earned him a Ph.D., he has moved on to comparative studies in Early Buddhism, and ranks among the best contemporary scholars specializing in that largely unexplored area. If his published works are any indication, the upcoming comparative study of the Majjhima Nikāya is going to be a classic.

When I was assisting Bhante Nāṇananda with publishing some of his work online, I got in contact with Ven. Anālayo. He was the one who had transcribed the Nibbāna – The Mind Stilled sermons and prepared, in typical ‘Anālayan’ thoroughness, the impressive list of references for each talk. I used the opportunity to email him a few questions about his monastic life and scholarly work. The questions and answers appear below:

Q: What sparked your interest in Buddhism?

“I had been introduced to the practice of Buddhist meditation and found that this helped me to stay more calm and balanced in stress situations, so I wanted to know more about the background.”

Q: Could you please tell us about your monastic life: how you went forth, who your teachers were etc.?

“My going forth etc. is a little complex. I originally went forth in 1990 in Thailand in a monastery near Huahin (after an inspiring meditation retreat at Wat Suan Mokh, the monastery of Ajahn Buddhadāsa). This was, however, originally only planned to be for the vassa, which I wanted to spend meditating in a cave close by the seaside. I stayed on in robes for two years, in the end, since I found it was the most meaningful thing to do. However, trying to keep the rules strictly combined with my German perfectionism had created some problems in my mind (stiffness, arrogance towards those who are less strict etc.). I anyway had to go back to Germany to settle things, since originally I had not left with the idea of living in Asia, so I went down to anagārika, did what I had to do in Germany, and in 1994 came to Sri Lanka, where in 1995 I took pabbajā again, under Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya.

“My main reference point for the subsequent period was Bhikkhu Bodhi, whom I consider as my teacher, as he guided me in Pāli etc. and we were throughout in regular contact. In order to keep out of dāna obligations and other things, and also out of my earlier experience with the rules of higher ordination, I stayed samaṇera for 12 years. Thus it was only in 2007, after repeatedly being urged to do so by Bhikkhu Bodhi, that I took higher ordination, in the Swejin Nikāya, with Ven. Pemasiri of Sumathipala Aranya as my monastic teacher.”

At first I misundertood the ‘dāna obligations’ Bhante mentions as relating to the way a Bhikkhu is to receive food. The Vinaya does not allow fully ordained monastics (Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis) to grow, store, cook or even pick up unoffered food for consumption. This stipulation makes them entirely dependent on the lay supporters for their meals, which are ideally acquired through pinḍapāta – begging for alms from door to door. But later he clarified the real reason, which has nothing to do with storing food (which he has never done):

“I went begging every day and did not want to accept invitations for dāna ceremonies. This was sometimes difficult to explain, as the laity is always so keen to invite us, but the fact that I was not a bhikkhu made it easier for me to avoid such ceremonies, as laity usually likes to invite fully ordained bhikkhus, and being a samanera, one is a much less attractive object for such invitations :) ”

Q: What made you interested in comparative studies?

“After my going forth in Sri Lanka I wanted to balance my practice with a better understanding of satipaṭṭhāna, so I got into the University of Peradeniya and did a PhD on the Satipaṭṭhānanasutta (I had already done a BA degree and some MA studies in other subjects in Germany), which I completed in 2000.

“During the course of that study, I had come to notice the interesting differences between the Pali and the Chinese versions, so after I had completed the PhD, I learned Chinese (Bhikkhu Bodhi had in the meantime left Sri Lanka so I followed him to the US where he stayed at a Chinese monastery, which afforded me the occasion to get into Chinese) and also Tibetan.

“Then I got into a study of the Satipaṭṭhānanasutta and eventually of the whole Majjhima from the perspective of their parallels. This was undertaken as a postdoctoral degree called habilitation in Germany, at the University of Marburg, which I completed in 2007. The book is at present in the final stage of revision and will be published next year with Dharma Drum Academic Publishers in Taiwan.”

Q: How did you get involved with Bhante Nāṇananda’s work?

“I had met Bhikkhu Nāṇananda personally already several times, but when Godwin Samararatne passed away, I found a tape with the first Nibbāna sermon translated into English in his room (at the Lewella Meditation Center). After listening to it, I felt a strong inner calling that this is something important and I should do what I can to help it become available for others. So I went to visit Bhikkhu Nāṇananda and put my services at his disposal. From then one we had regular contacts, as he would send me the tapes as soon as he had finished translating, and I would then transcribe from the tape, search the references and then send him the print out for corrections and regularly visit him to discuss about the sermons etc.”

Q: Are there any instances where you would disagree with Bhante Nanananda’s interpretations?

“There are a few of the translations where I would render the Pali original differently, but this does not really matter so much.”

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Like many sincere monks, Ven. Anālayo is reluctant to talk about his personal meditation practice, but his commitment and dedication to it, even while keeping up a thriving scholarly career, is so inspiring that I got permission to mention it here.

Q: How do you handle the—perhaps conflicting—demands of your scholarly work and meditation practice?

“I have kept up and do still keep up a strong practice of meditation throughout. At present, I spend the first three days of every week in silent retreat just meditating, so that together with a long retreat at the beginning of the year I end up spending nearly half of my time in retreat conditions. I just mention it because I feel it is important in some way to make it clear that meditation has to be at the centre of life, otherwise the other things won’t work. It is so easy to get carried away by Dhamma activities and forget about the whole purpose of going forth.”

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