Analysing Dhatumanasikāra of the physical body.

The physicality or the physical dimension of existence provides the most straightforward approach to develop an understanding of reality. The process is well described under the Dhatumanasikāra in Mahasatipattana sutta. 

Buddhism explains that the matter emerges from the combination of four essential and indivisible elements or attributes. These elements are identified by the unique properties that each adds to the matter. The four elements (‘catudhathu’ or ‘mahābūtha’) are ‘patavi-dhātu,” āpo-dhātu,’ tejo-dhātu and vāyo-dhātu. Dhatumanasikāra means the analytical contemplation on the matter, observing the interplay of the four fundamental elements. Here, the main focus of this contemplation is on the physical body. 

The method described in the sutta is to analyze the body by breaking it down from the main organs to the atomic structures and thereby analyzing the behaviors and characteristics of the four fundamental elements. The analysis enables the meditator to perceive the body as a combination and an interplay of the four elements. 

These four fundamental elements can be identified as units of ever-changing energy fields that interact to create particles of matter. The findings of physics – particularly about energy waves travelling and vibrating at extreme speeds (Goldszmidt, 2012) may be drawn as a useful analogy to some extent to grasp the idea of Anicca. However, the writer is in the view, that Anicca described in Buddhism has a much deeper meaning beyond current scientific knowledge. 

When the four-elements are viewed as energies, the meditator can visualise how they interact and combine to create the matter in the body. As he contemplates further, he is able to understand the ongoing and infinite changes that occur at the fundamental level of the case that result in the continuous evolution and decay of visible matter. This behaviour is the impermanence of value, the natural law that commands the shift in everything that exists. 

For instance, it is not hard for a person with basic scientific knowledge to perceive that the body is made of cells and cells are made of elements which are products of atoms combined with each other in various forms. The bonds between atoms and the between sub-atomic particles are created by energy fields that continuously vibrate (Goldszmidt, 2012). The four-fundamental elements are analogous to these energies that give rise to all matter particles. The visible body, therefore, is a complex product of the interactions of the four fundamental elements (Bianconi, 2013).  

The delicate theory of Anicca described above is beyond the ordinary human perception. But the Buddha had explained the theory by numerous allegorical representations for easy understating. 

In a strict soteriological sense, Anicca helps the meditator to realise that the body that appears to be well-structured and stable is, in reality, a process consisting energy vibrations – arise and cease at an infinite speed. This realisation brings about a paradigm shift in the meditator that helps him interpret the self and the world more logically and realistically. 

Another methodology described in Mahasatipattana Sutta to apprehend Anicca is Patikulamanasikāraya (contemplation of body parts). It prescribes an analysis of human anatomy by mentally dissecting it into organs and systems. The practitioner is required to analyse each organ and system in terms of their physical attributes that represent the qualities of the four significant elements. By doing this, the practitioner realises the interdependence of the four great elements and how their relative proportions determine the characteristics of each body part. 

For example, the human body features solid, liquid and gassy forms in different combinations and levels. The temperature differences change the above conditions by causing them to change, move, expand or contract (Deal, 2013). Like the change of heat generated by a shift in “tejo-dhātu” can transform water into solid ice or steam, the practitioner starts to understand how changes in the body’s properties occur. These analyses aim to comprehend the body’s impermanence by observing the ever-changing interactions of the four significant elements of matter. 

Both methodologies mentioned above help to obtain knowledge and awareness of the reality of the human body. This theoretical knowledge has to be converted to the wisdom (pannã), which is the knowledge gained at the experiential level by practicing meditation. Vipassana meditation develops a scientific, intellectual, and philosophical view of truth by dispelling ignorance and uprooting causes of miseries or depressions.