Definition of the Week (23) – Close Placement (of Wisdom) by Mindfulness – Body

The definition of close placement (of wisdom) by mindfulness:
An exalted knower on the path, that is contained in either mindfulness or wisdom, and which meditates by investigating the general and specific characteristics of the body.

Wisdom is placed continuously on the body by mindfulness and investigates the general characteristics of the body, such as its impermanence, its lack of self etc. It also investigates its specific characteristics, such as its impurity.

There are three types of body:

1. Outer body, i.e., forms etc., which do not support the sense powers.
2. Inner body, i.e., the five sense powers.
3. Body that is both, like the five forms that support the sense powers.
One immediate purpose of meditating the on the close placement of wisdom on the body by mindfulness is to understand the negative tendencies of the contaminated body, and to understand these as object of rejection.

Another purpose of meditating on the placement by mindfulness on the body is to eliminate the body as the basis of the self, i.e., to eliminate it as the residence of the self.