Categories of Mindfulness of the Body

Mindfulness of the Body is the teaching of only Lord Buddha. It goes beyond the teachings of other religions. Lord Buddha said that a monk who practices Mindfulness of the Body Meditation diligently will become disenchanted with the present impure body. This will yield the huge benefit of releasing the practitioner from attachment to the body, preparing for mindfulness and insight knowledge meditation (Nanadassana). This will bring happiness in the present life as well as penetration of knowledge, emancipation and the fruit of emancipation.  

Mindfulness of the Body is contemplating the body and each of its parts as repulsive in order to counter the innate love for our own bodies we each feel. This love of our own body is one of the chief enchantments distorting our perception and preventing seeing reality as it really is. The meditation takes each of the designated 32 parts of the body in turn, as a meditation object. 

Mindfulness of the body is categorized into fourteen headings:

1.  Breathing (Anapana),
2.  Posture (Iriyapatha) ,
3.  Four Kinds of Mindfulness (Catusampajanna),
4.  Contemplation of Repulsiveness (Patikulamanasikara),
5.  Contemplation of Elements (Dhatumanasikara),
6-14.  Nine Contemplations of Corpses (Sivatthika).

Lord Buddha classifies three of these, (1) Breathing, (2) Posture and (4) Contemplation of Repulsiveness, as Insight Meditation (Vipassana). The Nine Contemplation of Corpses are classified as a type of Insight Knowledge (Vipassana-ñana).  

Six Contemplation Groups

Lord Buddha stated:

A monk contemplates this body, from the soles of the feet up and from the tip of the hair on the head down, as wrapped with skin and full of pollutants. These are: head-hairs, body-hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, large intestine, small intestine, stomach, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, nasal mucus, synovium (oil lubricating the joints), urine and the brain in the skull.

Contemplation of the thirty-two parts of the body is categorized into six groups. Groups one to four are called Pañcaka, which means groups of five and there are four such sections: 

1. Taca-pañcaka means the group ending with skin. It includes head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, and skin. 
2. Vakka-pañcaka means the group ending with kidneys. It includes flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow and kidneys.
3. Papphasa-pañcaka means the group ending with lungs. It includes heart, liver, pleura, spleen and lungs. 
4. Matthaluiga-pañcaka means the group ending with brain. It includes large intestine, small intestine, stomach, feces  and the brain in the skull.

Groups five and six are called Chakka which means groups of six. There are two such groups.

5. Meda-chakka means the group ending with fat. It includes bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat and fat. 
6. Mutta-chakka means the group ending with urine. It includes tears, grease, saliva, nasal mucus, synovium [oil lubricating the joints] and urine.