Made Of

On Page One Fifty Four, Sayadaw suggests to concentrate on single elements one by one in rupa-kalapas if it is hard to discern them all at once.  They are in order of earth, water, fire, and wind. The other rupa-kalapas to discern after that are color, odor, flavor and nutritive essence.

The Bits Go By

On Page One Fifty Three, Sayadaw points out that eye, ear, nose, tongue and body rupa-kalapas can be transparent and all others are opaque.

First, rupa-kalapas will look like lumps, which arise and pass away (but that is not their ultimate reality, it is only three types of illusory compactness), and one should see all of the elements in them.

A Fortress

On Page One Fifty Two, Sayadaw takes a sidebar to point out that jhana can be a helpful place to rest, like a fortress.  He identifies 'pure Vipassana yogis' who have only access concentration and not jhana, who can also do this.

Sparkles

On Page One Fifty One, we have 'How to See Rupa Kalapas'  (the teeny tiniest things).  Basically, the block of ice you are as previously mentioned, will break down into sparkles.  These are them. And once again, not to bum you out if you are just still sitting restlessly and noting restless, but this is the 'beginning of Vipassana meditation.' 

Ice Ice Baby

On Page One Fifty, Sayadaw moves back to seeing 'Ultimate Materiality', beginning with 'seeing the body-transparent element as one block.'  To do so, notice the different kinds of light you see as you meditate on the four elements. This seeing the body as a block of ice or glass is due to not yet seeing through the three kinds of compactness.

Becoming Cool

On Page One Forty Nine, Sayadaw takes 'Ten Ways to Develop Your Concentration" from the Visuddhimagga. They are:

1. Study the elements in sequence; Earth, water, fire then wind. 
2. Don't go too fast, you'll miss something. 
3. Don't go too slow, you'll not reach the end. 
4. Ward off distractions.
5. Go beyond concepts; I love this about meditation, for me it actually makes it easier, to get 'below' or 'let go' of concepts and just be with the object. 
6. Discard what is unclear.
7. Discern the characteristics clearly (and that takes time and effort)
8. Develop your concentration in line with the Higher Mind Sutra
9. Develop your concentration in line with the Becoming Cool Sutra
10. Develop your concentration in line with the Enlightenment Factors Sutra.

The last three are about balancing the five faculties and the seven factors of enlightenment (previously discussed). 

All the Elements

On Page One Forty Eight, Sayadaw suggests some concentration on the opposites of the elements if in this meditation they become unbalanced, the opposites are hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, heaviness and lightness, flowing and cohesion, heat and cold, support and pushing.

Balancing the elements helps with a major goal beyond seeing and knowing the elements, which is to attain better concentration.
Following their being quite balanced, the yogi should see the elements in the body by 'group at a glance', and finally as a whole, possibly from the vantage point of looking down on the whole body at once.

But the Last Two

On Page One Forty seven, Sayadaw notes that the first ten elements can be discerned directly through the sense of touch, but flowing and cohesion can only be inferred from them.

For cohesion, note how the body is held together by the skin, flesh and sinews.  For flowing, be aware of saliva, blood, air or heat.

Body Stuff

and on Page One Forty six,

Supporting, relax your body, bend it forward and straighten it.  What keeps the body straight is the supporting force.  Add noticing it with hardness to make it more obvious.

Softness, press your tongue against your lip. Then relax your body and practice throughout.

Smoothness, wet your lips and run your tongue along them (man you can do a lot with your mouth).

Lightness, wag a finger up and down and feel the lightness.   Look for heaviness in the body and contrast, if this is hard to do.

Heat, look for warmth throughout the body.

Coldness, note coldness as air enters the nostrils.

Hard, Rough, Heavy

On Page One Forty five, we have the second characteristic, hardness, beginning with noticing the teeth by biting them together, and then slowly throughout the body, and alternating between pushing and hardness.

Then looking for roughness, running the tongue over the teeth, brush the hand over the skin, also noticing the above two 'with the others' .

Finally on this page, noticing heaviness, placing one hand on top of the other, or leaning the head forward.

Air

On Page One forty four, we have pushing.

To note pushing, be aware of pushing in the center of your head when you breathe in and out.  Keep doing it and you will then note it throughout your body.

The Characteristics

On Page One Forty four, Sayadaw lays out a few more characteristics of the four elements (12 total):

Earth: hardness, roughness, heaviness, softness, smoothness, lightness.
Water: flowing and cohesion
Fire: heat and coldness
Wind: supporting and pushing.

Also he says they are taught in this order (of easiest to most difficult to discern):

pushing, hardness, roughness, heaviness, supporting, softness, smoothness, lightness, coldness, cohesion, flowing; each discerned in one place in the body and then throughout.

Elements I

Sayadaw begins now on page One Forty two to discuss the four elements proper. He refers to the Satipattana Sutra by noting that the Buddha said; A bhikku reviews this very body, however it be positioned or placed, as consisting of just elements, thus there are in this body just
1) the earth element,
2) the water element,
3) the fire element,
4) the wind element.

And from the Visudhimagga, specific characteristics of each element;

1) Hardness or roughness of earth,
2) Flowing or cohesion of water,
3) Maturing or heat of fire,
4) Pushing or supporting of wind.

Lets do this!  (I'm gonna guess that an inspirational thought has fire in it)

Square One

No surprise, Sayadaw 'goes back' on page One Forty two to 'The beginning of Vipassana'...... meaning that four-elements meditation is so essential to understanding reality that along with concentration on an object, it is primary and indispensable. 

Nutriment II

Continuing nutriment on the next page, Sayadaw notes that there is also 'divine nutriment' which can last for months.  In addition, there is fire element throughout the body which digests, such as when a healing oil is applied to the skin it moves throughout the body.

Throughout the exposition of the origins of materiality in the last few pages, he uses the term 'nothing more' to emphasize the importance of deconstructing samsara.

Nutriment I

On Page One Forty, 'Nutriment-Produced Materiality' is introduced.   For example, the food we consume is nutriment to us.   This nutriment meets with the fire-element of our digestive system, and produces 'many generations' of nutritive-essence kalapas, and depending on the quality of the food, can keep producing for like a week.

Fire on the Mountain

On page one thirty-nine, Sayadaw moves on to 'Temperature-Produced Materiality'.  inanimate kalapas which are produced by fire, such as plants, which have a fire-element in the seed, are given heat by the sun, and of course, water.   Interestingly, rocks and minerals have more fire-element, as evidenced by their ability to stay around for a long time.

Great Skin

On Page One Thirty eight, its consciousness-produced materiality, for example, anger produces a fire-element.  Another example is that when walking, legs go up and down due to intention, and that is done via the wind element.

and OMG this is cool; he says that WHY WE FEEL GOOD in samatha is because in meditation, we produce very soft and subtle earth, wind and fire elements with no heaviness (earth element).  Also, you can get good skin because of the nice color radiance element produced.

How Long is it

More on Karma materiality on Page One Thirty seven;

that each consciousness moment has three stages, arising, standing and passing away. At each stage, new karma-produced Rk's are formed.  During one thought process, 51 (17 X 3) Rk's are made.  That's 17 for each of the three stages.   I think here he is referring to the Abhidhamma, which states that an Rk is 17 times longer than a given consciousness moment.  Here is a cool study link:


The Life-time of Rupa
"The life-time of rupa or corporeality is 17 times longer than that of citta. So we can say that the life-time of rupa is equal to 17 cittakkhanas or 17 conscious moments or 17 x 3 = 51 short instants as there are 3 short instants and there are 3 short instants in a moment of consciousness.
"Thus rupa also arises and dissolves at a tremendous rate of more than 58 billion times per second. The difference between citta and rupa is that citta arises one after another whereas rupa arises by thousands of units at a small instant and it goes on arising incessantly at every small instant. Therefore rupa may be piled up to large masses which are visible to the naked eye whereas the fleeting stream of consciousness is invisible to the naked eye.
Anuruddha (2002) in the Summary of the Topics of Abhidhamma and Exposition of the Topics of Abhidhamma explains that:
"In the summary of process, six sets of six should be understood: six bases, six doors, six objects, six consciousnesses, six processes, six kinds of presentation of objects.
The six consciousnesses are eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness.
The six kinds of presentation of object should be understood as the very great, the great, the slight, and the very slight at the five doors, and the clear and unclear at the mind-door.
With regard to very great and so on, [the presentation of an object] that comes into range after one consciousness-moment has passed and lasts for sixteen consciousness-moments is called very great; that which does so after two or three consciousness-moments have passed and lasts for fifteen or fourteen consciousness-moments is called great; that which does so after from four to nine consciousness-moments have passed and lasts from thirteen to eight consciousness-moments is called slight; that which does so after from ten to fifteen consciousness-moments have passed and lasts from seven to two consciousness-moments is called very slight.

Sweet Again

AND SO
on Page One Hundred Thirty six, Sayadaw explores the first origin, Karma produced materiality.  He explains that they are those which have the life-faculty and demonstrate the second noble truth of the origin of suffering; the rebirth of anything which attached to the pleasurable.

Origins

On Page One Thirty five, 'Materiality's Four Origins' are delineated:

1) Produced by Karma
2) Produced by Consciousness
3) Produced by Temperature
4) Produced by Nutriment
5) Produced by Rick Rubin

Typing

On page One Thirty four, in review, there are three types of teenie tinies (Rupa-kalapas)

1)  Those made of 8 elements
2)  Those made of 8 elements plus the life force
3)  Those made of #2 plus a tenth

On this page, Sayadaw breaks down a few types of 'Rk's of type #3:

a: Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body ones with the tenth being body-transparent element,
b: Heart ones, with the tenth being an opaque element, also the sense base;  like so: an object strikes upon a sense door and the mind door at the same time, as in a color object is known by mind consciousness, then eye consciousness, then further mind consciousness.   Also there are some objects that strike the mind only (all other objects in the world apart from the five types of color, sound, smell, taste, touch dhammas; which are: the sense doors, subtle materiality, consciousness, mental factors, nirvana and 'the infinite number of concepts')
c: Male/female Rk's..... the male one found only in males, the female only in females.


Here is an interesting book; has a lot of those Thai 'ball of light' things;
http://www.dhammacenter.org/resource/media/E-Books/5_techniques/five_med_techniques.pdf

With Life and Heart

On Page One Thirty three:

The elements (of the 8,9,and 10 element rupa-kalapas) are:

Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Color, Odor, Flavor and Nutritive Essence:  This type is found throughout the body and are opaque and without life.

With the above and the life essence is the second type (9), and are thus animate

The third type (10), has the above plus the heart element.

teenie tiny

On page One Thirty two, Sayadaw further explains materiality meditation.   He says:

1. The mind-base is located in the blood in the heart (!)
2. To know materiality, one must penetrate to the rupa-kalapas (sub-atomic particles), yet
3. Ultimate reality is the materiality within the rupa-kalapas, which are:        
       A) Octad-kalapas (with eight elements)
       B) Nonad-kalapas (with nine)
       C) Decad-kalapas (guess how many)

More info to follow

The Light

On Page One Thirty one, Sayadaw reintroduces materiality.  It is the first of five aggregates of clinging and the other four constitute mentality. Mentality depends on materiality, you gotta have a body, an eye etc.

I almost get it, but its not all mental.  It's an outrage to consider that one can experience an awareness of this connection, deeply, and therefore its insubstantiality.   Thus seen, there is room for the light of reality, bright and awake.

Blank

Page One Hundred and Thirty is blank.

Supraman

On Page One Hundred and Twenty nine, the question is  What is the difference between the mundane and supramundane jhanas?   C'mon, I know that, why its the supraness.  Or lack of it...

Anyhow, Sayadaw says that the supra part is when you discern the mental formations as impermanence, suffering and nonself.

Running on Empty

On Page One Hundred and Twenty seven, question #1 is  Before we attain the fourth jhana, many unwholesome thoughts still arise such as greed and hatred.  Should we try to remove them or concentrate on our meditation subject?

Answer: Ignorance and unwise attention are the (latent and proximate) causes.  It is best to use the wise attention of Vipassana.


Question #2 is  How does the bhavanga function in various realms?

Answer: There is bhavanga in most realms to maintain the life-function because the karma has not yet been exhausted.  He notes that bhavanga in higher realms is only of that or the preceding realm, for instance in boundless space, the object of boundless space; in the base of nothingness, the base of boundless space consciousness and its absence.

But in the supramundane realms, there is no place, and no bhavanga, there is no mentality for any bhavanga to maintain.

Fire Pills

The next question is When one is sick, can one practice four elements meditation to cure the sickness (to put them back in balance...)?

Sayadaw says (and I love his answer), in short, some yes, some no.. If there are some unbalanced elements that are the cause, then yes, some elements can be balanced and the sickness will go away. As for those sicknesses that arise because of the fire-element (cancer, malaria, etc), they can only be cured by taking medicine.

It's Rough

On Page One Hundred Twenty five,  the question is:   Is it necessary when discerning the 12 characteristics in four-element meditation to start with hardness, roughness and heaviness in that sequence?   Sayadaw replies to start with any characteristic easy to discern.  When we can discern them well, then do the sequence of earth first, then water, then fire, then wind.  Later we will discern them simultaneously in a billionth of a second.