Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c16.s2.7

c16.s2.7

Mindfulness (*sati*) appears definitely here in one place as equivalent to memory, and the grounds of it are given as sixteen,² in a manner which exhibits no trace of any serious investigation. They are (1) extraordinary effort, as when former births are called to mind; (2) outward aid, that is, being reminded by others; (3) impression caused by importance of the occasion or pleasure; (4) impression made by pain; (5) similarity of appearance; (6) difference of appearance; (7) knowledge of speech which produces memory on being reminded by others; (8) a sign, e.g. a mark on a bullock; (9) effort to recollect on the prompting of others; (10) calculation, as in the knowledge acquired in writing that such and such a letter follows another; (11) arithmetic, as when accountants do big sums by their knowledge of figures; (12) learning by heart, as in the case of reciters of the scriptures; (13) meditation, as when a monk recollects a temporary earlier experience; (14) reference to a book, as to a law; (15) a pledge, as when a man recollects from seeing pledged goods the occasion; and (16) actual experience, as when one remembers what one has seen, heard, tasted, &c. There is, it is clear, practically no appreciation whatever of the nature of the problem.