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COMPONENTS

S T U P A   C O M P O N E N T S


The Four Right Efforts: Avoiding and overcoming unwholesome mind states. Developing and maintaining wholesome mind states.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: Practising mindfulness and being aware of ones ‘body, feelings, mind states and dhammas’.

The Four Roads to Power: This is the development of the concentration of intention, energy, consciousness and investigation.

The Four Noble Truths from the Buddha’s first discourse are the foundation of all his later teachings. It is fitting that they can be associated with the foundation of the stupa.

A TIERED TEACHING

Because of the early, oral system of circulating the Buddha’s teaching the resulting written scriptures can be seen making much use of lists and numerical groupings as an aid to memory. The number four occurs often and each four-sided tier of a stupa can be contemplated as representing any one of the teachings below.


4 NOBLE TRUTHS

The last of the Four Noble Truths is ‘The Eightfold Path’, the actual means, which when cultivated leads to a full realisation of all four truths, and thus enlightenment. For this reason the base is sometimes eight-sided. The Eightfold Path is often summarised as Sila, Samadhi, Pañña (morality, concentration wisdom). See page 23.


As both construction technology and the importance of the stupa as a religious form developed, the single square base multiplied and the mound was raised even higher on several tiers. The stupa above, found in Pagan, Burma, is a good example of this.

SUMMARY:
CUBE
A cube is the basic three dimensional form.

EARTH
The earth is the foun-dation of all that is human.

SANGHA
The Sangha are the monks and nuns whose lives are based on the practice of sila. They are the primary vehicle of the teaching. Human beings are bodies of the earth.

SILA
Sila is morality. The Buddha said that living a moral life is the main foundation of happiness in the world. Without basic morality it is not possible to find peace in this life, your mind and heart can never be truly calm. Establishing a degree of calmness in your life is the beginning, the foundation of enlightenment.