Will asks, is clear comprehension the same as direct understanding?
How do they relate to mindfulness?
These are just words.
It's very difficult to give an answer.
But if I translate these directly, then clear comprehension is often used as a translation of sampajjanya.
But sampajanya doesn't exactly mean clear comprehension.
Sam means full, complete or right.
And pajanya, pa means full, or it also means full.
And janya means knowledge.
So sampajanya means full and right knowledge.
Direct understanding could be a translation of yathā-bhūta-jñāna-dasana, which means knowledge and vision of things as they are.
It could also be a translation of patjānāti, which means full understanding or full knowledge.
But yeah, direct understanding could be a translation of sat-cik,
karana, the seeing something for yourself, or so on.
Both of those first two are, I would say, synonyms for wisdom, synonyms for knowledge of things as they are.
and so are proper to be said as being the same.
So, I mean, it's hard when you're using English words.
What does the word comprehension mean?
It does mean very much understanding, and I don't think that there's much difference that can be gained, unless you talk about the four types of sampajanya, and then you say that sampajanya has a specific meaning.
There's gochara sampajanya and so on.
I can't remember them all.
Asamoha sampajanya is the one that relates to mindfulness.
Then you have the word mindfulness, which is actually a difficult word.
And mindfulness is actually probably a fairly good translation of sampajanya as well, even though we use it as a translation for sati.
Because sampajanya again is full, this idea of being full, having a full awareness or knowledge, or knowledge of something fully and rightly.
But how they relate to sati, they are very often conjoined in the Buddha's teaching.
The Buddha will often talk about sati sampajanya as being connected.
But sati is like the taking hold.
Sampajanya is like the cutting, or the cutting away of when you grab hold of rice and you cut with a knife, you grab hold of it and then you cut.
So they perform a different function.
The mindfulness or the sati is the recognition of the object, the act of cognizing the object rightly.
And the sampajanya is what results, which is the right comprehension.
So sati is the action that you perform, sampajanya is the result, the wisdom that results, or that should result, but they have to work together.
And you can't just use the noting, for example, and not really know what's going on, but you can't just know what's going on without having a firm grasp of it, or else it will give rise to diversification.
So if you're talking about sati and sampajanya, this is their relationship.
Sati is the grasping so that the mind doesn't waver from the knowing, and sampajanya is that knowing itself, and you need both of them.
Without the knowing, it's just grasping, and with just concentration, saying to yourself, pain, pain, pain, for example, without really focusing on the pain or knowing it.
And just knowing the pain without grasping it, just having the knowing without grasping,
a firm and stable grasp of it.
So without using the noting, it's too easy to give rise to other thoughts rather than just the thought of this as being pain.
It's too easy to give rise to the thought of this is me, this is mine, even not to the thought, but the perception still has room to grow without the sati.
So it requires both of these.